Sand, Surf, Margaritas and Pyramids: A Zihuatanejo Vacation

My hair puffed out in seconds with the humidity of the air. Oh how I’ve missed that kind of air. From the bus that took us to the hotel I could see hundreds of mango trees packed with fruit and no shortage of tall palm trees carrying coconuts. It was a nice tropical welcome.

We were a group of 21. All family related. It might sound like a bad idea but it was actually a blast. After surviving countless summer vacations 24/7 with my own family this was mellow. The next 8 days went by fast hanging on the beach, playing daily volleyball tournaments (where I was just a cheerleader), dancing salsa, eating way too much and surfing.

Playa Quieta, sort of looks like a Corona Advertisment doesn’t it?

Visually (and photographically) the two highlights of the trip were the place we surfed every day, Playa Linda, and the pyramids. Most of the pictures you see below are of a beach called Playa Linda. The first morning of the trip we woke up before sunrise and drove over to the closest surfable beach. Normally, Playa Linda is one of the worst waves in the Zijuantanejo area, but do to an abnormally good sand bank, there were these fun lefts peeling down the beach with almost nobody in the water. The thing that shocked me most about the place wasn’t the waves (they were fun, but far from perfect) but the view from the water.

The river valley behind the wave that we surfed everyday.

The wave was located at the end mouth of a beautiful river mouth and the beach was lined with black sand and greenery, a much different scene then a usual surf in Southern California. Most of the pictures below I took at that beach. Every morning we would arrive before sunrise, and as we surfed, the sun would rise up through the thin layer of mist creating these incredible colors and patterns. The moment I got in the water without a wetsuit and didn’t get the shivers I knew I wasn’t going to have any trouble surfing. And indeed I didn’t. I surfed every single morning (and one afternoon). Thankfully, the ocean gods cooperated and it was never too big or nasty.

Matt, Richard and Kik, just three of our 8 person dawn patrol crew.

Matt and Kik.

By day 5 of the trip, we were getting pretty sick of the routine, so we decided to go check out an archaeological dig. We arrived and we found these incredible pyramids with little to no fan-fair. In fact we were the only ones there. When we arrived to the museum near the pyramids the attendant there was nice enough to give us a personal tour and we learned all about the tribes that inhabited the area a couple of hundred years ago. The story goes that this area was basically a “state” of the Aztec empire which provided infrastructure like roads to different tribes that used in inhabit the territory that is now the state of Mexico. Their system was so advanced that they even had a way to pay taxes! Their history is a long and bloody one that ended in 1300 when a Tsunami wiped out the whole valley in which these pyramids are located. I love seeing historical artifacts and its fascinating to see how different their world was than ours today.

This is the court for that ritualistic game that used to be played by Aztec Peoples.

Near the pyramids, there were these mounds with patterns of rocks which were used for rituals

This is the symbol of the tribe that inhabited this area.

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