A Week In Paradise

This blog has been silent for slightly more than a week because we jetted off to a week in paradise.  On Tuesday, December 3rd, we put the pups in boarding and drove to Northern Virginia to spend the night with our eldest son’s family prior to a 6 a.m. flight out of Dulles International Airport for Mexico, via a layover in Detroit.  Don’t ask me who thought that was a good route, but it is the way it happened.  We landed in Mexico City in the early afternoon and did the customs/immigration business, had a light lunch in the airport while awaiting our air shuttle hop over to Zihuatanejo, located about 150 miles north of Mexico southern border on the Pacific Ocean.

It is located on a sheltered bay and is a small fishing village with hotels, boutique hotels, restaurants, and recreation opportunities surrounding the bay.  Our destination was Casa del Platero (http://www.casadelplatero.net/ ) owned by our cousin and his wife, who we were visiting.  When they are not there visiting and performing maintenance, the house is a vacation rental, just check out the link above.

Their home is beautiful, set in a secure walled setting with gardens of tropical plants, a lovely open dining porch and an open napping porch for the downstairs house, a tiled infinity pool overlooking the bay shared by the upstairs and downstairs houses and colorfully cushioned seating throughout.

The house sits just above Playa la Ropa, a beach of white sand with available sailing, parasailing, swimming and fishing right there.

Hubby parasailing

The next beach over, a short walk on a rocky path or a quick hop on a water taxi is a row of vendors of food and equipment for snorkling with strolling musicians and Indians hawking their wares from handmade shell and stone jewelry, Mexican pottery, baskets, to fresh tropical fruits on skewers and lots more white sand.

We walked, sailed, snorkeled, swam in the pool, ate and rested until there was no stress to be found.  The village and surrounds have restaurants that serve seafood, traditional Mexican food, Italian, Thai, even American hamburgers.  There are Indian market stalls selling painted pottery, silver jewelry, T shirts and embroidered Mexican shirts, leather goods, coffee and vanilla.  We were there during the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe and saw parades  on the streets and the water, entertainment every night on the waterfront and fireworks.

It is a beautiful location to visit and our cousin’s home has a delightful couple that serve as caretakers and cooks for guests staying with them or renting their home.  If you need a place to unwind in the tropical weather, this is the spot.

We arrived back last night to snow on the ground in Northern Virginia and along our route back, evidence of the ice storm we missed and awoke today to a balmy 23f degrees.  I think it is already time to go back.