Fuimos a la playa!

This past weekend Joanne, Katrina, Jessie, and I went to beautiful Zihuatanejo! It was a much needed retreat from rainy mountainous Patzcuaro. Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa are about 3.5 hours away by car. So early Saturday morning we loaded into Nacho's van and took the new tool road (que chido!) to the beach. The drive through the Sierra Madre mountains was absolutely amazing See picture above). Mile after mile of lush beautiful mountains intersected by an occasional stream or lake. The land looked so untouched and pure - I felt like a was Pizarro discovering a beautiful new world (except I wasn't weilding corruption or disease and I was on a highway...). Which brings we to my next point, driving. The highways in Mexico seem to have 1.5 lanes in each direction which means that there is room for a car to move over to let another car pass... it sounds good in theory but in practice when this passing is happening in two oppossing directions it leads to intense games of chicken and some pretty scary scenarios. I learned very quickly that it was better if I didn't watch the road.
Once we safely arrived at our destination we grabbed lunch and hoped in the water. Summer in Zihautanejo is brutally hot, so we quickly learned that going in the water often is a must. Zihuatanejo is the quant, cheaper, more mexican sister to the resort town of Ixtapa. So we were able to find a nice, cheap hotel right on Playa Madera. Zihuatanejo is actually a giant harbor with lots of beaches which is great because you can walk almost anywhere and explore.
On Sunday we went to the Island of Ixtapa (not to be confused with the country club beach town of Ixtapa- too many manicured road medians). The island of Ixtapa is amazing! You can only get there by boat and they have no electricity - just four lovely beaches and a few restaurants (unclear how one keeps food fresh without electricity, but we didn't want to know). We got there pretty early on Sunday which was great because we were the only people in the water for a while when we went snorkeling. There is a pretty extensive coral reef just off the beach so we rented gear on the island and jumped in (literally)! There were lots of fish of all sizes and colors and I even got to hold a starfish- very cool! The rest of the day was spent exploring the other beaches on the island - one was a "natural" aka nude beach although we didn't realize that before we went and no was there, so we didn't follow the nude rule. The other beaches didn't have any coral, but where they lacked in coral they made up for in Jellyfish (ouch!). We ended the evening at a Salsa bar- which was highly entertaining, especially when they did a Michael Jackson tribute.
Overall I had an amazing time, but I am happy to be back in cool Patzcuaro. For those of you who were worried - I only got a little sunburnt which is surprising given my ability to fry quickly. I would like to thank my bottle of 30 sunscreen and my giant Target beach hat for helping make this possible.