People from Morelia typically snub Zihuatanejo, and no one had ever introduced Olivia to the town. We had even been to Ixtapa and Playa Larga together in the past, travelling with friends, but hardly anyone I know from Morelia will go beyond the Commercial Mexicana, let alone admit to it once arriving back to Morelia (Barra de Potosi, Playa Larga, Troncones are acceptable, however). It was so bad that I even heard Morelians saying that the beaches of Zihuatanejo, including Playa Las Gatas specifically, were ugly, on my last trip to the area with friends. As this was a good-bye trip, I wanted to get to as many places as possible and show them to Olivia.

After relaxing at the main plaza for a little while, we went looking for a hotel. We asked for prices and availability at Hotel Avila, Hotel Susy, Hotel Citlali, and a couple more on the main road by the plaza and downtown. Prices started at $400 pesos / night. I personally did not want to pay this premium for being close to the Playa Principal, and we went to my trusty, not-well-known backup, Hotel Casa Miriam. Olivia did not mind staying in this $100 pesos / per person / per night hotel. I had no intention of hanging out at the hotel beyond sleeping, changing and showering, and Olivia knew this.

We checked in, cleaned up, and went looking for a nice restaurant for dinner. We ended up deciding upon Pacollo's restaurant, for the nice ambience and live music. It was full of white Americans and Canadians, and I believe Olivia was the only Mexican in the place except for our server. I had the lasagna bologne, Olivia the carne arrachera, and we shared a pitcher of Jamaica water. The food was good. It was quite odd seeing all these goofy gringos dancing around after having spent 12 hours driving through the middle of nowhere earlier that day, and suddenly arriving at this town full of gringos.

In the morning, we woke up relatively early, went to the basketball court, and looked for a nice place to eat breakfast. We decided upon a nice restaurant a few locales down from Rob's. I had a mushroom/cheese Omelette with juice, and it was quite decent. From there, we walked along the paseo de pescadores, across Playa Madera, down beside La Casa Que Canta, and all along Playa La Ropa. At the end, I asked Olivia: "We can continue to Las Gatas, or we can hike for 1 hour to a special beach called Playa Manzanillo". We decided upon Playa Manzanillo. We stocked up on refreshments at the little store near facing the parking area, and hiked over to Playa Manzanillo. Things were different from what I remember, thanks to the bulldozers, and it was a bit easier than I expected this time. That whole hill behind La Ropa / Las Gatas is going to be destroyed before we know it.

Someone had been burning the bushes on the last stretch down to the beach.

There was a gringo couple snorkling with the first boat, and a young Mexican family playing on the beach with the second. A yacht also came with snorkelers. Eventually they all left, and we got the beach to ourselves for a couple of hours which is what I had really been hoping for when I told her about this special place, and as we were hiking over the hill in the hot sun.

Arriving back at the road, we took a taxi in to town. Just in time for Cultural Sunday festivities.

The only sure, planned thing about this trip was that I was going to be there for Domingos Culturales. Having lived in Zihuatanejo for 8 months, I have been to this a zillion times. I wanted to go one last time for old times sake. I explained to Olivia that the primary attraction is the cute local girls who get all dressed up to go to the Zocalo on Sunday night. Girls in Morelia have a hard time wearing skirts and shorts due to the cat calling of the men, so it is quite a novelty to see it in Zihuatanejo. I had a hamburger and Olivia a hot dog from the cart across the street, which were decent. We later got three "orders" of tacos in the plaza, and most of them ended up being fed to a hungry street dog.

By the next morning, we were ready for a relaxing day. We didn't get up and out of the hotel until 11am. We tried to have breakfast at Daniel's, at 12:05pm, but he wouldn't serve us from the breakfast menu. I had hoped to start with an omelette and finish with the spaguetti, since I was really hungry. But since they wouldn't make the omelette, I only had the spaguetti. It's not like they are Mc Donalds, I don't understand why they couldn't make some eggs at 12:05pm. Otherwise, the food was alright. More importantly I loved to sit right there beside the old tree and look out at the bay while having breakfast.

