Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa Rissask Report!

[Rissask]

This year we decided to return to Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo, on Mexico’s southern Pacific coast, in the state of Guerrero (same state as Acapulco) for two weeks. Don and I have been there once before, for a week about 3 winters ago, and we loved it.

This year for the first week we traveled with three other couples and stayed in Ixtapa- this is sort of a Playacar-type resort area, a three mile beach lined with high rise hotels with great views, mostly are non All Inclusive though. We stayed at the non-AI Dorado Pacifico on the fifteenth floor; it’s location is perfect, right in the middle of the strip and across the streets there a fairly large shopping and restaurant area, with about 30 or so restaurants and a big artisan’s market.

View from our room:





Now, some may think this sounds like Cancun (perish the thought! ) but it is on a much smaller scale than the strip in Cancun and (somehow ) seems more Mexican and less glitzy or commercialized.

Our trip there (and home again) was uneventful. We booked Air Canada Vacations packages on www.Escapes.ca (Total for 2 week airfare and one week hotel for Don and I was $2900 and then our hotel for the second week we booked online on our own, it was $80 a night. Total spent this whole trip was more than we usually spend for sure- about 5000 CAD$.)

Here we are at the airport, all pasty and white!



We flew to Calgary (45 minute flight) and then connected to a direct flight on a nice roomy 767 for the 5 hour flight to Zihuatanejo. The airport is quite small and only about ten minutes from Zihua and 20 from Ixtapa, so that was nice too. We still managed to pound back a couple Sol each even on the short trip to the hotel, so when we arrived we were raring to go.

The hotel was very nice, the staff were super friendly and efficient and it has a nice big pool with a swim up bar, great to have when you are there with a group.



A leaving group even left us their air mattresses, so the days we were at the hotel consisted of- going across the street for breakfast (good ‘raunts were Chili Beans, Mama Norma y Deborahs, la Panateria the bakery, and several other places I forget now)....we girls going for our morning speed walk on the beach....lying in the sun until we were sufficiently hot, then laying in the pool on the mattresses ‘til we were sufficiently thirsty...then paddling over the pool bar around 11 (it’s noon somewhere right?)to order up the first cerveza/Caesar/pina colada of the day. Rinse, repeat.




Speaking of hot...the weather was PERFECTION.

This is the best part of the southern Pacific coast for us. Every day it was between 30 and 33 Celsius (90-ish F). Humidity seemed fairly low, my hair wasn’t as frizzy as it has been on other trips , and the hills were pretty dry, one local told me they hadn’t had rain since September, just sprinkles here and there. We saw not a drop in 14 days, it was 2 weeks of utterly perfect weather. And just gentle breezes off the ocean, very little wind, just enough to cool you off a bit.

One morning I looked up and joking let out a scream; my GF Tracey was like, "What is wrong??" "A cloud!" I said, pointing to the white fluffy thing I hardly recognized. Pure heaven.
And at night, you never needed longer sleeves or a sweater, it was always so comfortable...now why can’t I live in a climate like this?

There was an added bonus of $115 a week per room for a food/beverage credit which was nice, just signed for our drinks all week, they were reasonably priced (25 pesos a beer and 35 for cocktails) and when we checked out we only owed about 200 pesos.
There is also a marina at the far north end with hundreds of fancy sailboats and cruisers. We walked there for breakfast a couple mornings and Don got to dream and drool over the fancy boats.



There is also a Senor Frogs across the street and a Carlos and Charlies on the beach. Sounds horrendous to some I am sure, but we went one day and watched the sunset (6:30-ish) one evening at C&C and had some happy hour drinks, it was fun.



The beach at Ixtapa is nice, very wide and three miles long (we women went for power walks every morning after breakfast), and the surf can be a bit wicked (and LOUD, even on the fifteenth floor with the window closed and the A/C on, when we woke up it sounded like a blizzard raging outside ). And of course, parasailing.



