A quick get-away to Mexico's Pacific coast

Back in January, when Lubbock's weather was at its worst and I had just returned from Australia, I looked at my calendar, searching for an unoccupied slot to fill with some fun in the sun. March 1 to 6 seemed to be just ideal, with AA just having reset the annual Loyalty Point meter and a two-day buffer after my return before my next high-school race in Central Texas.

It didn't take long to decide on a destination that I'd never been to before: Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, about 150 miles north of Acapulco in the state of Guerrero.

What should have been a quick two-flight hop down to ZIH turned into a 36-hour ordeal, once again thanks to American Airlines' inability to properly maintain its aircraft. A two-hour departure delay in Lubbock resulted in my missing the one-and-only flight to ZIH by less than 10 minutes, necessitating an overnight stay in Dallas. AA paid for the hotel and, quite generously, set me up with a $12 meal voucher for the extra 24 hours. My-oh-my, how low has this airline sunk?

Saturday's new departure time to Mexico came and went. Finally the pilot announced that an engine warning light was necessitating a visit by a maintenance crew (faster in DFW than in LBB, where service calls are not answered for at least 45 minutes because they are provided by a third-party company). Reset done, we headed out to the tarmac, only to return 15 minutes later for deplaning, shuffling to a new gate, and waiting for spare equipment to show up.

Despite the salmon-avocado toast earlier in the Admirals Club, this was not the greatest way to start a vacation.

Of course, eventually one always arrives. And we did, three hours late. A 30-minute taxi ride later I was at the Grand Azul Ixtapa, an all-inclusive resort just outside of Playa Linda, less of a village than simply the name of a wide sand beach stretching toward the north. My hotel, a modern high-rise with all-oceanfront rooms, was located in a medium-sized bay of the rocky shoreline south of Playa Linda. The hotel featured three large free-form pools, one of them an infinity alberca from where one had an incredible view of the shoreline as well as a small, sandy house beach below. It's easy to give the Grand Azul a 10 out of a possible 10 in regard to location, views, and recreational facilities. My room was on the 17th floor, in the center of the large edifice, with a fantastic view of the bay from my balcony. Since the hotel faces west, the mornings are nice and cool without any direct sun, yet the evenings feature spectacular sunsets. The room was extremely spacious, well designed, with an in-room jacuzzi, minibar, and a comfortable king bed. Housekeeping was impeccable, and even the brand-new coffee maker was resupplied daily with coffee pods.

As an all-inclusive, the Grand Azul featured the usual main buffet restaurant (where I had all my breakfasts and a lunch) as well as a poolside snack bar, perfect for a light lunch. Located just half a kilometer north and reachable via a beautiful, eco-oriented boardwalk above the waves, a sister resort, the Azul Ixtapa, allowed use of its bars and facilities as well. On two of my excursions I ended up having a beer and some lunch over there. If I had a choice of the two, I'd probably go back to the Grand Azul for its location on the rocky shore instead of looking upon the less exciting sand beach of Playa Linda. 

Green is the Grand Azul, red the sister resort, and blue the Oyster Bar mutual fish restaurant for both properties (as seen from Isla Ixtapa)

View of Isla Ixtapa from my balcony

In addition to the buffet, three specialty a-la-carte restaurants are open for dinner. Guests are limited to only two meals per week in the specialty restaurants (computerized reservations are needed, so the hotel can actually keep track of them), but somehow I managed to sweet-talk myself into having dinner every one of my four nights in one of them. Compared to the specialty restaurants that I know from the H10 resorts on the Riviera Maya, I have to say that the food was more innovative and presented in an even more appealing way; the quality was excellent (definitely better than the so-so buffet offerings). Twice I dined in the Mexican restaurant and once in the Asian one (Japanese, Thai, Indonesian, and Chinese). The most pleasurable experience was dining at the Oyster Bar, a small outdoors-only place set on the boardwalk between the two hotels, over the waves and with a magnificent sunset view of Isla Ixtapa. And boy, that food was to kill for!

With only four (instead of five) nights I was left with only three full days that I used for different excursions. On day one, I went for a long hike that first took me through the hills behind the hotel, with panoramic views of the Pacific ocean, Isla Ixtapa, and the wide sand beaches stretching for miles north of Playa Linda. After a mile or so of clambering through an abandoned and overgrown subdivision I walked up and down the beach, which was busy with local families in the immediate vicinity of the beach restaurants and souvenir stands of Playa Linda but after that was almost completely deserted.

