Zihuatanejo

The heat and humidity that hit you when you first arrive in Zihua is always a favorite feeling for me.  I changed into a dress and flip flops before getting off the bus, and packed away my sweatshirt and leggings, not to be seen again for a very long time.

 

It has now been just over a month here in this tropical oasis I adore.  It has been a good mix of staying with friends, working, time alone in town, sunsets on the beaches, and so much eating!

I was very excited to eat ALL the foods I was missing here, and enjoy all the spicy salsas that seem to be less pervasive in the north.

It has been great to catch up with friends and see a lot of familiar faces in random places.  I stayed for my first week at my friend Maude’s house.  She and her husband Sim have an adorable almost-3-year-old, 2 dogs and a dive shop in town.  It is currently busy season, so they are both working 7 days/week to keep up with dive trips, whale watches and snorkel adventures and running their shop (that also rents snorkel gear.  Needless to say, they were super busy and I really appreciated them taking me in for that time. I tried my best to do stuff around the house to help out and have some dinners ready for them when they got home.  Oh, did I mention Maude was also 8.5 months pregnant?? (yes, past tense – Kane Alexandre made his debut Jan 20).

I arrived on Dec 30 and on Dec 31 I was invited to go out on a panga (Maude and Sim’s, of course) with Andrea and her family (captained by our friend Angel).  Some of my best memories in Zihua are of our friend parties on that boat, out in the bay.  It was great to be on the water and snorkeling, seeing all my old fish friends, too.

New Year’s Eve was pretty mellow, I hung out with Andrea and her family, and we caught the fireworks displays as they were bringing me back to Maude’s place just at midnight.

On the 2^nd day of the year, my friend Alex invited me to “make adobe bricks” whatever that meant…I knew it meant seeing Alex, so I said yes and figured I’d find out what that all meant.  We went with Rubi and Angela and Alex’s mom, Vicki, out to a small village called San Jeronimito about 20 minutes south of Zihua.  I was actually familiar with it because when I first landed in Zihua, back in 2016, my landlady used to invite me to spend Sundays at her Mom’s house/hotel. We would eat amazing food and swim in the pools and I would sit for hours listening people to talk, not really understanding a word they said…(talk about Spanish immersion!).

We went to a humble abode where a young woman named Astros was building an adobe house, behind the simple cinderblock home she shared with her mom.  We chatted and shared some food.  Then the work began. Five hours of intense labor! We dug clay dirt out of a huge tub of water where it had been soaking, and piled it up on a large tarp.  Then we mixed and mashed it with our bare feet for a couple of hours.  Water and sand and straw were added, and the tarp was lifted to overturn the pile periodically.  Once it was mixed sufficiently, we carried armfuls of it to 2 wooden frames where it was packed in tightly to make a brick. It was quickly released from the frame and left to dry.  We did 2 rounds of it, making a total of 15 bricks. It was fun, interesting, and downright exhausting.  When the apocalypse comes, I now know how to make bricks to build a house…but until the apocalypse, I think I would prefer sticking to my computer work and less physically destructive activities. There were a couple of moments there when I was seriously reconsidering my “say yes to everything“ policy.

When we’d finished and rinsed off, we were fed once again (a delicious lentil soup and ‘vegetarian lasagna’ (which was good, but nothing like lasagna at all except for noodles).  Our food was prepared in the kitchen which was located outside. Also outside, there was a huge tiled tub full of water, and a sink.  Dishes were washed by scooping water out of the tub with a plastic bowl and pouring it into the sink. There was no running water aside from the hose at this house.  I had to use the bathroom, and it was just a toilet, with no seat, inside cinderblock walls with a curtain for the door.  The toilet is flushed (after every third pee) by using a bowl of water from the tiled tub.

Our ride there, Angela, had to leave before we ate, so when we had finished eating and chatting, Alex, Rubi, Viki and I walked out to the main road and caught a combi back to Zihua.  It was very crowded and we had to stand for the trip, I thought I was going to fall asleep standing up.  I had to catch a second combi that took me to the bottom of the hill that Maude lived up on.  It was dark and I wasn’t sure exactly where to get off, so I got off too far and had to walk back farther to get to the steep path up to Maude’s road. I was kind of cranky and tired and sore…and very glad to have a shower and an early night. I spent the rest of the week working and walking down to do things in town.

My next visit was to Andrea’s condo in Ixtapa.  She was fortunate enough to be able to buy it last year and move out from the apartment building in Zihua centro, where we had been next door neighbors for 5 years.  The balcony overlooks the common pool and palm tree filled golf course beyond.  It’s a very quiet neighborhood, great for sleeping (but not great for not having your own car).   Andrea is working with the Whales of Guererro (she is a marine biologist) and now is here busy season. She is working nearly every day and coming and going constantly.  I spent a lot of time working, as January is typically a very busy month for me (which is a good thing). I was also able to help out taking care of Lychee, Andrea’s new pup. I also did a lot cooking and eating.  This turned out not to be the best thing…(more on that later).