After lunch, we went and had a good visit with Rob & Lupita. After our visit, we went over to Playa Linda. I had hoped to see the animals at the reserve. We saw some crocodiles, albeit mostly submerged, and an iguana or two. We went to the end at the beach, hoping to see some crocodiles out of the water, laying in the grass or sand. Unfortunately, we never got to see this as I have seen in the past. The Canadians sitting out front of their RV told us they had not seen any crocodiles out of the water down there, though we briefly saw one swimming around outside of his fenced area.

The ratio of Canadian to non-Canadian plates at Playa Linda was astounding, with plates from all over Canada including Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec and perhaps others (including my Ont. plated bike, of course).

We went for a quick swim, and took the old Majahua road back to Zihuatanejo. We showered and changed at the hotel, and went to meet Rob & Lupita again. We went to Ixtapa, and met his mother Judith. After saying good-bye to Rob around 12:00am, we wandered around for a bit looking for somewhere to eat, and ended up just eating burgers again across from the plaza (couldn't find this taco place Los Braceros).

The next morning, we wandered around downtown again, looking for somewhere to eat. We decided upon the torta place across from Rick's bar. We each had a torta and a licuado, which were decent and inexpensive. A goofy gringo went in to buy a Pepsi, and pretty much held out a huge wad of American bills and change, including at least one twenty, to pay for his drink. The employee seemed to be used to this, and only took the rough equivalent of 7 pesos or whatever it was he was supposed to pay. There seemed to be an interesting mix of people across the walkway at Rick's. I couldn't help myself from eavesedroping on their conversation when I saw the one woman with a book about a New Zealand city, and the other saying she was from Europe, and so on.

After breakfast, we went to the main beach in Ixtapa for a couple of hours, before heading home.

Public services in Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo seem to be lacking, and the showers at the public access were not open. So I quickly changed into my riding clothes out in the open in the parking lot, and we were on our way. We returned via the new toll highway back to Morelia, one hour of which left me even more sore and exhausted than the 9 hours on the way down on the free road through the sierra. There is too much wind on that road around the Presa Infiernillo area, combined with the high speed highway driving, it's too much for two people up on the Honda XR650L. But driving through the sierra sure was a lot of fun.

Coming from Morelia, Zihuatanejo seems to be a little uncared for these days. Perhaps it always has. I notice a marked difference between the cities and towns in the two states. Presumably, Michoacan is also one of the poorer states in the republic, but somehow the cities seem much more cared for and the service a bit better over in the Morelia/Patzcuaro area. Beyond the beautiful bay, it can be hard for me to understand what it is that attracts so many gringos to Zihuatanejo when there are also many other beautfiul cities in Mexico. I believe that whatever charm it is that sets Zihuatanejo apart from the other cities is soon disappearing. I believe I saw more gringos running around Zihuatanejo on this trip than I had ever seen before. This, in and of itself, is not a problem. However, I was highly disappointed to see, for example, a total of about 2 or 3 families swimming at the Casa Que Canta end of Playa La Ropa on a Sunday afternoon. In the past, at least during the short time that I lived there, this part of the beach was full of local families on Sunday afternoons and there was even some shady areas for them. This is no longer the case, and instead there is a big new monstrosity built by some Canadians down at that end of the beach. Playa La Ropa seemed much less appealing to me on this trip than it did in the past. We were able to escape all that and go to our own special beach, but how much longer will this be possible considering they've now bulldozed a road you could practically drive a car on over to this other beach?

Personally, I like it when they build a park, picnic areas, perhaps barbecues, playgrounds, a skatepark or a washroom, and a board walk, and put all of the stinking hotels and condos on the other side of the road or boardwalk without them having exclusive beachfront access. I've never seen that anywhere in Mexico, however.