A Stroll Around Zihuatanejo

I have often been asked what I do when I am in Mexico and what is it like.  Well, I have been asked that at least once, anyway.  So I thought I would take my seven regular readers on a stroll through this beautiful town and try and capture a little of its soul.

Let’s start our journey in bed where we are peacefully sleeping until a man yells “bolillos” outside the window at 7:15am.  Bolillos are a type of roll you can eat with your first cup of coffee in the morning.  This vendor walks through your neighborhood calling out his wares and you just need to stick your head out your door for home delivery.  Random home delivery still exists in Zihuatanejo.  Later in the afternoon a man will call out “agua” and once again you need only stick your head out and indicate how much you want.  He will carry  5 gallon jugs of bottled water up your stairs and to your door.  The garbage men ring a bell and yell “basura” when they are nearby so you remember to take your garbage out.  A man plays a few notes on a wooden pan flute to indicate he is around if you need anything sharpened.  Then there is the tamale lady and finally the gas company that plays a recording that sounds like the seventh cavalry coming to the rescue followed by an elongated “gaaaaassss.”  I have taken to announcing gas this way, but Pat feels it is inappropriate.  I say forearmed is forewarned.

After breakfast we head out into the bright sunlight and crisp, clean air.  We walk past the man who sells fresh juice in a vacant lot on the corner.  Here, we cross the street and head down Calle Los Cocos.

I think I need to pause here and talk a little bit about the art of walking around Zihuatanejo.  There are a few rules and precautions the smart pedestrian should heed to prevent injury and/or embarrassment.  If you are walking in the part of town that caters to tourists, you can disregard most, but not all of these rules.  For the last several years the town has done a good job of repaving both streets and sidewalks with red bricks in these areas and have just began to start doing the same in the neighborhoods.

We will be walking in the less tourist-travelled areas and you have to pay close attention to where you are going.  The sidewalks will dip unexpectedly, or a curb will show up between two lots, or the sidewalk will end and you will be on dirt or gravel, or there will be a hole in the center of the sidewalk, or the sidewalk will narrow to a single human lane, or a tree will be growing in the middle of the narrow sidewalk or rebar (the metal bars that hold concrete together in a building) will be sticking up through the sidewalk.  You get the picture.  So, the first rule is if you are going to gawk at something, stop and gawk.  And you will see thinks that make you take a second look.  A couple of days ago, I saw a motorbike go by with a driver and three passengers.  It was a wonder they could all get on it, let alone ride around in traffic like that.  On that same day, I saw a motorist, who apparently missed his turn in a busy traffic circle, throw it in reverse and back up into oncoming traffic to where he could make his turn.  Of course, he could have gone around the circle one more time to where he could have made the turn without backing up, but that must have seemed like a waste of gas or something to him. Which brings me to the other bit of cautionary advice I have for you.

Pedestrians should assume they never have the right of way.  There are crosswalks where I’ve been told, if they run you over, they are in the wrong.  Of course you will be run over, so I suggest avoiding testing that out.  The rules of the road are different here and they seem to work for the local drivers.  Mexicans have to be the greatest defensive drivers on the planet.  I have seen some pretty outrageous moves and the other drivers make room, change lanes, break just in time and everything seems to work out fine.  I’ve never witnessed any road rage, even when the maneuver in question was incredibly dumb.  So, as a pedestrian, you need to become a defensive walker.

Another factor playing a part in walking around is how the streets are laid out.  Minnesota’s famous wrassling governor once observed that drunken Irishmen must have designed the streets of Saint Paul.  Well, it appears the city engineers of Zihuatanejo brought these very same Irishmen to town and got them lit up on tequila to help plan the streets of the city.  It is hard to get from point A to point B.  What concerns us most, as pedestrians, is making the mistake of assuming a street is one way just because it looks like it should be.  Look both ways, children, and you will live to go on another field trip.

