November 10th Zihuatanejo
The drive from San Juan de Alima to our final stopping place near Playa la Ropa in Zihuatanejo was quite magnificent (I know you all are probably tired of me expounding on beautiful curvy roads but it’s true). The first part of the ride took us down away from the mountain that had been literally looking down on us on the coast in San Juan de Alima and looking into the rearview mirrors it looked almost black. The thing had been covered in dark fog from the moment that we had pulled into town the afternoon before until I could no longer see it in my mirrors today. At first I thought that this must mean that we would be in for the first rain of the trip but as we motoed on D assured me that it was just like that, dark and ominous looking, but no rain in sight. As no deluge moved down from the mountain to soak us, I eventually concurred. The sight had only served to further the impression (if I may be a tad whimsical for a moment) that the deserted country curving road with flowered foliage encroaching in many places and pretty dappled sunlight was a bit magical, or at the very least could be inspiration for a children’s story. The fact that no one was around to enjoy it but us, motoring slowly along, was absolutely lovely.
This feeling of wellbeing was momentarily sliced away as we came up to a fortified military check point. Surprisingly, it was the only one on highway 200 that we had come upon but D and I had mentally prepared ourselves (we were expecting more) and pulled neatly behind a four door pickup after passing the sandbagged machine gun emplacement to await our turn for questioning. As the military personnel spoke to the driver and passengers of the truck in front of us, we were waved around. We both, of course, immediately complied but as we were pulling away D asked me if I had noticed that all four doors of the truck that had been in front of us had immediately opened. All I could think about were the hard eyes of the driver as they had been scoping out D and I in the rearview. As we rode along through the same beautiful road conditions that we had been enjoying earlier, we relaxed again. Our vigilance proved unnecessary, however, as we rode through Michoacan totally unscathed. In fact, the only close calls that we had that day were with animals. We drove by a colt that had gotten out of his pasture (you could see his colty friends watching him from the pasture gate as we rode by) and D passed by without a problem and even warned me that he was there on the other side of a blind curve. D must have scared him, however, because the colt chose the moment that I was upon him to go back to his friends and safety. He was young and beautiful and kicking up skinny legs and I slammed on the brakes (thanks very much to our awesome instructor Skip who taught me how to make an emergency stop during the MSF class that I had taken two years prior while getting my license- it was an almost textbook situation). Later that same day, Davis ran over an enormous snake that had D drawing his legs well clear as the poor creature flipped and flopped in distress.
We did pass a surprising amount of heavy vehicle convoys- both military and federal police- always with at least five trucks full of armed men with massive guns (the military had .50 cal machine guns)- and something that looked to be a military fort complete with gun turrets. Despite this, I did feel safe. Obviously, the federal government is waging war against the cartels in this region, but I wasn’t really afraid of being caught in the middle of anything and it didn’t seem that we would be hurt any other way.
Hot and sweaty and DIRTY we finally pulled into a hotel parking area near Playa la Ropa in Zihuatanejo that we had heard about from a guy selling coconut juice on the street. As I pulled off my helmet at the hotel reception, D motioned that I had some dirt on my face. I told him that I knew it and that he did too. It wasn’t until we got into our room and I stepped into the bathroom that I understood the full extent of it. Somehow I had managed to get covered while D remained relatively unscathed-- must have been from following D’s moto through construction sites. It was a bit reminiscent of our days riding through Cambodia when we would end the day with red dirt ground so deeply into our faces that a simple wash wouldn’t change the color.
Anyway, we had managed to stumble upon a relatively nice hotel for one of the cheaper rates that we had been able to find in this tourist area complete with pool, internet, and decent restaurant-- totally empty (thanks coconut guy!).
Unfortunately, I have no pictures to share. Neither D nor I was very inspired by Zihuatanejo despite the awesome last scene of Shaw Shank. It doesn’t really look like that here, or if it did, it’s on the map now and is no longer recognizable.
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