Following the Yellow Brick Road

The newly complicated bike path has beckoned us like “the yellow brick road”. I frequently have walked on it to Soriana’s and one day asked where it ends and was told Ixtapa. Challenge was on, other friends had done the walk and survived so I rounded up my adventurous friend Bonny and suggested we do this and she agreed (with a barely audible groan.)

We had heard it was a 5 mile walk. Now I am no spring chicken, but Bonny is several years younger than me. We figured it was a challenge, but one that we were up to.

We started off early Tuesday morning, 7:00 am and expected to arrive in Ixtapa about 9:30. Weather was pleasantly cool at that hour of the day. I did need Bonny to walk at my pace, but we chatted on and it what seemed like minutes came to the place where the path heads left to Ixtapa instead of straight to Soriana’s. I had no idea what parts Zihuatanejo this path would take us but soon we crossed the main road where we could see the statues of the 4 ladies and knew where we were.

That was the last time we knew where we were until we spotted the new high school high on the hill overlooking the highway. Along the way we walked through Mexican neighborhoods where we were not only the only gringos, but the only ones using masks, watched a young lady doing her wash on a stone in a trickle of a creek. Saw a beautiful spread of purple and white morning glories but soon we were in a tunnel and going under the highway and approaching “THE HILL”.

The hill had been our concern as it is long and quite steep, and by this time it was about 8 O’clock.

To our surprise the hill wasn’t bad, we just put one foot in front of the other, stoped only once for a breather and soon were at the top. We stopped to take a picture of 3 Mexican girls doing it on bicycles, used their camera so all 3 could be in the picture and we headed down to Ixtapa. It’s a lovely trip down to Ixtapa and finally we were on flat ground.

But I swear we walked 2 miles (or at least it seamed like it) through the back residential area of Ixtapa before our path brought us to the “Los Patios” area. That was the longest part of the trip. By this time we knew we had been walking for a couple of hours up and down hills and the body was reminding us of that fact.

But here it was 9:26 and we are at Deborah’s ordering the largest breakfast they had. After breakfast we wandered through some of the stores congratulated ourselves with Margaritas at Zorros and finally went to my favorite store when it opened. I went in to buy a blouse and came out with a dress instead and across the way I bought two hats and Bonny found a gift for a friend.

Combi’s looked empty so we took a combi back to Zihuatanejo and were home by one ish. I will admit to having my knees remind me every time I get up from a sitting position that I gave them a real work out today.

It was a great adventure, it’s great to have friends like Bonny to adventure with. Signing off KO