 

Andrea recently adopted a very sweet pup who had been rescued as she was nearly starving and wandering around the highway under a bridge.  There’s a great organization here called Surfers for Strays and they rescue, care for and find homes for a number of dogs around here. Andrea had not been actively looking for a dog, but she had been thinking about having one for some time. When she and Lychee locked eyes at the eco-tianguis (where she was with her rescuer from SfS) she knew this was the dog for her. Lychee is sweet and gentle and very traumatized.  She needs a lot of patience to help her through her constant fear of pretty much everything.  But over the weeks she has gotten calmer and more relaxed and is even learning how to play. She is about 9 or 10 months old, and is a real joy to be around and take care of. She loves to meet other dogs and sniff every thing she passes on a walk. Sudden noises still make her jump, and she will not eat her food if anyone is anywhere near her or walks past.   Sometimes I have to hide out in the kitchen till she finishes so she doesn’t get spooked away.  She is completely housebroken and has a number of basic commands (more or less) learned.

 

I did get to participate in a baby sea turtle release with Maude, Sim, Delphie and Sim’s sister and brother-in-law, and our friend Angel (who is also the captain for the dive boat. Of course we wanted them all to make it, but we did see some getting picked off by birds before they got to the sea.  So sad. But birds gotta eat, too, I guess!

 

 

I also took a 5 day ‘vacation’ from staying at Andrea’s.  She had 6 people coming to stay, so I thought it would be a good time for me spend some time staying in downtown Zihua. I found a quiet little, very economical room right in centro. A large place behind a very unassuming white metal gate in the middle of a street, lots of rooms and a communal kitchen (so I was able to bring some food). It was dead silent at night, a very welcome surprise.

When I first arrived, I went out for Pozole Thursday with Deb (Jen’s friend who I spent Christmas eve with in Guanajuato).  She came to Zihua with her friend Ricky, who owns a vacation home here. After pozole, they invited me up to the house for sunset.  What a spectacular sunset it was!

I wandered freely each day, spending a day at Catalina, one of the oldest hotels in Zihua, that has a great day pass deal, right on Playa La Ropa.  I ate at one of my favorite restaurants, La Terracita, overlooking the bay and spent the afternoon on Playa La Madera and enjoyed a coconut from the coconut guy who's been selling them behind the beach for years .  I also bought so many bargain dresses -at the thrift shops that I had been missing so much.

My eating spree was unfortunately cut short.  Apparently, I had gotten an infection in Guanajuato and my guts became incredibly sensitive.  I’ll spare you the details. But it became necessary to severely curb my diet and stick to very bland things like rice, bread, bananas, potatoes, eggs, etc.  I tried it for a couple days and couldn’t manage to stick with it, I had a few set backs (I regret nothing) and finally had to buckle down for real and get my intestines happy again.  I had all the tests (and some extra blood work, just for fun) to be sure I didn’t have anything more sinister or parasite-y.  I had kind of been hoping it could be something I just take a pill for and move on to some tacos al pastor with salsa verde, but no such luck.  Nothing but bland food for at least a week was going to fix this.  On top of this, my 3 days of beach-going was a bit much.  I got a touch of sun poisoning.  I have definitely been away from all this for too long, I was feeling like a rookie!!

I got to spend a wonderful afternoon at one of my favorite beaches of all, Playa Larga.  Alex and I took the combis out there and found a low key restaurant to laze in the hammocks and have some food.

After a week of laying low and eating boring and staying out of the sun, I finally started to feel normal (for me) again.  What a relief!! With Oaxaca coming up in less than a week, I wanted to be ready to eat ALL the things again!

In the midst of all this, Maude had her baby boy, Kane Alexandre.  All 9.2 lbs  of him couldn’t seem to wait for the scheduled c-section and insisted on coming a day early.  Finally, after 11 days, Andrea and I were able to get up there for a visit.

I managed to get in a visit to one of my favorite spots near Zihua – the hot springs.  Andrea loaned me her car and I picked up Alex and her dog, Lucas (one of my favorite dogs ever!).  It was crowded, being a Sunday on a holiday weekend. But the large group of mostly locals, all went away and we got some blissful time at the hot springs all to ourselves.  It has the loveliest blue-grey mud that you can dig up from the bottom and smear all over yourself.  It makes your skin unbelievably soft.

After the hot springs, we picked up some chicken and arrachera from Julio’s BBQ and came back to Andrea’s. We wanted to see if Lychee and Lucas would have a play date.  Lychee was overjoyed to have a new friend visit.  At 11 years old, Lucas was a bit less enthusiastic, but the 2 seemed to hit it off eventually.  They even ran around together out in the yard.

I don’t have any big plans for the last few days I have here - working, taking care of Lychee when Andrea has to work, a few more swims and hopefully some sunsets. . I am going to ship a big box of clothes and things I seem to have collected, back up to Hermosillo.  I am quite sure this will be a lot cheaper than checked luggage, and also, I don’t need to lug all this stuff around on the next leg(s) of my travels.

Oaxaca City is my next destination. Coincidentally, cousins from 2 sides of the family have trips overlapping by 1 day, so I couldn’t miss this opportunity to visit them all.  After that, I will bus up to Mexico City for a weekend and then finally fly back to Hermosillo and my beloved Rita.

Here are the rest of the random Zihua pix - mostly food and sunsets!