Ups and downs of coastal life

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It’s tough wandering the Pacific coast, just hopping along from one beach to the next, but someone’s gotta do it. Mazunte had been high on my list of places to visit on this trip and it didn’t let me down. Nathan made friends with two Canadian girls and we spent a good portion of each day at the beach. The kids showed no fear of the large surf that crashes in close to shore (no good for surfing here). To start with we were worried that our little niño would get hurt. But every time he got sloshed around like a cork in a storm he came up with a smile, wanting to do it again. Another great aspect of meeting other traveling families, is that we had four adults to take it in turns watching them in the water. After 4 days we had worked out where to get fruit and yogurt for breakfast, where to go jogging in the morning and where the one-liter mojitos are sold for our evening drinks. We had a bit of a routine going. The only mistake was to move house after two days and we ended up is a sweat box with traffic noise and horrible beds for our last two nights. We did a marine life tour one morning and saw lots of dolphins off the coast and many large turtles too. We saw a pair mating miles from the coast and as you know, turtles don't rush anything. Well, copulation takes 5 hours! Oh, and the boat launching was an experience too. We all pushed it across the sand until it was close to the water. Then women and niños get on board. Men wait for the right wave and give it one last shove then jump in before the boat disappears. See below, how the boats are parked after the tour ...

When it was time to leave we caught a taxi to the federal highway and from my limited Spanish I understood that we needed to then catch two buses, two more taxis, a boat and perhaps unicycle across a lava pit to reach our next destination of Chacahua. He offered to save us a lot of the trouble and drive us there. We negotiated a reasonable price and made it as far as Zapotalito. Apparently, we still needed to do the boat ride to get there. This was an extra expense but it was the main reason for choosing this beach for the lagoon behind it. We spent over an hour in a green water lagoon with lots of mangroves, which we negotiated in a small boat. We saw all sorts of birds, including nesting storks with their chicks from just a few metres and to top it off we saw a dolphin playing in the water with a snorkeler and a couple of boats (including ours). This was a great interaction as the dolphin clearly stopped to look at us just like we were looking at it. He has been living in the estuary for 4 months and previously a group of 4 dolphins stayed for 6 months. The journey to Chacahua was interesting, but Chacahua itself is a surfer´s haven and not much more. We hired a board for a few hours one day, which was fun, but didn´t enjoy this place as much as others. Leanne and I got tummy bugs from the prawns we ate on our first night and felt dirty the whole time. The absence of sealed roads didn’t have the same appeal as we have experienced on other occasions. Probably a byproduct of illness. We just wanted to get back to civilization. On our second night there was a fiesta, but in our condition, Leanne and I passed it up. Apparently, it was a bikini competition. This doesn´t make much sense to me as the female half of the surfing population are wearing bikinis already. You don´t need to offer prizes to get girls in bikinis here.

Well, it turned out to be hard to leave Chacahua. We thought it would be a simple matter of a boat across the river, a taxi to the highway, a collectivo to the next big town then a bus to Acapulco. (Simple but time consuming.) But first a taxi, then a ute with seating in the back, both chose to let us wait in the empty town centre on a Sunday morning instead of drive us for 150 pesos. Breakfast was more important to them. Eventually we found someone willing to give us a lift. Not an official taxi. Just a bloke who listened to the broadcast of that morning´s sermon on the radio as we sweated it out in the back because his AC was on the blink. But he did wait to see that we got in our collectivo van to Pinotepa. We were fortunate enough to get the 15^th, 16^th and 17^th seats in the 15-seat van and got a good connection to Acapulco. I just found it a little uncomfortable sitting in the aisle with the rose bush prickling my side on every left hand turn.

Acapulco is a very big tourist town with posh and used-to-be posh hotels hugging the shore and climbing up the steep surrounding hills. We stayed in one of the hotels that wash posh in 1970. It had an okay pool and water slide, but we went to a water park and spent half a day splashing in the sun as it was much better. We have noticed that this part of Mexico has much larger serves of everything. For instance the drinks at the water park. The mum's beside us ordered michaladas. They come in a large polystyrene cup with spicy sauce, lemon juice, worcestershire sauce and soy sauce at the bottom. Some dry chilies and salt around the top and two coronas to fill it up. That is one of the local specialties I haven't tried yet. Perhaps if my tummy felt a bit stronger. We also visited the cliff divers and saw their death defying feats from 30 metres or more. Another interesting, but annoying, fact is that there seems to be a competition to bring the largest and loudest boom box with you to the beach in Acapulco. From any sun chair you can hear three different types of latino music simultaneously.

Next stop was Zihuatanijo. The bus ride there was interesting. It took 5 hours and Nathan got sick and started vomiting. First time was fine. He came back beaming and boasted that he had vomited in a toilet on a bus. After the second and third times the novelty had worn off. But we made it in one piece and arrived at a relatively luxurious hotel. See the panorama above for the view from our balcony. The manager was just way too generous and drove us to see the doctor where we all explained our ailments, Leanne (ear infection), Jon (still got a tummy bug) and Nathan as explained. We left with a basket full of drugs, that cost much less than they would in Oz and now are deciding which ones we will actually take. When back at our hotel Nathan promptly vomited on the bed spread in front of the hotel manager. He changed the sheets and gave Nathan a massage, which made him cry. This guy stops at nothing to please his guests.

That is it for now. But I hope to have the guts to drink one of those michaladas in the coming days. No metaphor there.

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Photos

Bird Poo Island
The only white island off the coast from Mazunte. Frigates live here and are responsible for it's different colour

Sunrise at Mazunte
I saw lots of good ones in Mazunte and Chacahua. Mostly whilst jogging in the morning. The colour was very red. I think due to smoke in the air from lots of fires. Not sure why they have so many fires?

Typical Chacahua restaurant
Not the one that made us sick!

Sunset at Chacahua
Over the estuary. The sea is in the other direction.

Knife sharpening
In the main street of Acapulco

Bigger than Gyros
Supersize my tacos please!

Comments

[Sarah]

Gday from down under
Hey guys Seems you have had quite the adventures both good and bad! Loving reading all about it. I got sick in India- the drugs were sold by the silver strip- dodgey as, however took them and survived!!! Stay safe!