|
1.
Arrival, Playa La Ropa, Downtown
 Saturday - Sunday Jan 13 - 14: We spent Friday night at Katie and Dave's; the flight wasn't until Saturday afternoon so we didn't even have to get up early. I had gotten on line and snagged us exit row seats and I am so glad. They apparently assigned seats totally at random - even families with small children were separated and had to play musical seats at boarding time to avoid the kids being alone. We've never encountered that before but the same thing happened on the return trip so it must be the new "save a few minutes" rule for processing vacation packages. It was about 9 PM by the time we got to the Villa Mexicana hotel and of course we got a "junk" room because they were full - but they moved us the next day to a nicer room with quiet, efficient A/C and a nice balcony. Fountain in the lobby to the right. Below, Barb reading on the balcony and some views from the balcony - into the courtyard if we look to the right and a lovely sunset looking out towards the bay .    Saturday
night
we had late dinner at Paty's
Mar y Mar - the beach restaurant right
next to the hotel - and Sunday morning we went back for breakfast.
The food was good and it's delightful to be able to eat in
swimsuits with your bare feet in the sand! But, even by
Mexican standards, it was ridiculously slow. I think the
issue must be in the kitchen because the waiters kept returning to
apologize and assure us that the food was on the way.
We spent all of Sunday right there on the beach. Playa La Ropa is about 1 km long and we walked the distance back and forth several times a day. It astonished me that almost every time I saw something a little bit different - sand sculptures, birds, beach dogs, crocodiles, kids surfing or swimming. Here are some Sunday pictures. In the last one, notice the scallops that the water makes? The wave patterns were very interesting. 
View from lounge chair on beach
North end of
Playa La Ropa
 Facing
south
at far end of beach
Looking North from the south end
Below, on
the left, John captured a good sample of the patterns that form from
the different weights and colors of the sand. And on the
right you can see
the triangle patterns that occur when those scallop-like waves begin to
recede and run into each other. Can you imagine how easy it
was to sit there for hours watching sand and waves and birds and clouds
and . .
. ?
 We had
afternoon
snack at the hotel then supper at Elvira's, also right on the
beach next door to Paty's. The food at Elvira's was about the
same, the service slightly better but throughout our stay we had
various issues with the bills - added wrong, "service fee" included or
not included, charged incorrect amounts. Overall, a couple
of dollars here and there makes no difference at all, but it was an
annoyance and encouraged us to overcome our inertia and start going
into town!
  If you
aren't
familiar with beach restaurants, above are a couple of samples:
Paty's on the left and a few further down the beach in the
right picture. Each typically has a "sandwich board" set out
advertising their menus and specials. You can use the
lounges, or sit at a table. The tables, chairs and umbrellas
are light so they can be moved around however you want.
At times, we'd see
people move the chairs right to the edge of the bay so they could sit
with their feet in the water! In the left picture,
the orange wall is the restaurant attached to our hotel (Villa
Mexicana) and just to the right of that is the hotel beach - so you can
see how easy it was to just stay on the beach all day and still have
choices about where to eat.
You can use the restaurants as a place to "camp" for the day if you
aren't staying there on that beach. The proprietors are happy
to watch your belongings for you
while you snorkel or beachcomb. They
just expect
that you will purchase your food and drink from them. We did
that when we went to Playa Las Gatas and Isla Ixtapa later in the week.
To the left is a picture John took - particularly over the
weekends loads of local families came for a day at the beach and we
enjoyed watching the kids having fun.Monday Jan 14 - 
We hiked around the bay into town this morning, visited an ATM to stock
up on cash, wandered town a bit and
then had a gelato break on Playa
Municipal. No, I'm not mixing up countries - there is a
gelato place in Zihua now! I'm not sure it is a whole lot
different than the regular Mexican helado (ice cream) but the cost is
about the same and I thought the flavors were better. All of
the ATM's now charge a service fee which is new since we were there
last - but even including the fee, we got very good exchange rates
(around 10.80 pesos per dollar on average). We also noticed
that fewer and fewer businesses accept credit cards. The only
places I saw that advertised they took credit cards were the downtown
merchants that probably do most of the cruise ship business.
Some of the fancier restaurants might but they didn't
encourage it and we didn't ask. To the right is the dolphin
sculpture at the top of the road leading to Villa Mexicana.
Below are some views of the bay and landscaping along the
road into town and the last one is the downtown municipal pier across
the bay from where we started.   
  At
left is the "welcome" sign over the
pier.  We had lunch at
Fonda Paloma - one of the many small food places (fondas) in the
Mercado area - at the right, see a Food Court, Mexican style!
This is the best food bargain around - very yummy traditional
Mexican food for about $3 a meal. Mostly they don't speak
English but we did fine with the little restaurant Spanish we know plus
pointing. While at the market, we also got some fresh fruit
and I bought a straw visor (which you will see in later pictures).
More pictures John took at the market. Such fun to just wander through and see what's there!    Below is a view from next to the municipal pier across the bay to La Ropa Beach - that's how far it is to walk ALL the way around the bay - we only did that a few times. Most of the town restaurants are maybe about 2/3 of that distance. On the right is a picture from one of the footbridges over the canal that runs through town.   On the way back, we stopped at the little convenience store across the street from the dolphins and bought some yogurt and big bottles of water. We spent some time in the bay this afternoon then rinsed off in the larger pool, walked the beach and watched the sunset before going to dinner at Paty's. John had red snapper and I had chicken fajitas - some of our favorite Mexican foods. It was a cloudy sunset but the clouds were fascinating. These really are all from the same sunset!     |