beaches, adventure, wild animals, OH MY!!!!

Alrighty, so in the past couple of days we´ve been out to Ixtapa (to Playa la Palmara), over to Playa Larga (in between Zihua and the Airport) and taken an easy day (today).

Ixtapa was beautiful. We got there early in the morning, the waves were great, and even though at the end of the day some hardcore mexican surfers tried to kick us out of the water, but we were WAY too tough for them, and stayed anyway...just sort of far away. I got some great shots of Alex body surfing. I did too, just not quite as much. And he discovered that there´s a place we can go to swim with dolphins if we want to. it´s about $150 american, so we´re still kind of thinking about it, although after Playa Larga we might not have to. (Alex will tell you about that.)

After Ixtapa we headed to Playa la Ropa, which is in Zihuatanejo but closer to our hotel. (No buses or taxis required, although we did take a bus back, because we´re getting old. HAHA!!!!)

On the walk there, we saw a Mexican bug that alex wanted a picture of. :D

Nothing all that great happened there. it was sandy. i got salt water in my eyes. we felt kinda gross. alex upstaged me in every possible way (in the water) BUT discovered that he had a GINORMOUS hole in his bathing suit. (haha) there will be pictures of that later. we DID end up getting him a new bathing suit the following day, however, before we headed to Playa Larga. THAT beach has a great story that he gets to tell because it´s embarassing for me and he thinks i won´t tell it properly, which i won´t...because i don´t like to look like a wuss.

Playa Larga

Alex: well that was the best beach we have been to so far. for waves anyway. they were really big, but the weren´t the best surfing waves. we didn´t get any pictures of the big waves here but from where a wave broke I could usually touch the sea bottom and from there to the tip was usually around 2 and 1/2 of me tall so about 15 feet tall. they were alot of fun and some were a bit painful. there was a stip of empty resturants along the beach. it looked like maybe people came on the weekend or something. we got some cheese casadillas and some gigantic classes of processed oj:

I think that there may have been smaller but our waiter spoke no english. and as always our spanish is very limited. at least we got orange juice and not fish juice. After breakfast I went body surfing and Stacey read her book for alittle while. I was a bit farther out in the water then I should have been then I saw a dorsal fin. the fact that I was in the ocean was both good and bad. bad because I thought there was a good chance I had come within a few feet of two sharks, and good because it didn´t matter when I peed myself. I swam to shore faster then I have ever swam in my whole life. I ran to the life guard and was able to comunicate to him my experience and he explained that these were dolphins, definatly not sharks. a sigh of relief. then I ran to stacey to get pictures but we were two late.
then she came and joined me in the surf. she held her own for quite some time and got some good distence. then she got hit by a couple of big waves at a time. I should explain that with body surfing if you don´t get the timing just right the wave will pick you up and then slam you into the sand. it is very disorienting to say the least, especially if it happens to you a bunch of times consecutively as it did to Stacey. this called for break for Stacey, I kept going. Stacey came back for round two after not two long. it was fine for a while and stacey powned a couple of biggies. then we noticed that we were a bit far from shore and tryed to swim in. suddenly noticing that there had been a wind current change and therefore a water current change. pulling us along the coast away from our restaurant and our stuff. this made it difficult but not impossible to get to shore. difficult enough however for Stacey to have a minor panic attack. there was alittle bit of screaming for land. enough for our poor, kind waiter to hear and run to our rescue with a boogie board and his jeans still on. just as we were almost home free. Weren´t exactly sure why he joined us in the water with his jeans on at first. despite the language barrier I was able to discerne from the wet jeans, worried look, and the words ¨for buoyancy,¨ that he thought we were drowning and had come to save us. By my standards we were never in any real danger, despite the drama of the incident.

Once Stacey had regained her breath, and calmed down she realized the hilarity of the experience and quickly became very embarresed. we were fine although given my shark experience I could understand how she felt.

we stopped for a while to get something to eat. we had to eat at the same restaunt cause I felt I had to tip this waiter not for his food service but for his heroic behavior. I had another casadilla, Stacey attemped to order shrimp, instead she got this:

she also got ANOTHER friend to keep her company:

A rather scary looking beast, no?
I gave the waiter a rather large tip and insisted on getting his picture. next to me he looks like a meager mexican boy, but I assure you he is hearty of spirit:

after dinner the dolphins came back and we got a blurry shot you kinda have to hunt for them, ha, on the far left

I went surfing for a couple more hours and Stacey read some more, when the sun started to go down we packed up to leave. on our way out I notice our waiter listening to Rammstein on a video juke box. I sung along with him for a song. I gather he was a big fan. all in all an eventful day but don´t worry moms everybody is safe.

Stacey: ok...so....it wasn´t SO bad and right after we got out of the water i was totally fine. so just....stop worrying mom. i´m ok. stop it!!

it was a lot of fun but i was so embarassed that i couldn´t bring myself to go back into the water for the rest of the day which resulted in....dun dun dun....the BEST SUNBURN GAINED THROUGH RIDICULOUSNESS!!!!

it´s not so bad today. i look less...umm...beet-like. it was unfortunate at the time though, and showering and sleeping were....adventures.....*cough*

i finished my book!!! ha.

anyway....that was our big adventure.

we tried to watch Zathura today at the movie theatre but there was some confusion, and turns out, it was in Spanish. not subtitled in Spanish...no no...ACTUALLY in Spanish, which is really too bad. i didn´t know Tim Robbins was in it. HA!

and that´s all for now kids!! we have some random pictures of Zihuatanejo, and you´ll hear from us again soon.

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!

alex at the pizza place close to our hotel. i think this really accents his....umm....gaping maw?

this dog´s nipples were enormous, so alex took a picture. it´s just a street dog and it followed us around for a while until a guy alex thought was sweet on me scared it away.

oh yeah...alex accidentally bought some of that kid´s changing color sunscreen and i´m a horrible person, so i put this on his back. HAR HAR!!!

there´s a China Town in Zihuatanejo. go figure!!!

i thought i might want to eat this rotten coconut, THANKFULLY alex talked me out of it. that could´ve been ugly. (not really. just...calm down.)

DAD!!! YOU GET A NEW HAT!!!!

on the way back from Playa Larga we stopped into a pseudo department store because i wanted a shirt, and we´d been there previously for a towel (don´t worry Rhona, it wasn´t expensive), and alex had spotted this suit. he tried it on and decided to buy it!!! (Rhona again, he thought you´d be so proud, it was $25. and i didn´t have anything to do with it!! i just told him it looked swell.) he looks very handsome.

well....handsome and...expressionless. he was happy about it. i assure you.

every morning before we leave our hotel, and every night before we go inside, we see this scary mannequin. it´s almost directly across from our window and kind of looks in. it freaks me out a little, honestly.

this parrot was huge. alex was afraid it was going to bite him. i figured he´d be ok, on account of the cage, but he was still wary.

there´s the movie theatre. apparently it used to have a huge hole in the roof, and some birds flew through and pooped in alex´s popcorn. luckily, the threat has been removed.

we went to the museum of archeology today. it took all of 15 minutes to see the entire thing, and this whale vertebrae, which is bigger than my entire upper torso.

a replica of a spaniard boat at the museum.

right outside the internet cafe we´re in is this awesome mural!!! this place is amazing!!! haha.

this is also just outside our door at the hotel. i think they´re just beautiful.

and last but not least, the Hotel Ulises, which was the last hotel Alex stayed in, across from the Naval Military base. we decided not to stay there this time. something about trumpets. ha.

Hasta Luego!!!!!

-Stacey and Alex