For the next day I signed up for a bicycle excursion with a member of the resort's activity team, a young man by the name of César. We were joined by a young Mexican couple, and the four of us rode on well-maintained, new Trek mountain bikes on an excellent ciclopista that traverses the general Ixtapa-Zihuatenejo area to the tune of something like about 45 kilometers. Well, I didn't want to get César into any trouble and thus was the compliant tourist who didn't just hijack the bike but resigned myself to riding just 7 miles in about an hour and a half, with many stops to make sure that the young couple was not too badly worn out. On the way back we stopped by the Cocodrilario in Playa Linda, a natural alligator and bird habitat that is a nicely kept, free tourist attraction.

A wood stork approaching the sanctuary (and more wood storks in the photo above)

For my third escape from the resort I walked the mile or so to the muelle de Playa Linda, a small pier from where water taxis ferry you for about $5 to the Isla Ixtapa. I had read that the island has several pretty beaches dotted with lots of tiny restaurants. The boat ride takes less than 10 minutes, and once on the island there's not much walking that can be done because of the dense vegetation and the lack of any other trails than the ones that connect the beaches. (While the beaches are sandy, the rest of the shoreline is way too rocky to navigate.) As it was a Tuesday, relatively few tourists from the mainland had decided on an excursion. Actually, when I had first seen the lancha service on Sunday, locals with coolers, babies, and grandmothers in tow had been queuing up to get ferried across; the beach at Playa Linda had been equally crowded with locals who were enjoying their day off.

Three days, three nice excursions. The rest of my daytime hours I spent lounging around one of the pools or on the beach, occasionally dipping into the water. It's easy to lose track of time while reading, dozing off to the sound of the incessant waves, or simply enjoying yet another drink. And watching the occasional thirty-year-old out for a private photo shoot was a nice bonus! 

But I think most of my time I spent simply watching the pelicans that were attracted to the obvious superabundance of fish in our bay! In the morning, fishermen in small skiffs would come out and cast nets, and flocks of pelicans and seagulls would mob them; later, when the humans had returned to shore with their daily catch, the pelicans would continue to patrol the area, barely flapping a wing—until their keen eyes would spot prey and an abrupt maneuver initiated a precipitous plunge. The continual dive-bombing into the water went on all day, and quite often they came up with something squiggling in what is caller their gular pouch (or throat sac). It was mesmerizing to watch them and I managed to take some very cool videos of their hunt.

It would have been nice to have had the scheduled fourth day as I would have liked to go on a hike to the south, but that didn't happen. At least I did get to spend a little more pooltime before taking another taxi back to the airport on Wednesday. (Ground transportation is not inexpensive and one has to rely on local taxis as there are no reasonably priced shuttles like on the Riviera Maya. A one-way transfer from/to the airport runs about $35.) ZIH is a fairly small airport, with a two-lane security post and no jet-bridges. Boarding still happens via old-fashioned moveable airstairs, and if you have to use a wheelchair, well, a couple of burly fellas just carry you up or down. Actually, the lack of enclosed ramps gives it all a rather authentic, old-school flavor.

After take-off (on time! no mechanicals!) I got to enjoy a great view of the Grand Azul and was able to really appreciate its perfect location. It might be worth exploring this part of Mexico a little more. The mountains just a little inland were similarly alluring, but I know that the days of exploring those forbidding places the way Wayne or Tim and I did back in the 1990s are long gone.

We made it to DFW on time, and thanks to Global Entry I re-entered the US in less than 45 seconds, despite a huge waiting line for travelers without pre-clearance. Of course, the TSA pre-check line was 14 minutes long while the regular TSA line was pegged at 10. Go figure. After an hour or so in the Admirals Club it was time to mosey over to B46 where, in true American fashion, we were told that the front lavatory was out of order—and then we had to deal with the third mechanical of this trip, which delayed our arrival in Lubbock by yet another 45 minutes. What can I say?

Two different planes on the return, both held together with duct tape. Go American!

Now, 24 hours later (Thursday night), everything is unpacked and washed and I am packed for this weekend's high school race in Burnet. The BMW received an oil change today, I removed four big barrels of dead Live Oak leaves, and I even managed to ride 27 miles with Smitty before going through my accumulated mail. In the evening, I watched the State of the Union address while having a nice Chilean Sea Bass dinner, before sitting down to write most of this blog post. Tomorrow I'll add pics to the words and then pack for my trip to Rome, where I will fly on Monday after driving 700+ miles and working the race on Saturday and Sunday. Man, retired life can be busy!

Jürgen