Manzanillo

Manzanillo is a picture postcard setting, an anchorage that is quite magical and unlike anything you will ever see anywhere in Mexico or Central America. You feel like you have stepped through a window and landed in the Mediterranean. The anchorage is situated in front of a resort called Las Hadas, located in Manzanillo Bay opposite the city and port. Las Hadas means “the fairies”. It was built by a tin magnate from Bolivia and opened for business in 1974. It was constructed in a Moorish style with whimsical architecture with an attempt to bring a bit of the Mediterranean to the Pacific Coast of Mexico. It initially catered to his family, friends and Hollywood A listers. The party began on opening night and continued essentially for 3 years. In 1977, the money ran out and had the property had to be sold. Attempts have been made to manage it as a condo type property, a resort, and a hotel. It has changed hands many times over the years, but it has never recaptured the original hype. Hollywood even tried to promote it when it filmed Bo Derek’s movie “10” on the premises. It is currently managed as a combination of private condos, and hotel/resort. We noted that the staff far outnumbered the guests and it continues to struggle to remain solvent. We even saw posters advertising fundraising events such as silent auctions and bake sales to raise money to complete repairs and maintenance projects. Even in its current state, it is stunning.

Manzanillo itself is a very old city that dates to the 1500’s when the Spanish were trying to establish trade routes to China. It is a natural deep-water bay and has been an important port for centuries and remains one of the busiest ports on the Pacific Coast. We watched freighters coming and going at all hours of the day and night. It is not pretty and does seem dirty but was fun to explore. There are buildings and homes that are carved into and clinging to the cliffs that surround the bay. The central market is extremely bright and vibrant. It is 2 stories with the upper level mostly eateries looking over the vendor stalls below. The vendors sell all manor of fruits and vegetables, chicken, pork, beef and the fresh caught fish of the day. We bought fish, and 2 bags of produce for about four dollars. There is limited refrigeration and it seemed like only the fish vendors had a freezer. The chicken and red meat was all cut up and laid out on tables for people to pick through and choose their cuts. Everywhere we go, I see tables of meat laid out with no packaging, ice or refrigeration. We also notice there is no flies and no odor. I still can not bring myself to buy raw meat yet. I do love their rotisserie chicken though, so yummy.

Our first few days were spent exploring the resort and learning the bus services. The resort is painted all white and the streets are all cobblestone, but no cars are allowed to drive there. The only vehicles are golf carts. There are several pools and restaurants and they have their own beach. If you are not a guest there, you must pay $900 pesos per person to use their beach or pools which is about $50 per person. It seemed a bit ridiculous since the place was essentially empty with only a couple families on the beach and a few people in the main pool and no one in the adult only pool. We did wander and got some amazing pictures but no we did not use their pools. We made a couple trips into the next town to provision and shop at Walmart….uuugghh. Everyone who knows me, knows how painful it is for me to write that and admit to shopping there, but every bus driver knows the word Walmart and we know we can get some essential items there. Far more interesting was our trip into Manzanillo proper. It was nearly an hour bus ride that wound us through the Gringo shopping district, then back through a residential district behind the port and finally to Manzanillo. Our bus driver on the way back to the boat was nothing short of amazing. He looked like he was about 20 years old and he worked his bus like Mario Andretti. At one point he was pulling out onto a busy main street. He was making change, a lady in the isle lost her balance, he caught her and held her up, made change, continued to accelerate and shift and never missed a gear. It helped too that he was jamming to Creedence Clearwater. Like I said, it is a very old city and at first blush it seems dirty, but it is several hundred years old and a working port city. Dave enjoyed one of the best Frappuccino’s I think he has ever tasted while we were taking a break after a long walk and just before a big rain storm dumped on us. Not only was the Frappuccino delicious, it was a work of art.
I was able to do some paddle boarding and some snorkeling. I snorkeled near the shore because when I paddled out the fish got big…. really big and I didn’t know how friendly they were and decided not to find out since they looked about my size. I stayed close in and even got caught up in a school which was pretty exciting and felt National Geographic ish.

After leaving Manzanillo Bay, we went around the corner a mile to Santiago Bay where there was supposed to be good snorkeling. There was an old ship wreck from a previous hurricane that could be snorkeled. I paddled to it several times but the currents surrounding the wreck exceeded my swimming capability, so I could only look from above. I have been rolled now a couple times in the surf and did not want to chance getting rolled into the edges of a hulking metal skeleton of an ocean freighter. I did try to snorkel a coral reef just off the wreck. Sadly, it is all dead because of poor management and tourism. People are dumped off by the boatloads and they walk all over the reef, touching and breaking it. It sits at the mouth of an estuary and with the recent rains, the water was pouring out of the mountains and into the estuary and over the reef, so the clarity was not great either. We did experience our first earthquake while there. It definitely shivered our boat up the anchor chain all the way up the mast. We clearly weren’t thinking following the earthquake and decided to take our garbage in not realizing that the waves would be bigger. Sure enough a big wave grabbed us in our dinghy, flipped us over, washing machined us, dumped us and everything we had in the dinghy out and spitting it out all over the beach and then kindly filled the dinghy and my purse with sand. We looked like a couple drowned rats. We calmly collected everything we could. Deposited our garbage, got back in the dinghy and went back to the boat to dress our wounds and dry out. Dave had clearly wrestled with the motor and had some cuts and bruises and while not bleeding, I had my fair share of bruises as well as I had ended up under the dinghy. If someone had a video of it, I am sure they are $10,000 richer now. Heather our daughter tells of a story where she took a tumble on a ski hill and when it was said and done with it looked like a yard sale happening across the face of the hill. I think we had our own version of a yard sale on the beach.
Our next stop on our way back north was Melaque. We enjoyed that stop for sure and stayed for several days even though the anchorage was not well protected and was quite rolly. There were good food, interesting shopping and very friendly people. Melaque has a very large Canadian population so much more English-speaking people and typical “gringo” food items. Even Uber has made it this far south in the form of Ubercitos which are motorized 3 wheeled vehicles with canvas enclosures about the size of a golf cart. We noticed that the school had significant fencing around it and wondered why. The answer we arrived at was not what we expected. Education here seems to be a privilege and honor, even at the elementary age level. Not everyone gets to go to school and possibly, from what we observed, within family units maybe only one of the children gets to go to school. Entire family units walked to school with the student and then instead of leaving, they remained near the school grounds throughout the school day. Different family members came and went as other family demands dictated but the child on the school grounds was definitely well supported throughout their day. So the fence was there to minimize the distractions from the rest of the family. It is very hard for me to wrap my brain around the fact that not all children in our world have access to basic education. Our trip south was definitely memorable but we didn’t want to venture too far south. We are planning our first trip home, flying out of Puerta Vallarta and didn’t want to get stuck somewhere and not be able to get back in time. North beats are definitely challenging and not so much fun.