Most days the black flags were up in the morning and about noon they changed to red. For strong swimmers it can be a lot of fun. Here are the boys bodysurfing and boogie boarding...





And playing some volleyball....



And look at these two dorky women...wonder who they are.....

[cmsitaly]

Great pics Rissak! I was there about 8 years ago. Real nice. Thanks for reporting. We ate a this fabulous Italian place, can't remember the name though. there were some really good restaurants. In Zihua too! We did the Senor frogs thing too
I wonder, there was a place down on the south end of the beach where they fed alligators everyday at 3:00. Did you see anything like that?

[Rissask]

We did walk down there one day, but no 'gators...we did see some, still to come!
Sorry I was having issues with the links, fixing it!!

[Oregonian]

Rissask, been to Zihua 4 times at it's my favorite destination. This year it was my wifes turn to pick and we were back at PDC for our fourth time. The Carribean is beautiful but I love the town of Zihua a lot better for personal reasons. Glad you had a great time.

[sctx]

i like trip reports that start off with lotsa drinkin

[Rissask]

There weren’t that many vendors at the beach in Ixtapa (more in Zihua and on the island), but there was parasailing for $200 pesos, and every afternoon the parachuting club would do a drop on the beach.
The only negative about this hotel was the chair saving game was played in full force...grrrr.....too many old fogies (average age was about 65, lots of older people go to Ixtapa, people who have been going there for 20 years, from what I gathered) who don’t sleep much and go to be bed at nine so they got up at 5 and would save chairs by the pool.

The hotel put a sign up to discourage it, stating chairs should be ‘first come first served’, and can only be saved for 2 hours, but how could they possibly enforce it? Some couple would even selfishly save FOUR chairs, two in the shade- the nerve! No wonder there aren’t enough.
But...life’s too short..... if we wanted chairs we had to play, so we took turns getting up at 6 to go save them, not that big of a deal really, we had 8 people after all and two days away from the hotel that first week.
All in all that first week was tons of fun with the 8 of us. We usually travel alone and this trip with the group the first week and then alone the second, and changing locations for the second week, was the perfect balance. Week number was party time and the second was chill time.

The boys went fishing that first week and Jack caught a 225 pound blue marlin...


Jason caught a sailfish....

Mark caught a dorado that we ate for supper at Daniels on the beach in Zihua that night....prepared three ways, garlic and butter, sweet chili sauce, and Veracruz style....yummy....

and enjoying the fruits of his labour at Daniel's at the beach...


And Don caught a 300 pound marlin the next week too....a one and a half hour fight. He was pretty pumped about that.

[Rissask]

Heya Scott- funny thing- me too!

Originally Posted by Oregonian

Rissask, been to Zihua 4 times at it's my favorite destination. This year it was my wifes turn to pick and we were back at PDC for our fourth time. The Carribean is beautiful but I love the town of Zihua a lot better for personal reasons. Glad you had a great time.

We love it too! And later you will see a couple of the Oregonians we met and hung out with, what great people. Where do you stay?

[cmsitaly]

WOW! Those fish are HUGE!! Again, great pics

[Andiline]

Thanks Rissa, I just love Mexico and your report shows me that there are still so many places in this country I need to see...

Btw. what are you doing online on a sunday???? Do you have internet at home now? Did I miss anything?

[Rissask]

One day we went on a trip out to Isla Ixtapa, an island just a little offshore and a little north of Ixtapa which is about ten minutes by bus to a beach called Playa Linda where you can take surfing lessons or do some boogie boarding (also there is a market there and some beach restaurants)...and there are some caiman crocodiles, BIG suckers...


Then you go to a pier and buy tickets for the water taxi to take you over to the island (a 5 minute ride, 35 pesos return- keep your ticket)....

lotsa pelicans by the main pier!



