Z to Rancho Buganvilla, Manzanillo

Once out of of Zihuatanejo we rolled past Ixtapa and through Lazaras Cardenas and held off our lunch break until 2:30 where we pulled off the road by a vacant lot next to a Pemex.





After a restful break we pressed on along the windy but beautiful Michoacan coast. Here the diesel pusher again proved it's worth, taking the hills and curves well, the exhaust brake doing a lot to reduce braking effort. That, and by limiting our lunch stop to less than an hour, we made good time, arriving at our destination, Rancho Buganvilia by 5:30.





This is a nice spacious park owned by an American couple; good services, friendly owners and neighbours, and a refreshing breeze off the ocean. We booked in for two nights and were quickly set up and Gillian took the dogs for a run on the beach. After a beer with the owners we returned to the rig to feed Trekker and Tia and finally sat down to our own supper, tonight grilled chicken salad, while the pups relaxed after a long stressful day.







While at Ranch Buganvilia we ran into new old friends Bill and Margaret from the Yukon whom we had met first in Huatulco in November and again last week as they walked through the restaurant at El Manglar. In Huatulco they had explained that they had had a few dings and dents in the rig and were considering getting it repainted here in Mexico. We were planning on having Juan Salazar in Mazatlan do some work for us, so we gave them his contact info. We realised that we would probably meet them again in Mazatlan as our travel schedules were close.



Sunday morning we waved goodbye to Bill and Margaret as they set of on their way north and after our breakfast and walking the dogs Art took a break from driving and watched the scenery go by as Gillian played chauffeur on our way by car to Manzanillo, a couple of hours to the north.

This city was just another city, the centro historico is pretty and clean though quite small and unprepossessing, really nothing of note other than a few monuments to its marine heritage. We walked around for a while with the dogs and Art got a shoeshine, then we drove out to the hotel area and more by luck that trying, found ourselves at the Hotel Las Hadas, where the movie 10 was filmed many years ago. The food was good and reasonably priced except for the beer–42 pesos per bottle. (The norm is 15 to 20 pesos.) The hotel beach was surprisingly small and uninspiring. After our late lunch we returned to the rig, getting back in time to watch the sunset from the front of the motorhome.


Art is quite annoyed with himself as he managed to delete the folder containing about a weeks worth of pictures from our "car" camera, including all the pictures of Manzanillo. No great loss, but annoying all the same.