Pacific Dreams

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Pacific Dreams

So, once again I find myself including a few too many photos... Sorry everyone - I tend to think they tell a story of their own, as I’m not actually expecting anyone to struggle through my longwinded stories 😊 I’ll try to keep it short this time...

Maruata

I guess I should’ve learned by now that anywhere described in the Lonely Planet isn’t actually going to be anything like what I imagine. This also turned out to be true for the first stop on our search for the Pacific Dream: Long white-sanded beaches with palm trees and cabanas with ocean views.
Maruata is described just like that; a secluded little Oceanside village (with potentially no electricity, we read online) known only for the sea turtles that come here and lay their eggs at night in the summer months.

Our arrival had been delayed a couple of days due to a slight stomach problem I encountered the night before we had planned to leave Manzanillo... Ell, being the best boyfriend in the world, developed sympathy symptoms the next day, so we both had to spend a day in bed recovering. I still felt a little tender when we made the 5-hour bus ride (which was supposed to be only 2-3 - why can’t you get accurate bus times in this country??) down the Route 200 along the Pacific Coast, past banana plantations and just green, green vegetation all the way. When we got there, I turned my super cool Osprey wheelie backpack into an actual backpack and we started walking around the three beaches that comprise Maruata looking for our dream. However, the supposed cabanas were actually barracks without windows and if they were actually huts there wasn’t an ocean view in sight! After an hour and a half of carrying around my super cool (but by this point rather heavy) Osprey, I was more than knackered but we finally found an actual hut with an actual view on the top of a hill at the end of the first beach, which is 3km long and the one you can swim at. It wasn’t paradise, but rather an approximation and i think the closest you’ll get anywhere that’s actually mentioned in an LP.

We spent four days in Maruata, swimming in the ocean, watching the pelicans dive into the waves for fish, getting sunburnt, playing canasta, reading books, swimming some more, snorkelling (not good there, by the way) and watching the sun set. This is where the pictures come into play - they’ll show you more about Maruata, than I can actually tell you here.
And then it was time to move on... which included a long wait for the bus, and then another exciting bus ride that was much longer than we’d been told. Hey, that’s Mexico 😊

Zihuatanejo

Next stop on the Pacific Dreams Route 200 was the much bigger Zihua,, which we chose mainly because we were hoping for some good snorkelling. As it turned out, Zihua wasn’t what we expected either. It was supposed to have a lot of character compared to its neighbouring twin city that has been changed completely in the name of tourism with a waterfront that’s smothered in soulless hotels. Although Zihua isn’t built up with sky-reaching hotels, it’s still so overrun with tourists and cruise ships it’s sometimes hard to see past the souvenir shops and fancy restaurants and find anything even remotely Mexican about the place. Away from the Fisherman’s Walk at the waterfront and the first few blocks near there, however, you can find the central market and a number of local eateries and shops. And that’s where Zihua steps into character.

Our hostel, Rincon del Viajero, was a little oasis of calm in the middle of this busy town with a beautiful garden and terraces as well as the cutest dog, Troy. It wasn’t very busy, though, which would’ve given it a lot more atmosphere, I think. But it was nice to have a kitchen for a couple of days and going shopping at the central market for all the fresh fruit and veg we could eat!

When we left Maruata, I had 37 bites of varying origin (bedbugs, mosquitos and some unidentified), and I was feeling rather sorry for myself (especially as I seem to attract all of the little critters, leaving Elliott completely bite-free!!!! So unfair!), but when we got to Zihua, they were all replaced with very itchy, swelling and red mosquito bites. I have gradually been getting used to different types of mosquitoes around the world; meaning that I react quite badly at first but after a while I don’t swell and itch so much anymore, though I still get bitten as much as ever. The ones in Zihua, however, I don’t think I’ve encountered before, because my bites were as bad as the ones I used to get when I first arrived in South East Asia...

Seeing as we’d come to town to snorkel, we took a boat out to one of the recommended beaches, Playa de la Gata, on the other side of the bay Zihua is situated in. I haven’t been to such a touristy beach in a very long time. There was almost not a grain of sand that wasn’t covered in plastic beach chairs and ‘restaurant pimps’ trying to entice you into their establishment. The sand was still beautiful and white, though, and the water clear and turquoise and once we got past the restaurants, it was a nice place to be. Unfortunately, the snorkelling was not what we expected at all. The coral was very damaged, there were hardly any seaweed and apart from a few rays and trumpet fish, there were no particularly interesting fish.

So far, we’re a little disappointed with how our Pacific Dreams have turned out, so we’re heading inland into Michoacan State to see a church half buried by lava, the amazing Monarch Butterflies, and from there enter the heart of the country: Mexico DF. Our Pacific Dreams will have to wait a week or two...

Love,
Kristine

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Photos

Cabanas se renta: Our hill as you approach the beach.
Too bad we only went here last to look at the huts - after 1.5 hrs of walking around aimlessly

The main street in Maruata village
There's a beetle factory in Mexico, so there are a few of these lovely little cars around. Still exciting tho ;)

Walking to the end of Playa de la Muerta (Death Beach)
This is not the place to go swimming - the current and the waves are amazing here

Bye bye, Maruata
Our 'landlord' had said the bus left at 11, so we were there a bit before to be on the safe side... I read quite a few chapters in my book before the bus finally turned up well after 12pm...

Comments

[Tracy]

Hammock style
Now that's the life! xxx Snowed here yesterday!!! Yikes!!! Wish I were in the sun! Enjoy!!! Thanks for the update. Will have a thorough read sometime sooooon. ;0) 'Hi' to Ell.