Layne has fond memories of Zihuatanejo, the city of women I'm told in the Indio language of the area. However her nostalgia dates back to law school, and she has no proven history with water bombs at Hastings School of Law I should note. Back in those distant days of the Pleistocene Era Layne and friends would come repeatedly to Zihuatanejo on vacation. "Rather," I said. "In the manner of people who return to Key West year after year for the same vacation experience?" She glared at me as she prides herself on being an explorer of different places each vacation. Finding ourselves unexpectedly close to Zihuatanejo we were going to look for a place to stop for a week.
I am including here some road pictures taken by me with my Panasonic Lumix LX100, my pocket camera which I keep in automatic mode at my elbow while I drive to snag pictures as we as we go. I haven't edited them or cropped them, they are direct from the camera to show you what one main road looks like on a typical drive. Obviously there are miles of nothing much, greenery, stretches of no shoulders, a few guard rails and so forth between pueblos, miles of little of interest to photograph. Then every now and again the main road, and even the toll roads pass through pueblos (villages) full of life. In the picture below you see the sign on the right and you can hear Layne shouting "Taupe!" to remind me to slow the eff down. In the middle of the road at the second tope (speed bump) is a guy selling bread rolls (which we had just bought from a señora standing in the road). He stands where the traffic is forced to slow and holds out his plastic bag. A buck fifty (30 pesos ) for four. We gave our seller two twenties and left the change. Fifty cents to brighten her day a bit.
Some gringos on travel forums complain about over tipping setting a bad precedent but when I dropped a five dollar bill in a beggar's cup outside Walmart I took on faith he really does have to use a wheelchair. His lack of one leg was a pretty good hint. Yeah, I over tipped him but so what? Gouging gringos in the nicest possible way is a way to make ends meet in Mexico and I'm okay with that. I can afford to pay more and leave some extra money for people and put out some dog food for street dogs. I can't save the planet but I can do something that is more than nothing. Others don't have to, and I hold no expectations, just as Mexicans and their dogs hope but don't expect. You’d be surprised how generous North Americans are when they make a connection to a place, with scholarships, animal rescue, and civic projects galore.
We knew Guerrero is a wealthy state when we saw street signs like this below, never before seen in Michoacán. The white collectivo van is about to deploy the magic third lane by edging onto the well marked shoulder. I did the same as I saw the cars lining up to pass. I enjoy driving Mexico.
Check out the next few pictures to see what a hive of activity a pedestrian overpass might be. I always thought a bridge like this might be useful over North Roosevelt Boulevard instead of the traffic lights but clearly I am no urban planner. They use ramps not steps to allow pedestrians and wheelchairs and bicycles to cross. Which isn't to say people actually use the bridge!
The bridge also serves as a bus stop for the Nissan and Toyota minivans that act as collectivos between cities (as mentioned above). A collectivo is a minivan that serves a fixed route and picks up and drops off passengers as they go. It's cheap and reliable and absolutely universal by any name in less developed countries (tuk-tuk or guagua for instance. Google knows!). You'll see them hovering around bridges like buffalo at a water hole. Note the tope below...were you braking for it?
North Americans will squawk a lot about armed police in Mexico, military, sailors or Guardia Nacional and people who watch too much television talk a great deal about corruption and bribes and if they only know one word of Spanish it will be the word for bribe. What once may have been is not any longer but it's impossible to change people's minds. Mexico has a tremendous problem with drug cartels, organizations that shoot each other up and are now so loaded with cash they are struggling to launder themselves into legitimacy. In between all this the Mexican government armed by the US is trying to keep the peace. If you've ever been to Los Angeles and not worried about the Crips versus the Bloods having a turf war you can do the same in Mexico. Its true the price of limes has shot up as well as avocados owing to the cartels buying up farmland, or blackmailing farmers and wrecking price balance, but for those of us trading with US dollars the price increases on our vacation shopping are insignificant. Small restaurants are hurting and limes to squeeze on your food are getting fewer and smaller and less juicy. Please don't use Mexican cocaine and create demand for the cartels. Thank you. Do your bit.
