Reality check

We've been here in Zihuatanejo for two weeks now-- enough time for the lustre to wear off so we can see it without the pink lenses we wore when we first came.  When I first arrived I was ecstatic to be here in such a soft and pretty place with gorgeous beaches and friendly people and lots of easy-going gringos. It still has all of these attributes but I'm seeing things differently now.  After visiting four or five beautiful beaches, all different, we went today back to Playa Ropa to escape the brutally humid heat in our little abode downtown. But all I could see was the Mexican people struggling to make a living from the frugal tourists who come down here to make their dollar stretch.

We took a combi to Playa Ropa, the lovely beach about a 20 minute drive from downtown. The cost for two of us was 15 pesos--about a dollar Canadian. Gas here costs about the same as it does in Canada so who knows how they can make any money transporting 16 people for that price.

Once at the beach we settled in to our table under the palapa where we ordered one mineral water and one Yoli (the lemon pop that we've discovered), plus two glasses of ice. Purified ice costs money so it's not free like it is in Canada. For this we paid 40 pesos, about $3, and that purchase entitled us to sit in the chairs on the beach as long as we wanted, all day even.

We sat there enjoying the delicious breeze and watching the fishermen and the birds diving for their breakfast. The fishermen were using nets to catch fish, maybe for bait, and the Pelicans and Frigate Birds and Egrets and gulls were wheeling and diving too. I think the birds were doing better than the guys in the boats. While we sat there, beach life unfolded around us. The waiters brought menus and food and the fat tourists lolled in their beach chairs and dipped their toes in the warm water.

Meanwhile the Indigenous people who live here trolled the beach with their trinkets, their blankets, their baskets, trailing their children behind them. These women, many of whom have two or three children with another on the way are trying to survive by selling chiclets and trinkets to people from another culture that's much more sophisticated.







Then there are the guys with the parasails selling a ride, and the musicians who will sing you a song you don't know anything about for a price.

We enjoy the beach but at what cost? Gradually we are feeling more and more compromised as tourists from Canada.

This culture is so very different. We see people from Canada and the USA working to build schools for the people who live here, yet many of the women keep their children out of school so they can earn money by selling things at the beach.

Many of the waiters are pleasant young men who have finished school but appear to have no prospects other than working as a waiter in a beach restaurant.

And don't get me started on the stray dogs and cats. They are friendly but skittish as they are chased away from restaurants on the beach where they beg for food. There is an organization here that works to spay and neuter but most of these animals will never be anyone's pet.

Meanwhile in an upscale coffee shop this morning we saw a young woman and her family celebrating a birthday in style, complete with unicorn balloons and gifts. She was having a wonderful time but I can't help thinking of the hundreds of people living in this town who would never be able to set foot inside this place.

These are the people who buy tortillas and vegetables for pennies and try to feed their family.

Mexico shows the divide between rich and poor so sharply. We've been coming here and enjoying the natural beauty and the art and the music and the culture, but now I am feeling complicit in the stratification of the people and it's not a nice feeling.

Maybe I'm just feeling this dichotomy because we are living in a rental in the Mexican part of town rather than in an upscale beach condo. But I am beginning to feel so sad about the day-to-day life of the Mexican people who live here. And I wonder if it might be better to pay a bit more and take a trip somewhere else where we are not enjoying luxuries on the backs of really poor people. What do you think about this?

Zihua's markets

In spite of its tourists, Zihuatanejo is a quintessentially Mexican town and a great deal of the central area is dominated by markets, some in little storefronts, some on the sidewalk, and some within the large central Mercado Municipal. The first time we encountered these markets we were pretty overwhelmed with all the choices and the language barrier. But now that we have a few trips to Mexico under our belt we can able to breeze through and select some fruit and vegetables and ask questions about prospective purchases.



Our hostess Sandy tells us that some of the most expensive prices are at the stalls inside the covered market so we've been concentrating on the storefronts and the wall markets.The other day we purchased fruit, lettuce, beets and radishes, avocado as well as eggs to make a substantial salad for dinner. 








There are so many choices of stalls that it can be confusing but now we're able to cruise in and take a look around before we decide to engage with the cashier.