There are beach restaurants on all the main beaches in the Zihua area. How they work is you just get to sit there free of charge (all have loungers and chairs/tables/palapa umbrellas) and use the banos/showers as long as you buy drinks and/or food from them. Beers were usually around 15 to 20 pesos in the area.
This beach was called Playa Coral for obvious reasons.

Nice white sand but chucks of coral so tough on the tootsies. Once the snorkel groups with their lifejackets cleared off it was actually quite peaceful. Snorkeling was so-so, we saw lots of puffers, rays, the ubiquitous Sargent Majors, a couple barracudas, and the other usual suspects. And a tiny octupus which was cool.
Looks like my GFs are ready to go snorkeling!

One of the guys wanted to get one of these drinks this lady was having.... until he found out what goes in it...rum, gin, vodka, AND tequila.


Once we had our fill snorkeling we wanted over to one of the other beaches (there are 5 total), Playa Varadero, very quiet with a great view of the mainland with the mountains in the background, great for swimming. Last boat headed back at 5 so we had to leave.

Waiting for the boat...



The beach vendors came here, and had the best stuff! My GF Julie bought a gorgeous hammered silver pendant (silver was huge here, as Taxco is close) - we called her ‘the Crow’ as she is attracted to shiny things. And she also made a deal out at the island this day for two large carved and painted wooden fruit bowls that were gorgeous, in black, dark green and purple with grapes on them.
The vendor, Domingus, agreed on a price of 750 pesos, but she wanted him to bring the bowls to our hotel that night....he insisted she take the bowls and he would come to pick up the money at 7. Now that is trusting!
He showed at 7 on the dot and at first we never recognized him without his hat, we told him he looked much younger than earlier, he laughed.

The shopping there in general was very good. I bought a hammered silver pendant as well, and a clown shell pendant, also some great handmade paper pieces with holes punched in to make a sun and moon. The other girls found some great stone masks strung in a wooden frame too. Someone told us tourism was down this year, likely because of bad press about Guererro, so we did our part to support the local artisans.
Well, the last day arrived and we were sad our friends were all leaving....the night before we played some poker...

one more drink by the pool before their pickup at noon.....


and they were off. They had a GREAT time, for all four it was their first trip to Mexico and they loved it.

[Rissask]

Our checkout was at 1 so we went upstairs to shower and pack up, and grabbed a cab to Zihua.
Zihuantanejo is where we were moving to for our second week there alone, Zihuantanejo is a city of about 80,000 people, it’s in a gorgeous bay that has five beaches in all.
It is where we preferred to stay, but our friends were looking for a more luxurious and ‘fancy’ place so we opted for the first week with the group in Ixtapa. But both places were nice and one week at each was perfect!

We stayed on Playa Madera which is the first beach to the south from the Playa Principal which has Fisherman’s Walk (the most touristy area, with shopping and restaurants) and the main fishing pier.

There is no marina in Zihua really, the pangas just park in the bay next to the pier....and the pelicans. Both of these beaches aren’t the prettiest, more rocky and darker sand, but lots of people were swimming at Madera, it was clean.



This is our hotel in the background, the orange one- the Irma. We did a lot more walking than the week before and up and down the hills was quite a workout!

I managed to not put on a single pound, although I sure ate like a pig and drank a lot more than I normally do.

Our room was very basic but clean and the A/C worked great. And the view was spectacular!

The one thing we felt was missing was a fridge in the room, but we had a cooler and they would give you a bucket with hielo at the pool to keep your own drinks cold.

I would never tire of this view.


We had a hot tub outside our room that we never saw anyone use. Too hot!



The two pools were nice and I especially liked the infinity pool.



It was never a fight to find a chair at any time of day. BIG plus.

The average age at this hotel was younger, maybe in the 40s. We met lots of nice people, most heard us talk and thought we were from Minnesota - that happens a lot to us. Most people were from Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, Oregon or Wisconsin, and many western Canadians. One couple from Montreal too, NOT Quebecois, they actually were friendly. (DOH!)

