It didn’t take us long to notice that there are a lot of parties in Mexico. We noticed the first night we got to La Paz last November and the pace has never really changed. Mexico has parties and celebrations ALL the time. Zihuatanejo is no exception. The week before we got there was Sail-Fest, then International Guitar Fest., which we attended. The week after Guitar Fest was Carnival (Carnaval in Spanish). That leads up to holy week (the week before Easter).
Carnaval starts with a beauty pageant to crown Miss Zihuatanejo and a King of Joy. The beauty pageant had lots of yelling and music that we could hear on our boat! This year’s Carnaval theme was Craturas Fantastico (fantastic creatures) so some of the murals around town were repainted to have dragons and krakens on them and there was a big sea serpent sculpture in the town central traffic circle. There were dragon heads decorating the Malecón near the beach. There’s Mexican street food, light-up trinkets to wear on your head, live music, Mardi Gras beads, and a “la quema del mal humor” (burning of the bad mood), a symbolic “out with the old, in with the new.” An effigy is torched to start off the six-day program.
At the end of the week there was a parade of large floats featuring (you guessed it) Fantastic Creatures. Activities, including this parade, start late in the evening and last into the night. Each float was accompanied by a dance troupe that stopped and did a performance at several points along the parade route. The parade was long and there were lots of tired little kids that got to stay up late and watch it.
As the week came to a close we began to plan our exit from the bay. Time to leave this magical place called Zihuatanejo after anchoring here for 2 weeks. There was some bottom cleaning to take care of (imagine cleaning your gutters underwater while holding your breath but every few weeks instead of once a year). Yuk! We scheduled our departure for 0230 on Tuesday morning after Carnaval for a 190 NM non-stop trip back to Las Hadas. This would be the beginning of our trip back North and a symbolic conclusion of going to brand new places this year.
We reached nearly 17 degrees latitude this cruising season. Hundreds of miles further than we’ve ever been and considering we started at 47 degrees latitude we feel like we’ve gone a long way. We also had to part with new friends along the way. This is always bittersweet because you don’t know when you will cross paths again. Some of us were continuing South and others taking up different schedules to get back North. By the time we left Zihuatanejo, the harbor had gone from crowded to mostly empty as boat after boat departed and cruisers waving good-bye!
We are now hanging out in Tenacatita waiting for our next weather window so we can continue working our way North. This is not a bad place to be stuck 🙂
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