There, now that is out of the way, we are ready to make our way down Calle Los Cocos.  Los Cocos is a street full of vegetable and fruit markets.  There are also places that sell tortillas, chicken, eggs and fresh fish.  If we go in the morning, when the fresh stuff is delivered, we will find a narrow street packed with delivery trucks, buses, taxis, delivery bicycles, pick-up trucks, cars and tons of shoppers looking to buy the food they will cook that day.  There are little carts parked on the sidewalk selling strawberries, blackberries, peanuts, pistachios and things I haven’t been able to identify.  Walking the sidewalk requires constant adjustments, going from the sidewalk to the road and back again.  The scene looks like the movies you’ve seen where they show a New York City street circa 1915.  It is very colorful, vibrant and alive.  If you are out shopping, you can fill bags with bananas, melons, strawberries, onions, potatoes, mushrooms, green peppers, avocados, and any number of other foodstuffs till your arms are breaking and only spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 to $15 bucks.

Having navigated Calle Los Cocos, let’s head over to Calle Jose Morales for a glance at a slice of the local business community.  Here, in the U.S., we like to pay homage to small business and the entrepreneurial spirit. But in reality, the ascendance of corporate America has made those two ideals seem like anachronisms.  Not so in Mexico.  The large box stores are just beginning to show up in Zihuatanejo and there remains a tremendous variety of small-scale business activity.

Jose Morales is a commercial street about a half mile from the tourist area.  As we walk down the street we will pass a store that sells paper, a store that makes keys, a flower shop, a store that sells bootleg movies, a pharmacy, a unisex beauty parlor, a hardware store, a store that sells plastic pails, plates, cups etc., a store that sells stuffed animals, a car wash, a shop specializing in repairing car air conditioning systems, a men’s clothing store, a woman’s clothing store, a pet shop, a motorcycle repair yard, a shoe store, several small grocery stores, a bakery, several street vendors, several small restaurants, a furniture store, a paint store, and an Internet café.  And this is on one side of the street in a little less than a mile.  In addition, Jose Morales is just one of several of these commercial streets in town.  You also find a variety of small businesses sprinkled throughout the neighborhoods.

This stunning array of small businesses makes you wonder, how do they survive?  Everybody seems to be in the process of opening a small specialty business.  I think their survival is probably linked to several factors.  One is the purpose of  many of these businesses is to put food on the table of the owner and his family.  There are chains in Mexico but far fewer than you will find here in the U.S..  The owners of these small businesses are not looking to keep a bevy of shareholders and stakeholders well fed, but rather looking to provide for their families.  The local economy has not been consolidated into Best Buy’s, Home Depots, McDonalds’, and other mega businesses that undercut the profit margins of the smaller guys and eventually drive them out of business.  What you see in Zihuatanejo is similar to what you saw in the U.S. in thousands of small towns across the country 50 years ago.

Pako practicing with "Las Gringas"

Now that we have been walking for a while we should stop at El Pueblito for lunch.  As we are walking down the street we see a small sign that says, “El Pueblito and a single door is open to the street.  As you go through the door you will find an open courtyard with several tables arranged under an open-air tile roof designed to provide shade.  There are interesting antique ranch tools, guns, saddles, children’s toys and even a hangman’s noose decorating the place.  There are a variety of cacti growing along one wall.  Another wall, that abuts a church bell tower, is where you often see iguanas scurry across the tile roof and sometimes settle down for a sunbath.  It is Thursday, so one of Zihuatanejo’s best guitar players will be playing while you eat.  The food is Mexican and good.  One note.  If you see a man come in and lay a three-foot machete, also known as a gringa, across his table, don’t get worried.  He is not some madman who is about to start chopping his way through the patrons of the restaurant.  He’s just someone stopping for lunch that was working a job clearing brush or he took a walk up into the mountains perhaps to chop some ginger root and used the machete to clear the way and chop the root.

After we leave the restaurant, we pass the hall where the Teacher’s wedding reception was held and eventually come to a large open field where a kiddy carnival has been set up.  The carnival will stick around for a couple of weeks and will then be replaced by a circus or a concert.  The kiddy carnival is remarkable for the rides that are set up.  There is every ride, those of you over 50 will remember, from the church picnics and county fairs of your youth.  Some Mexican carnival owner must have traveled the U.S. and bought up every one of these ancient rides he or she could find.  People who are fans of these amusement park relics (I’m pretty sure there is a subculture dedicated to these things) would think they died and went to heaven.

