Author: zihuathyme

Once again we took the ferry to Las Gatas beach for another day of swimming, snorkeling, feasting and drinking. Arrived about noon and stayed until 5 when you have to leave the beach or get stranded.  Our friends Dwight and Lynn joined us later.  The senor opted for a butter spaghetti but I had tuna carpechio, I know it’s not spelled correctly, but it is thin strips of tuna marinated, not cooked.  It was fantastic. On the return trip off the island we had white tickets where all the mexican beach goers had yellow tickets, and all the yellow tickets got “panga’s” (boats) before we did, about 6 boats came and loaded them before us, we almost felt like the gringo’s were being discriminated against, but we figured it out they were from one of the resorts down towards Playa Linda and those tickets were for those boats hired to take them back, we finally got on our panga and brought into the pier at El Centro just about 3-4 blocks from our apartment.

After a quick shower and a short siesta our neighbors suggest fish and chips again for dinner, Doyle is having some knee difficulties and opted out but I took them up on the offer.  Zorro’s fish and chips is steadily full of happy customers as we were.  I then went on to Rafa’s bar to hear a singer I’ve been wanting to hear, and stayed for about an hour. I had planned to return to the apartment but at the gate to our stairs the clan had gathered.  A frequent and pleasant  happening!  Our apartment host Javier, our Canadian friends and neighbors, other american couple we have come to know here and their mexican landlords who own a hardware store here, a mexican gentleman singing and  his guitar had congrgated on plastic chairs spread out on the side walk and into the street and the tequila was flowing as Javier operates a liquor store under the apartments. 

 I’ve learned to sip tequila as opposed to tequila shots.  As the evening wore on dozens of other mexican friends and american/canadian visitors stopped by for some hospitality.  I find my spanish improves with tequila or at least my willingness to speak it improves.  This night, but also all over town when you meet mexicans who speak some english, they want to practice with you and you with them.  So I’m trying out my spanish with a mexican man who used to live in Tacoma, and he replies in english and some times it a little bit of both, which is called Spanglish.  All in all it’s about a 3 bottle night for this group before we bid each other Buenas Noches!  Signing off KO

2 9 11  I am prone to bug bites.  The senor and I often laugh how mosquitos prefer my soft white meat to his greasy, hard dark meat.  Well, today it sort of stopped being a laughing matter.  Something has been chewing on me for days, on my feet and lower legs and by last night my sandal straps and pant legs touching the bites were intense burning itching pain.  I decided I go to the pharmacy in the morning, because neither vinegar, alcohol or other creams were providing any relief.  Well by morning I decided to go straight to the doctor and get this taken care of right.  I  told him something was chewing on me and showed him my 26 bites and he agreed something was and still is chewing on me.  It is a skin parasite akin to scabies or chiggers that I probable picked up from the sand somewhere.  He gave me a prescription for 4 pills that I took today to kill them and some cream for the itching.  Cream provides some relieve, but they still itch horribly.  We stayed pretty close to home today as all my sandals rub the bites and make it worse. 

 We went out for fish and chips, Canadian style  at lunch.  Zorro’s bar next door to us is owned by a Canadian and he was able to get the shop across the walkway from his bar and does fish and chips there and sends drinks over from the bar.  Fish was excellent, but evidently with the humidity here gets into the potatoes and they don’t fry up crisp, they are a little rubbery.  He is contemplating going to frozen fries.  We wish him well and assume his new enterprise will do quite well.

We wanted to go to the movies tonight, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  I had read the book ( and the 2 sequels) but we found out the movies is in Swedish and dubbed in spanish.  Boy did that leave us out.  Anyway tomorrow is another day and we plan to go to Las Gatas beach for some snorkeling, lunch and a margarita or 2.  Signing off  KO

How disappointing, my entire text and 2 pictures failed to publish. So here goes again.  Today was my first ever deep-sea dive, I took the instruction class 2 days ago and today I did the real thing. I wore a full length dive suit, a bit of a challenge to load this old, soft body into, but I made it Then into the water to get into my diving vest with the tanks on, add weights so I’ll quit floating like a cork and we are ready to descend to the sandy bottom of the ocean in Manzanillo Cove.  We hand over hand down a line trying to clear the ear pressure as we go, I have a lot of pressure and can’t get it cleared properly so we are only going to go about 20- 25 ft.  We see 6 or more sting rays, a couple were buried in the sand and then came flying out, we see porcupine puffer fish, a beautiful black and white polka-dotted puffer fish, neon blue fish, many stripped fish, some small some large.  There are some bright blue soft squishy plants called sponges and a coral colored plant that has suction that stick to your hand when you hold it.  There are big fish, little fish and they are everywhere, it is absolutely fantastic.  As we come up I have some ear discomfort as I just can’t seem to equalize the pressure properly.  They still haven’t cleared completely, but that’s ok, it was an absolutely great adventure. 

Later that evening we went to “Frank’s” in Ixtapa for dinner, we’ve been several times in past years to have Azteca Stew and were serenaded by a 6 piece mariachi band.  Another great day in Paradise

The big screens are appearing everywhere were they weren’t before.  Small bars, large restaurants, everywhere.  The senor has scoped out his favorite bar where they will have the game on in english with full commercials.  Most of the bars have it in mexican with mexican commercials and the only english is when the ref turns his microphone on for the penalties.  I will avoid the noisy bars  as I’m not a football fan. My first choice was Casa Arcadia on the beach, I brought my kindle and ordered a drink and the next restaurant over turned up the volume on their big screen and blasted away my peace and quiet so I headed off to my favorite place, Agave, where I had vino blanco, cream of avocado soup, peace and quiet and a nice piano player in the background.  Went back to my apartment put a movie in and retired early.  Just a pleasant Sunday for me.  The senor partied quite late celebrating the Packers win as he one 1,000 pesos on the first quarter.

2 7 11 This morning we did what we refer to as our “timeshare whore’ routine.  They offer us gifts to come see their resort, they try  to sell you time share or this one refered to themselves as a club membership.  We go for the free food and gifts. Our Canadian friends, Dwight and Lynn thought it would be nice for us to do this so we could get an all day food and beverage and pool pass to Pacifica in Ixtapa with them.  It was a pretty soft sell, very little pressure, the facilities were gorgeous, but tacked high on a hill sort of above Las Gatas Beach.  I would feel stranded, really nowhere to walk to, steep hills and trails.  I just don’t do steep with my knees any more.  Nice buffet breakfast, and not an unpleasant way to spend a morning and now on Wednesday we will hob nob with all the people who are paying more money for their one week stay, that we are for a whole month. Money aside we really do like being in El Centro Zihuatanejo, it’s where the action is.  Yes on weekends it’s a little noisy at night, but not enough to disturb us, and we are still capable of doing a little disturbing of our own. We are eating in tonight, fish taco’s.  Signing off KO