We originally intended to book the "party plane" to Ziahuatanejo and then take the bus to Guadalajara. We've always trusted our guide books as they've always been reliable in the past. The books all say that the luxury or "luxo" bus take 7-8 hours to get to Manzanillo, where we could catch the three-hour bus to Guadalajara. Wrong!! When we arrive at the main bus depot, we are informed that it is a 10 to 12 hour ride -- but that's getting ahead of the story.

Our next surprise is the airport in Mexico. It is a single landing strip in the middle of a coconut plantation. Planes arrive --obviously -- one at a time. Once off you're offered free soft drinks during the lengthy immigration process. After being allowed into the country, we now have to wait for our luggage -- and wait. Finally, customs. You push a button on a traffic semaphore. Green means go and red means a thorough search of everything you brought with you. We luck out -- a green light -- for the first time ever.

After we get our luggage we go to the gentleman selling combi tickets into town and are informed that the combis have already left and instead of the $7.50 combi ticket, we will have to buy the more expensive $20.00 private taxi ticket to town. Dick tells him we will take the combi ticket and wait until it fills. The young man informs us another plane will be arriving "shortly." We think this strange as our plane still had passengers going through the search process that we missed. Sure enough, there is an almost full combi just waiting for us outside.

One of our guide books mentioned the hotel, Raul Tres Marias, so I tell the driver to take us there. There are two other couples and a single gentleman in the van with us. The driver takes the two couples to their dive resort on Playa La Ropa first. He gets totally lost, so we all get to see quite a bit of the countryside on our journey. Finally, on to the Three Marias (this is what everyone calls this hotel.)

The single guy has stayed here before and tells us that he hopes they have his reservation as it is a very popular hotel. I get a little paranoid as we, as usual, have no reservation! We have never pre-booked a hotel in Mexico. At the Three Marias, the desk clerk does indeed have a room. Now its our turn -- Spanish only spoken here and we get a very nice room! Our guide book is off in prices mentioned more than slightly -- we paid $20.00 US for the room -- the book quoted a much lower price, and as it turned out for a different hotel!
The Tres Marias we find is in Colonia Noria, also known as the fishermen's district. Our Three Marias is very clean -- but very basic.

A single room with a double bed, a large single bed, a fan, table, a sort of cupboard area for our clothes and a bathroom with stool, sink, cold water shower and two high-wattage bare light bulbs. We also have a huge veranda, shared with all of the other rooms on our floor the beautiful bay to the right.
As our new friend is booking a room I look around and notice a very rickety looking foot bridge crossing the body of water the hotel fronted -- very, very rickety looking. I think to myself, "that's ok, town is the other way, because that's the way we were driven to the hotel, right?" Wrong! Here comes our new friend down the stairs from his room, saying, "well, gotta get to my favorite sports bar for the play off games. See ya later." And, off he goes over that damn bridge!

By now it's dinner time, and we do need to change some money into pesos. The young lady at the front desk changed enough for two nights rent, but we need more than just the few pesos change she'd given Dick. She gave us directions to a "casa de cambio", and off we go across "THE BRIDGE FROM HELL." It scares me to death! We (rather I) make it over to the other side. I will say that when Dick says how frightened I was, he did come and help me. He's a saint -- at least until he starts teasing me about how I looked walking the bridge. During the two weeks we spend in Ziahuatanejo I do get over my uneasiness.

The BRIDGE FROM HELL feels solid until you get to the top span -- wobbly -- the railings are wire cable attached to 2x4s that are tied to the bridge.

We really don't need directions to a casa de cambio as there is one on almost every street. At the casas we get $7.50-7.69 pesos per dollar. When we finally find the banks we get $8.30-8.40 per dollar, quite a difference. The banks involve about a half hour wait in line, but the air-conditioning is worth it.

A waiter at Las Brisas stops us and offers us the comida corrida for $17 pesos, about $2.26 US for a four course meal. Complete with hand made tortillas -- hard to find even in Mexico today. We have caldo de pollo, rice, vegetable and a meat course. We didn't find out until we started eating it, but "caldo de pollo" is chicken gizzard soup! My favorite -- not! We have to eat almost all of it while expressing great satisfaction and delight as the waiter makes it clear he has given us a choice portion. Thank God for fresh hot tortillas!

After dinner we wander around town. It's basically a fishing village and lacks the bustle of a large town. The main drag is, of course, parallel to the beach, complete with high scale shops, restaurants and hotels. The farther you get from the beach, the cheaper the eateries and accommodations get. The beaches on the four bays that make up Ziahuatanejo are gorgeous! The water is safe , no undertow, like they have in Ixtapa. The bays of Ziahuatanejo are sheltered from the pacific, while Ixtapa sits right on the open ocean. Life revolves around the community basketball court that lies adjacent to the plaza and right on the beach.. The kids and young adults play either volleyball or basketball every night. We spent part of every evening there.