As far as we can tell there is no bargaining happening in the larger establishments. They weigh the produce and the scale shows the price, which they write down on a piece of paper that you take to the cash register. Maybe at some of the sidewalk tables you can bargain, but we feel that the stated prices are so reasonable by Victoria standards that we are more than willing to pay them.

Here are a couple of little storefronts, one selling flowers and the other kitchen implements. The black stone things you see are mortars and pestles made of lava rock for grinding and for making salsa. And one store was selling religious dolls, not something on my shopping list but interesting to see.

There's another type of market here that is set up in the main square for only a few days. These women come from the mountains with their beautiful handicrafts that they sell for a fraction of what they cost in storefronts. They were kind enough to let me take their photograph. 

 We are planning a little trip up into the mountains in a few days. One place we'll be visiting is Patzcuaro, a handicraft centre about five hours by bus from here.

Sunset over Playa Madera

The last night Jan was here we headed over to Playa Madera to swim in the ocean as the sun set. And what a spectacular sunset it was.  Just scroll down to see it unfold.

Anna from Chicago

I just love the way you can meet people when you're travelling; people who you might never otherwise stop and talk to. Yesterday my sister and I met Anna from Chicago at a little beachfront restaurant where we had stopped for a drink, enticed by the sound of the Mariachi band that was playing.

This band was playing for a whole table full of North Americans and we sat down to listen to their excellent Mexican music. Mariachis are an honourable group in Mexico. You don't often encounter them like we did as they are usually hired by private groups for a party or a gathering. Occsionally they'll be playing in a big restaurant taking requests from customers who then put money in for the musicians.


In this case we asked the waiter where we could contribute and he told us that they were hired by the group at the table.  Just then Anna walked by and asked if she could join Jan and me at our table. She told us that it is rare to hear them in such an intimate locale. Of course we welcomed her and had a lovely conversation about her life.  Anna appears to be in her late eighties or maybe her nineties. She was bright as a button and we had a great time chatting and listening to the music. Anna lost her husband about a year and a half ago but they have been travelling in Mexico for more than 30 years. He was an amateur archeologist and climbed just about every pyramid in the country. She honoured their times in Mexico at his funeral service in Chicago by hiring a Mariachi band.

Now Anna comes by herself and stays for a couple of months in a simple casita near the beach. She invited us to stop by and visit her and Harry and I will do that for sure.

After the mariachis were finished their gig Anna headed over to talk to them and thank them for their music. Isn't this the cutest photo ever!

The serendipity of meeting people while living temporarily in foreign countries is so very wonderful. How else would we have met Anna from Chicago?


Today we sent Jan off on the plane back to Victoria after a lovely week exploring the beaches on offer. It was a nice break for her from the rain and chill of Victoria.

Another day, another beach

The beach of the day yesterday was Playa las Gatas, which we took a little water taxi from the municipal pier at Zihua to get to.


It's the best beach we've been to so far because it's a shallow bay behind a little reef and protected from the open waves so the water is sparkling clear. There were people out there snorkelling but we decided to save that for another day.  We spent the day alternately resting in the shade, eating fresh shrimp and drinking margaritas, and lolling around in the heavenly warm water.





The palapa restaurants let you put the chairs into the water. We sat in the chairs for awhile and let the waves cool our feet.









But these ladies had the whole table in the water and I asked to take their photo because I thought it looked like something from an Italian movie.

It was a heavenly day. And we weren't even hot until the walk home.

Hace mucho calor

In case you don't know, the title of this post translates as "It's very hot" and it certainly applies today in Zihuatanejo.  We are melting from the heat, but more so from the humidity. Although the temperature is 29 degrees Celsius, the weather app says it feels like 40. And it does!

This makes it hard to do much of anything in the middle of the day. Except for lying in the bedroom with the air conditioner turned on. At least we have an air conditioner. I don't know how we would sleep at night without it. Zihua, it turns out, is a little too hot for us.

I chose this place because I wanted to be able to swim in warm ocean water--and that is certainly the case. Yesterday we spent the day at Playa las Ropas, known as one of the ten best beaches in the world. And it is a lovely spot, serene and soft with a beautiful hard packed golden sand that slopes gradually into the gentle waves. This is what it looked like. And we had a lovely day.

We went to a restaurant called El Manglar (the manta ray) where there were crocodiles and banyan trees, very jungle-y.























