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Zihuatanejo, or Zwhat for short,

is a resort city on Mexico’s Pacific Gold Coast, northwest of Acapulco. It is famous for its beaches. For example the sweeping Playa La Ropa, which is the city”s shorefront and is backed by palm trees.

There is a walkway that runs the entire length of the beach. There where the fishermen keep their pangas you can buy fresh fish right from the fishermen. 

Galleries, craft markets and seafood restaurants line the city’s winding lanes. It is a delightful, colourful, fun city.

Offshore, the sea teems with marine life such as dolphins and sea turtles.

Christmas Day

Here, in Zwhat, John and I had a very quiet Christmas Day. The highlight was a lunch out at a Mexican restaurant, eating authentic Mexican foods. The restaurant was wonderfully authentic and the food delicious. 

Everywhere we wandered there were lovely Christmas decorations. The beaches were jam packed with holiday makers and music played through the evenings. 

Markets

Other days we walked all around the craft market and tourist market area of Zwhat. The crafts are wonderful. The ceramics, rugs, textiles and silver jewelry were created with great care and skill. 

Another day we explored the Central Market.

It is always very interesting to see the central markets where all the local foods, fruits, flowers, meats and household items are sold.

New Years Eve

I had read that the fireworks displays at midnight were to be some of the finest along the Pacific coast of Mexico. We were not disappointed. At midnight the shoreline exploded with wonderful, colourful fireworks.

Being right in the middle of the harbour we had an unobstructed view of all. The display lasted for a good while and we could hear the parties continuing till dawn.

The Parthenon

Sits on the near top of a hill overlooking the bay of Zwhat. I, again read that while it had been derelict for many years, people still loved to poke around the property. However, it had, in recent years been renovated and was now officially open to the public.

What is or was the Parthenon? Why is it “special?”

 Arturo, “El Negro” Durazo Moreno, the infamous Chief of Police in Mexico City, from 1976 to 1982 built the Parthenon as a monument to his own, “success.” 

While his official job earned him less than $1,000 a month, Durazo made an absolute fortune off the cocaine drug trade and his notorious racketeering and extortion tactics.

The Parthenon is one of his palaces, a gaudy replica of the Greek Parthenon. It sits atop the highest mountain in the hills of Zihuatanejo, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. 

The story is that he held lavish parties regularly at this property until his downfall and imprisonment. 

So, off we set on New Years Day to walk to the Parthenon. 

And it was quite a walk, some parts were very steep, in the heat of the near midday we were looking forward to a refreshing drink of lemonade at the top.

The walk was through a part of the town where we hadn’t explored and so was interesting. There were many lovely murals on the buildings, and some very posh looking hotel properties too. 

Upon finally reaching the top we found out the Pathenon didn’t open for another hour. So we sat on the curb with everyone else and waited. When the gates opened they separated all the old folks, like us, and we were allowed in first and for free!

The property is now well groomed, well kept and beautiful. It now serves as a form of art studio for local artists and art sales. We enjoyed a walk all around, but were quite disappointed that the cafe wasn’t open till later.

We finished touring, looking at the wonderful artwork on display and headed back downhill. At the beach where we found a wonderful restaurant for a late lunch. 

My meal was amazing, shrimp cooked in coconut with a spicy pineapple sauce.

Passage to Manzanillo

Our 1st stop was just around the headland, the Isla Ixtapa. Which when we 1st entered looked like a nice stop. However the bay and anchorage quickly filled up with every form of water craft from mega yacht, jet skis, tubers etc. Everyone anchoring right next to one another. It was so packed we couldn’t even leave. Plus, it then started to roll. This was not an anchorage to be repeated.

The next day, early we left on our passage, which ended up being just under 48 hours long. We left Isla Ixtapa and as soon as we were out of the bay we spotted a whale, which we believe was a humpback.

The passage was another mixed bag. While the winds were never strong enough to really sail we had the hobby – horsing effect due to current against wind, plain uncomfortable.

We had several spectacular sunsets and sunrises, the shoreline when it was in view was rugged and wild. 

We arrived at the entrance to Manzanillo at around 12:30am.  This “bay” is vast, it took us a few hours to navigate to the recommended anchorage 8.5 miles into the “bay” having to avoid several very large ships that were anchored. Once at our anchorage, at about 2:00am, down went the anchor and off to bed we crashed.  

Manzanillo

– which means little apple in English.

Awaking in the morning and looking out at the shoreline was a surprise…. All the buildings were white and of a Moorish or Mediterranean architecture, quite stunning really. 

This was of course the famous Las Hadas Marina. It is listed as a 5 star resort and marina. We knew we were allowed to use their dock for a small fee so after breakfast we went in to have a walk around.

The property is really extensive with a golf course, separate villas, etc. We enjoyed stretching our legs. Our next mission was to restock, this took a taxi ride into the town. 

Bahia Santiago

The next stop for us was a neighboring bay, Bahia Santiago. We anchored at one end off of Playa La Boquita. This bay again was huge and once again, nearly from one end to the other there were palapas with beach umbrellas set up in front, for their customers. Mind boggling to think that many folks would be at a beach at one time. Or maybe there are just some very optimistic Mexican venders.

Our hope was to be able to get ashore to have a walk, but the swell coming into the bay was just a bit too much for a beach landing. Instead, we went off in the dinghy to have a look at the statue of the virgin on the cliff and to find the Devils cave.

These attractions known as the La Cueva del Diablo, (Devil’s Cave) and the Virgen de los Pescadores, (the fisherman’s Virgin), were found along the shoreline just outside of the bay. 

The landscape was again incredibly rugged, with steer cliffs, jagged rocks, cactus, and such.

This time however the landscape had a reddish, rosy colour, which was lovely in the morning light.

There were seabirds everywhere, pelicans, Boobies, Frigate birds, gulls and more. We easily found the statue of the Virgin Mary sitting high up on the cliff. 

The Devil’s Cave was further on along the coast.

It is a massive cave with a blowhole which is reputed to blow water up to 7 feet into the air. It was quite dramatic to watch the swell pound into the cave and the salty air being blow high up into the cave.

Off to Barra la Navidad

Our next destination was Barra la Navidad. We set off, and were barely out of the bay when we spotted our next whale in the distance. It was surfacing, diving and blowing salt spray high into the air. 

The shoreline was again very dramatic, rugged and wild. I was happily staring off watching the shoreline when right next to Aeeshah a whale surfaced, and then another, and another surfaced ….. There were two adults and a calf. They swiftly swam off away from us, the adults slapped their tails.

I tried to capture a photo of them, but the best I got was their tails as they disappeared into the distance.

Our destination Barra Navidad has proven to be totally amazing. All about that next time……

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars and see yourself running with them. – Marcus Aurelius

The flower is aware of the fact that it contains everything within it, the whole cosmos, and it does not try to become something else. – Thich Nhat Hanh