Morelia, then Zihuatanejo

We have some stuff to catch up on from Morelia, here is a quick taste:
The Church of the Virgin of Guadalupe: like an inside out birthday cake! With pink and gilt and flowers and more gold gilt!
The Aqueduct: neato and pretty and finally a carless street. Also, this neighborhood seemed nicer than the others we saw in Morelia. More like one we'd want to live in. However, it is the University neighborhood and we were there on the weekend, when the vast majority of the students go home.
The Natural History Museum: Poor Peter. He had gotten kind of excited about the term "skeletal animals" in our guidebook. They had some woolly mammoth bones, but that was about it. In another room they had some stuffed animals, and a note about how we have to preserve nature. Then there was a room where three children and two adults were making construction paper monarch wings. Then, in the last room, they had, well, they had human fetuses. And they had some stuffed siamese animals -- baby goats (I think) joined at the head, or joined at the body. That room, it was horrible. It made the whole place seem creepy. Me: Peter, they're going to eat those children!
The Contemporary Art Museum: Surprisingly nice (especially after the above). They have changing exhibits, and this was a painting and drawing contest results. Some were really interesting and some were really good. It was a nice space and we enjoyed walking through it.
The Orquidario: We took the combi out there. It's next to the convention center, and we walked by a dog show. The orchid house itself only had one house open, the other two were used for cultivation. The orchids were beautiful, but I think the place I visited in Guatemala was more exciting, or the annual orchid show in San Francisco.

One more meal at Restaurant Lu while we waited for the weekly fireworks show to start over the cathedral (that's right, I said weekly): I had a great chicken dish: pounded and grilled and wrapped around fresh pineapple, with a delicious peanut-based mole sauce on top. My fear of peanut-butter and jelly was unfounded -- the sauce was not sweet but instead was complex. It reminded me of pumpkin seed moles, which I love.

Peter was hit hard by the cold (not flu) and had to take it easy for a few days in Morelia. When he was feeling better, we hit the above places, and then came down to Zihuatanejo, the beach.

On the bus here, I saw an iguana sunning on the sloped side of the freeway.

As we got off the bus, I heard, alongside all the normal bus sounds, a ton of birds. It was just about sunset, and I could peek through the rafters outside and see tons of birds swarming everywhere. Even once we passed into the interior of the station, there were tons of birds swarming all over the roof there, squawking it up.

We are staying on Playa La Ropa, (Clothes Beach - named for a ship that crashed and spilled its cargo of silks up onto the beach), which is two beaches over from the main beach. It's quieter than that one, I imagine, and cleaner. It is a good beach for swimming, at all times except at night, when the crocodiles come out from the lagoon into the ocean. The first morning, I noticed that nobody was swimming. I asked one of the women staying in our hotel, and she said that a crocodile -- 10-feet long! -- had not returned to the lagoon yet, and was still in the ocean. There was a boat and some men on shore with poles who were trying to find it to guide it home. They were also warning any potential swimmers. Eventually, they decided it must have gone home, because there was no sign of it.

Our hotel bungalow is directly on the beach with a little patio facing the water. It is rustic, and the fridge needs a little help in closing, but it's a great location and I think the bed is comfortable, and the ceiling fan over it really works well.

The beach is hot, but there are constant breezes to cool you down, especially in the shade of the palapas and coconut palms. There are simple lounge chairs for our hotel, and not many people staying there.

We don't do much. Last night we went into town to eat at a place I had read about online, Tamales y Atole Any. I don't love tamales usually, but these were great. Mine had rajas (poblano chilies), cheese, and epazote (a green herb). Peter got the chile verde.

From there, we went to the super huge supermarket (the traditional mercado was closed, or we would have gone there) to get supplies so that we don't have to pay too much for mediocre beach food.

There are people walking up and down the beach selling junk, and they have para-sailing, but it's not as intense as other beaches we have been to in Mexico -- though it might also be that we're further down the beach from the hubbub. Today we went up to a restaurant for lunch that the people staying in our hotel recommended, and there, and along the way, we got hit up more. There was a man who basically would provide anything we wanted -- snorkel? horseback riding? ganja? We turned him down on all counts, and as we walked on, I pointed out that if I had not been there, he might have suggested much more to Peter.

Lovely sunset tonight. Last night was less exciting, with just the red ball of the sun sinking and then gone behind mist. Tonight there was more color and excitement. I don't know if I have been on a beach in Mexico with a sunset view -- even the pacific beaches (Yelapa) I have been on before faced the wrong way.

Tomorrow we might go see the crocodiles at the lagoon - they also have parrots and iguanas.