Our beach time is coming to an end

We've said it many times... we are not beach people.

After traveling all over Mexico including all of the coastline of the entire country, we have learned that we are happiest where the temperature is a little less hot. Sure, it's pretty and it's nice to stare at the ocean and watch for sea life. But if you want to get any exercise, you have to do it at 7:00am in the morning. And then, what do you do all day?

After lunch, I figured I had better do something productive

It's not very often that we just sit around and do nothing. The blog posts would be pretty boring if that was all we did every day!

But as I said yesterday... it's pretty easy to be lazy around here!

"Hey, there's a whale!"

We are about 50 kms (30 miles) south of the tourist area at Ixtapa - Zihuatanejo at the town of La Barrita. La Barrita is not actually a town, as such. There are about 100 people living here... a few beachfront restaurants and a couple more out on the highway... and an elementary school. That's about it.

There isn't much in the way of shopping available, although there is a fruit and vegetable truck that comes in every couple of days. Yesterday, Ruth and I went with our host Lorraine into the small city (pop 20,000) of Petatlán.

It's always an adventure in Mexico!

Driving days are always interesting because you just never know what's going to come up! Yesterday was definitely one of the more interesting ones.

We were only doing 170 kms (105 miles), but as I've mentioned before, coastal highway 200 is pretty slow going. You'd be lucky to average 60 km/h (36 mph). So we planned to set off at 7:30am, with intentions of arriving at our destination by 11:00am or so. But we were a few minutes late leaving!

Boat tour and birds

Yesterday, we took 10 members of the group and booked a boat tour of the lagoon on the opposite side of Pie de la Cuesta.

The price was 150 pesos ($7.90 USD, $10.50 CAD) per person for what was billed as a three hour tour. We arranged it for a 10am start.

Acapulco

Yesterday, nine of our group took the local bus into Acapulco. Ruth and I have not been to Acapulco since 2013, but not much has changed. Although Acapulco doesn't receive as many international tourists as it once did, the city is still an ocean playground for many people from Mexico, especially since Mexico City is only three and a half hours away by car.

There are two things you have to do as a visitor to Acapulco... one is to see the famous cliff divers at La Quebrada... and the other is to take the local bus!

We walked out the gate to the road, and a bus was coming!

Saying goodbye to Tioga George

Sad news out this morning that long time vagabonder supreme Tioga George has passed away. I guess his family was finally able to post on his blog...

https://blog.vagabonders-supreme.net/2019/02/dear-readers.html

We first met George here in Mexico in 2013.

Playa Ventura to Acapulco

We weren't sure when we were going to be able to leave Playa Ventura. The problem was that they were holding their annual half marathon, and we were parked right near the finish line!

So at 7:00am, there was all kind of activity going on. Originally, we had been told it should be all over around 9:00am, but it did not look promising.

Puerto Escondido to Playa Ventura

We hit the road at 7:00am on Saturday morning, so did not have time to do a blog post that morning. So... a quick update about our activities on Thursday and Friday...

Thursday night, we went to see the bio-luminescence in the Manialtepec Lagoon west of Puerto Escondido.

January Expenses

Well, nice to see our expense report is finally back to normal for January! In fact, it's the cheapest month for us in almost a year.

Normally, we do not spend very much money while touring Mexico. Last year's trip was an anomaly because we were still responsible for our fuel and toll road costs and there was a lot more driving involved than usual. This year, our route is a lot less distance and we try to stay off toll roads when it makes sense to do so.