[Oregonian]

Originally Posted by Rissask

Heya Scott- funny thing- me too!


We love it too! And later you will see a couple of the Oregonians we met and hung out with, what great people. Where do you stay?

2006 we spent 10 days at Brisas Del Mar on Madera Beach. A very authenic Mexican hotel super view right on the beach with an excellent staff. Private balconies OK dinners, nice pool with a slide. Zihua has so many great restaurants and we walked into town every night along the new walkway on the ocean. We have also stayed at the Westin and Sotavento. Everyday their it was 90 plus this time of the year. I love Zihua because it hasen't changed in years. It still seems like an old fishing village.

[Rissask]

Originally Posted by Oregonian

2006 we spent 10 days at Brisas Del Mar on Madera Beach. A very authenic Mexican hotel super view right on the beach with an excellent staff. Private balconies OK dinners, nice pool with a slide. Zihua has so many great restaurants and we walked into town every night along the new walkway on the ocean. We have also stayed at the Westin and Sotavento. Everyday their it was 90 plus this time of the year. I love Zihua because it hasen't changed in years. It still seems like an old fishing village.

That is too funny! We went and checked out the Brisas, and figured that is the next place we will stay- great location and what a gorgeous little hotel.

[Oregonian]

Rissask, Brisas is just right down the beach from where you stayed. I can see it in the picture. You probably noticed the big restaurant on the beach. Thats Brisas Del Mar. Believe me the pictures don't do it justice. When we were there we ate at Il Mare on the cliff to the left of your hotel. It was our aniversary. Beautiful view and great food.

[Rissask]

Cruise ships are in the bay an average of 1-2 times a week, but the week were there, there was one three days in a row. They really ruined the scenery.

Everyone seemed to think Ixtapa would have been a better choice for them to go, but there isn’t a long pier there.

This is the day we walked over the hill to the next beach to the south, La Ropa (Clothes Beach). It supposedly got it’s name from when there was a shipwreck centuries ago, and clothes were strewn all over the sand.





One day we went back to the island, and one day we went out to Las Gatas, a gorgeous gem of a beach in Zihua bay. You have to take a water taxi to get here from the main pier...you CAN walk on some rocks from La Ropa, but it’s treacherous in places, and I wasn’t about to twist my ankle. It’s 35 pesos and worth every penny!

Again, lined with beach restaurants and even mariachis....




Quite good snorkeling here, there is a man made reef of boulders and the water is super calm (legend has it an Aztec king made the reef so his daughter could bathe here).....this was relaxing, 28 degree C water...



We had gotten friendly with some great Oregon folks at the hotel so made the trip with them, here is Sheryl and Mark clowning around....


In the evenings, we would watch the sunset at some happy hour somewhere, or the hotel.....

And then get ready and go walk somewhere for supper...either along the boardwalk

to head downtown (by downtown I mean ten minute walk along the beaches to Fisherman’s Walk and up to 5 streets back- there is a TON of restaurants and shops in Z) to a ‘raunt (best ones downtown were Pizza Navona, la Sirena Gorda, the Fat Mermaid, where they had great fish and shrimp tacos .....Mi Chayito that was Mexican and Chinese food (great ginger beef and curry skewers)....Tamales y Atoles Any, wonderful Mexican food, pozole on weekends, assorted tacos al pastor and the like at many tacquerias and food carts.....Porto di Mare....Don Memos....Daniels....Arcadia on the beach.....oh man, etc etc.
Or we would go somewhere in the area closer to our hotel, down Calle Adelita, a very quiet cobblestoned street that ran all the way to Fisherman’s Walk- for supper, La Casa Vieja (wonderful food), lunch favourite was MJ Ritchies on Playa Madera, and the Casa Café (great coffee) or Salvadors (10 peso beers here all day!) or Brisas del Mar for breakfast. Great food everywhere.