Mexico 2012 RV Trip - Day 58 - Feb. 22, 2012 Zihuatanejo

Tobey and Cal took the scooter in this morning to see about the repair and it was ready this afternoon. He replaced the right break switch which seemed to be shorting out, drawing on the battery. 3pm and $150 pesos later it was “repaired.”

This morning I washed the RV – at least the top layer of dirt and bugs. The water pressure wasn’t good enough to get the hose to spray to the top, so I was tossing buckets of water up to rinse, sometimes landing it back on myself. Glad America’s Funniest Videos wasn’t around!

Zihuatanejo was was a sleepy fishing village until the 1970s when Mexico’s tourism board began developing the area as a tourist destination. Sport fishing is still a big draw to this area. The beach we are on is called Playa la Ropa (Clothes Beach). The name Playa La Ropa  refers to the sinking of a merchant ship near the bay during colonial times. Its cargo of fine silks, belts, cloaks and fabrics from Bombay washed up in this beach. It is long and the waves are quite mild compared to some of beaches where we have camped.

When I walked back from the beach this afternoon, I saw the smaller of the crocodiles that live in the mangroves. He is about 8’ long and was in the water under the footbridge from our campground to the beach. Fortunately, they have the water fenced off or he would be finding many tasty morsels sunning themselves on the playa!

After we got the scooter back we decided to check out Ixtapa. Ixtapa is a government-planned tourist resort that was begun in the early 1970s and constructed on what was once a coconut plantation and mangrove estuary. There are lots of resorts lining the beach, but it lacks the substance of “real” Mexico. We walked on the beach and saw lots of “gringos.” There were several parasailing operations and jet skis for rent.

We did see this blow fish that had washed ashore. He was about 8” long and puffed up in his finale farewell.

We also drove down to the Playa Linda RV Park developed by Fornatur, the government tourism department. It is a huge parking lot with about 70 sites, all on asphalt. While it is on the beach, it didn’t have any real appeal to us. There were only 5 RVs there!

We headed back to the RV when Tobey noticed the other brake switch on the scooter wasn’t working properly. It looks like we will need to make a stop at the repair shop in the morning before we head inland to our next stop.
GPS  17.62647°N, 101.54465°W