People take great joy in crushing the hopes of others in so many walks of life it shouldn't surprise me when I see mischievous lies repeating themselves about travel in Mexico. It can be dangerous and shit does happen. Real shit, armed robberies by punks, not cartels who ignore tourists who stick to the roads and their vacations. Police do their jobs and I always suspect attitude tickets when I hear people bitching about corruption and on the spot fines. There may be some efforts to extort a few bucks from an inattentive driver and I read lots about it in Baja where I suspect a lot of visitors come with attitude to "their corner" of Mexico. Frankly I'd pay twenty bucks to get on with my life if I made a stupid driving decision. On the mainland I've seen nothing but courtesy and kindness from Mexicans in uniform and civilians. I never saw any corruption in my years at Key West PD but I saw a lot of attitude tickets. It's a worldwide phenomenon. Imagine how many attitude tickets the average server would give to the public if they could! 
Next Monday we are renting our AirBnb apartment in Zihuatanejo for a week as there aren't any decent options for camping that we like. We checked out the address and found a business nearby to park the overly tall Gannet2 next to the apartment house. There is an arch over the entrance that will prevent us getting the van inside but in Mexico there is always a solution to any given problem. I asked Eric at the car cleaner and he said no problem, see you Monday. Of course things may change by then so I count on nothing for sure! More on all that in due course. We drove through Zihuatanejo and headed for Barra de Potosi and a campground rumored to exist on iOverlander.
Twenty minutes south of Zihuatanejo we found this place run by Señora Ana who rents out her house and an apartment and has room for a couple of smaller RVs though she prefers to rent the camping space to one vehicle at a time she says. We are the vehicle this week. It seems her rates are high as she charges twenty five bucks a night or 400 US dollars a month. A couple of sets of Canadian campers have been put off by the prices, thank God, and we rich Americans are alone in her garden. We have WiFi so I'm typing this not on my iPhone but on my MacBook for a pleasant change as it helps reduce the spelling mistakes and syntactical nonsense that seeps into long phone messages. We also have a cold shower, a toilet with toilet paper and a beach which though small does allow some swimming on days with no wind.
We have landed on our feet though I have to point out our heavy camper did decided to sink us into the sand quite unexpectedly as we backed into the camping area. Thank God we backed in else we'd have had to call a tow truck to get us out eventually. As it was... (drum roll please)...we winched ourselves out! How d'you like them apples?
I tried the orange Go Treads but when the van reached the end of the tread the front wheels broke through the crust of hard sand and the back tires sank in and we stopped. So I deployed the winch as well and tried driving out while pulling with the winch. Mixed success as we went further but still got stuck...I gave no signs of my inner desperation to my wife.
In the photo above I am clutching the metal shackle and dangling the yellow rope shackle which I actually didn't need. Just in case you were wondering. I was wondering when I first saw it. I didn't get fancy. I ran the rope around a palm trunk and used the metal shackle to secure it. Then I sat in the driver's seat and used the remote control to tension the winch. I put the van in first gear, locked the front wheel drive to create an electronic "locked differential" with the ESC button and we flopped around digging into the sand while being dragged by the winch. That's not good I thought too myself continuing to smile as I worked on the puzzle.
Running the winch with the van in neutral produced a satisfactory tug but then the winch paused and tugged again and paused and tugged which was working but not well. So I revved the engine in neutral which increased amperage and gave a a very nice steady pull without the van driving at all. Out we came and suddenly Gannet2 was sitting atop the sand. We were free. Amazing!
Rusty was useless during the entire process, not even as a cheerleader but now that we are settled and the tools of sand removal are put away he is a happy camper, sleeping in the shade, walking twice a day and sleeping outside at night until we feel obliged to call him in. He loves being outdoors.
We plan to be here till Sunday so expect to see more pictures in the days ahead. I have to say I enjoy the solitude and the restaurant across the street more than we even enjoyed Barra de Nexpa and the surfer camp. No one to water bomb us here! No dogs to bother Rusty and he is very respectful of Ana's rooster and two cats. Peace and harmony; just the way I like it. But first a little clean up!
My super duper folding shovel came into play. More fun than answering 911 but this whole episode smacked of work.
We ended up backing up a little after I smoothed out the extensive divots...gouges really.
You have to keep tension on the winch rope as you wind it back up to prevent the rope from riding over itself. I have the remote control in my left hand:
Our small beach with a lovely sunset view.