Continuing on past the kiddy carnival and past a large home goods tent sale we eventually come to a soccer field.  If we are lucky, a game will be in progress.  Among the first things you will notice, if a game is being played, is that there is a layer of dust that hovers about a foot and half above the field.  There are hints of where grass might live during the rainy season but those areas have long ago been churned to dust.  You will also probably notice the skill of the players.  Soccer, or Fútbol, is Mexico’s favorite sport and you can see that its best athletes gravitate toward ‘the beautiful game.’

As we move along, we will come to a shady grove of trees where the fisherman hang out before and after they go out to sea.  They will be lounging in hammocks, eating meals that are sometimes cooked over an open fire, or mending their nets.  Almost always there will be an active conversation going on.  As we walk past the fisherman, we cross a bridge across a channel and find ourselves in the tourist area.

But we aren’t interested in the tourist area of El Centro today and it feels like it is time to walk to the nicest beach within walking distance of the central part of town.  We are off to La Ropa.

Descent to La Ropa

The trip from El Centro to La Ropa is an exercise of going from sea level up a series of hills and then a steep descent back to sea level and the beach.  Don’t worry, once you have walked up these hills four or five times a week for a couple of months, the huffing and puffing becomes much less noticeable.  The pay off for this walk is the several places you can stop and look out at the beautiful vistas from high above the bay.  Bursts of cascading bougainvillea decorate our route and if we are really lucky, we might look out and see whales playing in the bay.  We might also come upon a three foot black iguana, sunning himself on the sidewalk (I have been told the black ones make for the best eating).  If you are a bit squeamish about three foot lizards, the lizards are more squeamish about you and will skitter away, amazingly fast, when you get anywhere close.

Once we make the descent to the sea, you will find a wide sand beach scattered with restaurants, hotels, and public areas.  The heat of the day will be relieved as the ocean breezes cool everything down.   As we walk the beach, we will see an amazing array of human forms, some alluring and some not.  Now it is getting to be late afternoon and we deserve to treat ourselves to drinks and a bit to eat while we watch the sun go down.  So we will walk the length of the beach to a restaurant named Rossi’s and go upstairs and claim a roof top table overlooking the bay where we can watch the sun sink into the ocean and light up the sky.  For very little dinero, we can drink beer, margaritas, pina coladas, or just about anything else while munching on fresh guacamole or shrimp tacos.  The sun will eventually go down, the sky will turn pink and we will need to think about heading home.

There are two options for getting back to town.  We can walk the way we came, but if you been on the roof for a while, and enjoyed a beverage or two, it will be getting dark, making the walk back more difficult.  Another factor we might want to consider before walking back is that, occasionally, a big old crocodile decides to visit the beach and take an evening stroll.  This doesn’t happen often, but it does happen and the local firemen come out and wrangle the monster and send him back to a swamp far removed from tourists and casual strollers.   The other alternative is to walk thirty yards to where a bus will pick us up and take us to town for 85 cents.  If we linger too long and the last bus leaves, we can take a taxi for around $3.

Try not to take a walk with this guy

After you get back to the apartment and clean up and rest, you might want to walk into town for an ice cream cone or just to see what is happening.  There are always basketball or volleyball games to watch and, often, public entertainment to take in.  When you have had your fill, it is time to walk home and go to bed.

You might think this is the end of your experience, but you might be wrong.  As you lay dreaming of beautiful vistas around 3:00 in the morning, a car alarm will go off.  This will key the 15 neighborhood dogs to start snarling, barking and howling.  Not to be out done, the roosters begin crowing (yes, you live with roosters in town and no, they don’t just crow at dawn).  Finally, to top off the symphony, your neighbor, who figures he would rather listen to his music, turns his sound system to 11 and the strains of a Mexican polka join the cacophony.  This, too, is Mexico.  Luckily, it all will usually die down in 10 or 15 minutes and you can just sleep a little later in the morning or at least till you hear the bolillo man calling.