Zihuatenajo was so much more than I expected. It is much bigger than I thought and the town centre is really lovely. All the sidewalks look the same and all the shops have this wonderful deep overhang to keep everything shady. Parking was pretty easy and the beaches are great for swimming. We found an apartment to rent for 2 nights, right in the centro for 650 pesos a night. A smashing deal, it even included air conditioning.

We spent G’s birthday at Las Gatos beach, we took a panga boat ride to get there and rented snorkelling equipment for the day. Gigi loved it, we bought her new sun glasses, a yummy tres leches (3 milk) cake, and she had a piña colada and chicken fingers for lunch. A really great day, we finished with watching a basketball game and having tacos.

The next morning we were due to push off early and head up the coast but when I opened my eyes I realized I was now 40. So I pulled the sheet over my head and cried. No, just kidding. I actually got up and walked to this great little hole in the wall and had a fantastic coffee. Then I cried.

So again we had no destination but we had heard of a few surfing spots that were supposed to be good along the way. We ended up in a pokey little town that Nick said he had heard of a really great place to stay. But, he didn’t have an address, know the name or have any other details about the place. Odds were not in our favour. For the next hour our so we drove around asking the locals and finally got to the place. Villa Tropical. Heaven on earth.

We rented the the entire house for 700 pesos!! It normally rents for 3000 pesos but Juan the owner thought that since we were only stopping for one night he only charged for one room. The girls slept in their own room though and Nick and I had a room to ourselves. Bliss. The house is so perfectly set up that I didn’t want to go anywhere. The girls played in the pool forever, you can swim from outside into the house through a tunnel. Gigi thought that it was the coolest thing ever and went back and forth incessantly. She pretended she was a dog and the inside bit was her home, then she was a dolphin in captivity and that was where she could rest before a show. It went on and on.

The owners Juan and Alfa were fabulous. They have two sons and have been living in Mexico for 20 years. The kids are starting high school next year so they may go up to the states for a year or two. Juan first came down to surf and never left, he built the house and has raised his family on the earnings from the rental. We all went into town for tacos and then to the square to watch the boys play football.
Earlier, Nick and I sat up on the rooftop under a palapa and watched the sunset. We shared a bottle of champagne to celebrate my 40th and watched the waves crashing into the rocks. The girls came up and made up a play for us and Madeline tried to teach me a pirouette.

It was hard to leave that beautiful house the next morning, Nick and I both agree that we will be back there again one day. Nevertheless, we pushed off around 11am and started up the Michoacan Coast. This stretch is known as the lost coast, it is remote, hard to get to, there are no gas stations and hardly any people. I love it for all those reasons. We stopped in the small beach towns as we made our way up and they are mostly the same; slow, tranquil, and stunning. The military is everywhere as Michoacan is perceived to be a dangerous place right now but I don’t mind. It just means less tourists cluttering up the beach. At almost every beach we were the only people there, besides the fishermen.
We were stopped once on the highway ( think crappy road) on a curve for unknown reasons. It freaked me out as a bus was in front of us and if you were coming up behind in typical breakneck speed, there wouldn’t be time to stop and not plow into us. Nick jumped out of the car and ran up ahead to see what was was going on. Well, a tractor trailer had gone over a cliff and there were 3 tow trucks trying to pull it up the bank. A guy with a machine gun slung over his shoulder was taking pictures. We manged to weave through the wreckage and squeeze our car through. We had big trucks on one side and a cliff on the other. There was no room to spare. As we went through it for a moment Madeline had the machine gun guy right beside her. I could see her eyes get a little bigger, she commented “only in Mexico” and we laughed how most kids would only see a gun like that in the movies!
The rest of the journey was uneventful, we popped into several beaches and watched the landscape change as we came north. This stretch through Michoacan is different than other places on the coast. Normally, we would pass through little pueblos along the highway and taxis are everywhere, but not here. Mode of transportation is on foot and there are no towns, just one or two stick and palapa shacks selling gas out of giant jugs. Slowly, we even left that behind and left Michoacan, passed through Colima and entered back into Jalisco. We pulled into Melaque at around 5pm on a long weekend Friday and had to find a hotel. Good Grief, the town was packed!