Back at the hotel we meet a group of kids from Louisiana and their parents. Our veranda and the third floor veranda seem to be the hotel meeting places to exchange information and discuss the adventures of the day. We get some very good tips there.

Breakfast at Las Brasas --across from the beach, they have the best fruit plate in town and fresh brewed coffee! Most Mexican coffee is of the instant variety. We spend the morning walking the beach watching the fishermen and the lazy mooching pelicans. Last night was fiesta until 3 a.m. with music and fireworks, then dogs fighting and barking until all the revelers made it home. That’s when the roosters woke up! Good thing it's vacation and we can take siestas!

We go to the bus depot and find out about the length of the trip to Manzanillo. We take the taxi -- 10 pesos anywhere in town. Lunch is at Tamales y Atoles. This is a very typical and tasty place to eat. $53 pesos (about $6.38 US), sure fills us up. Dinner at Huachenago: margueritas, bifsteak for Dick & soup & flan for diane, $150 pesos (about $18 US).

We meet Wayne (the people from Louisiana) and his family for breakfast at Puntarenas which is a short distance from our hotel. The restaurant is run by three grannies. You get your own menu and write down your name and order and deliver it to the kitchen. Old granny serves everything with a huge smile; oldest granny walks with a walker and pays all of the tradespeople from her cigar box while watching the TV that sits on top of the refrigerator. The food is excellent; in the evenings there's always a line. Wayne introduces us to a fisherman named Leonardo and we're going deep-sea fishing on Thursday.

We wander around the city for a while after breakfast and find the market. While we are walking I notice a couple who look lost (not hard in a foreign country.) Later we see them again still looking lost. I ask them what they are looking for (ever the instant expert) and they say they are looking for the beach. Dick tells them how to find it; we talk for a while and then decide to bum around with them for a while. Their names are Arlene and Lou and they are from Michigan. They had taken the bus over from Ixtapa and it drops it's passengers in the middle of town. We wander around with them, show them the beautiful little church, the beach and some shopping areas. Arlene says everything is so much more reasonable than in Ixtapa, in many instances for the same thing.

We eat dinner this evening at Los Braseros (yes, that's three restaurants with almost identical names!) The chef sends over samples of tacos al pastor -- grilled pork with fresh pineapple -- very tasty! A Mexican family is having some sort of stir fry of pork, beef, bacon, pineapple. At least that's what I understand the head waiter to say. We decide to come back tomorrow and try it.

Today we're finally going to Ixtapa. The people from Louisiana tell us that the bus to Ixtapa stops about two blocks from our hotel, in the direction I hoped town was. We find the bus; they all seem to have signs that say Ixtapa-Ziahuatanejo on front, so we grab the first one we see. The cost is two pesos each, less than 50 cents. We think we will pass a beach and get off there. We didn't and so ended way out in the countryside in a little town called Pantala where the bus turned around. Everyone on the bus worried about "the gringos" getting lost.

When the bus stops, a man comes back to us and very slowly and carefully tells us that, "bus turns -- get out Ixtapa", the driver didn't want to take another fare from us, as if it is his fault we are still on the bus. I tell them in my very slow Spanish that we think they have a beautiful country, and this is surely a more economical way to see it than in a tourist bus. When we get back to Ixtapa, the driver stands up and tell us to, "off now", so we did.

The first person we meet in Ixtapa is a time-share salesman! He, of course, says he isn't selling anything, he just wants to invite us to a free buffet meal and folkloric show, the taxi ride from our hotel is also on him! We said no thanks several times and he finally let us go. All the hotels of course face the beach. However, they also seem to be surrounded by barbed wire and/or high walls. We walk until we come to a driveway that said public beach and Carlos and Charlie's, which is a Mexican chain of bar/restaurants. Finally, the beach! The beach is gorgeous, it's not sheltered at all, but faces the open Pacific, with big surf. All the kids are body surfing.

For dinner we go back to Los Braseros and have tacos al pastor at two pesos each. We can't seem to make them understand we want what we had seen the chef make the night before and the head waiter doesn't come to work until we are leaving. Oh well...

Interested in Latin Culture?

Check Out

 

 

TRAVEL BOOKS!

Now you can browse through our selections and get the information you need to make your next trip a success!

 

Questions or Comments? Send us an e-mail!
"Ixtapa-Ziahuatanejo" Copyright ©1999-2006 by Diane B. Moore