The lunch was great, as you can see by our happy smiles.













Then we toured a condo development that's being rebuilt for sale. We fantasized how lovely it would be to stay in a place like this with a big patio overlooking the beach.




But today we stayed in town in our basic little accommodation and did some shopping and errands in the blazing sun. Without the breezes from the beach it's close to unbearable for us.

That's why most of these posts will be about beach days. Another one is coming up tomorrow. We plan to take a boat out to Playa las Gatas where we can snorkel.  Don't envy us too much. We envy you the coolness at night that allows you to sleep.

Welcoming my sister

Jan arrived on the plane Friday afternoon to spend a week with us here. She was pretty happy to get away from Victoria's cold and windy weather, just as we were.  Like me, she's a beach girl so the first thing we did was head down to the beach and stick our feet in the water.  Then we took a walk along the shore and scoped out restaurants for dinner. The walkway is just behind where the fishermen come in with their catch in the morning.

We saw this guy unloading some rather large fish onto a tarp. Not sure if they were for sale to passers-by or not.  We are planning to learn more about the fish here and how to cook them. It seems that it's a very fishy town.































There are lots of restaurants featuring fish and shrimp and finally chose one where we could dine at a table on the sand.  Here are Harry and Jan looking happy as they peruse the menu.

At the far end of the Municipal beach walk is a little bridge across a canal and then a walkway around a cliff that leads to Playa Madera, a nice beach for swimming.

We scouted it out yesterday and went back this morning for a beach day, which we spent under a palapa where we sat at a table for lunch and drinks while taking dips in the balmy water. It's a lot warmer than the beaches in Mazatlan, which kind of makes up for the fact that it's pretty hot and muggy here. Playa Madera is lovely with a shallow hard bottom and gentle waves. Perfect for swimming. 

Behind Playa Madera there are houses, hotels and bungalows built up the hill. If we come down here again we're thinking it would be nice to find accommodation in one of these places with a balcony to catch the breeze and steps down to the beach.  Oh yeah!

Zihuatanejo's municipal market and municipal beach

We finally arrived and met our AirBnB hostess Sandy, who came out to the airport to pick us up. It's been 30 years since we were here so things look more than a bit different. But the town has the same laid-back ambience that we remember. We are staying in an apartment that's part of a family grouping of apartments around a common courtyard.  It's nothing fancy but it's roomy and clean and central. And Sandy and Vidal are so helpful and friendly that we are already feeling right at home.

Our trip ended up taking about 24 hours more than we thought it would, and it was exhausting and frustrating--but that's all behind us now. And at the airport in Mexico City we met someone else from Victoria who experienced the same delays and we'll be seeing her again. Julie is an interesting and cheerful woman who has been coming here for years and knows a lot about the town. As the guard in the Vancouver airport told us: out of a bad situation something good always comes.

Today we're settling in, finding the food market and the grocery store and getting our place organized. There are so many restaurants here that we probably won't be doing that much cooking though. But the kitchen here is pretty well supplied so we can if we like. So far we've purchased some fruit and yogourt for smoothies in the morning. Here's where we bought it. This is a stall in the Mercado Municipal, a series of buildings full of stalls of all kinds, including fresh-caught fish and shrimp, which we will for sure be trying.

The people in this town are super friendly and happy to deal with tourists from the north.  It's going to be a great place for food shopping. On second thought, maybe we will be doing a bit of cooking. Take a look at those tomatoes!

The town is so pretty and friendly but it is also a real Mexican town, rather than a hotel destination like its sister Ixtapa. We're really liking it here already.











Once we got oriented we found our way to the municipal beach this morning. It's an easy walk from our place and is where the fishermen come in with their boats.

Sandy tells us it's not the best place to swim as there is some pollution, however there is a pedestrian walkway along the top of the beach with a couple of nice beachfront restaurants.  For for me the surprise was a flock of egrets fishing in the waves. They were catching fish for their breakfast too, so I guess it can't be that polluted.

Farther down the beach you cross a little bridge to another beach where people go to swim. This one is called Playa de Madera (Beach of Wood) and that may be where we'll head tomorrow. It gets pretty warm here in the afternoon and I'm looking forward to a little ocean swimming.