Zihautanejo, Mexico

By Wally Lien, For The West Side Newspaper

I love to travel, and have written many articles about my adventures for this paper over the years. Retirement has opened up more time for my passion, and I am taking advantage of it. All travel comes with some risks, especially now with international unrest. I seem to be able to dodge the trauma, at least so far. I was on a cruise in the Eastern Caribbean during the first week of January. Our ship was in the vicinity of all the naval action against Venezuela, and the capture of Maduro. It was a little scary, but luckily we were not impacted. 

In February, I spent a couple of weeks in Zihautanejo, Mexico, and departed that beautiful area just the day before the Cartel took over Puerto Vallarta. Another piece of luck. But enough of dodging bullets.

If you are a fan of the movie Shawshank Redemption, you are aware of the small Mexican beach town of Zihautanejo, where Andy dreamed of escaping to, and where he and Red ended up together at the end of the flick.

Zihautanejo is located on the Pacific Ocean south of Puerto Vallarta and north of Acapulco, on the 17th parallel. February is a great month to visit as the temperatures stay in the low 80s, and it never rains. The beaches are large and plentiful, and the fishing is good.

Our group of six rented a 3 bedroom condo at Playa Blanca about eight miles south of the city of Zihautanejo.  Playa Blanca (White Beach) is a resort area that is only about 60% developed. It is close to the airport, but far enough away that the three planes in, and three planes out a day didn’t bother us at all. There is only one road, and it dead ends at a rural village called Barre de Potosi located on a lagoon populated by more pelicans than you can imagine.

There is a lot to do in this area.  Some in our party spent a day snorkeling. I did a little fishing and caught Spanish Mackerel. By far the most fun we had was cooking with a local family in the fishing village. This was arranged through a tour company. We met the local rep at the taxi stand in Potosi, and walked to a small local house. It was not much more than a concrete block square, with a tacked-on shelter in the back where we cooked, and two more enclosures used as part of the family home. The sink was a 50 gallon plastic bin filled with water with a floating bowl to get the water out. It was poverty personified. This family of 15 was barely existing, but seemingly happy and well nourished.

The lady of the house insisted on being called Mama, as she was obviously the matriarch here. She was assisted by her daughter Anna, a beautiful lady in her 20s who wove vegetable hammocks from nylon fishing line and sold them for a couple of bucks each. The menu consisted of us making salsa, guacamole, Spanish rice, shrimp, beans, sailfish and sopas (tortilla type shell which was used as the container for the beans, once they were cooked). The shrimp and fish were cooked two ways, one was sauteed with garlic and the other was grilled.

The kitchen was rustic. There was a two burner propane stove top on a counter. A blender and a mud-formed wood fireplace with a metal serving type pan that acted as the grill. There was a microwave, but it was heaped up on a junk pile in the corner and most likely hadn’t worked in this century.

We weren’t given any recipes, only instructions from Mama, who spoke almost no English. Cooking is pretty universal, and soon Mama and I were in sync. All the ingredients were fresh and local. The sailfish had been filleted before our arrival, but I was instructed to butterfly the shrimp. 

While my companions made the salsa and guac, I was stationed at the burners to begin the beans and rice. The beans were a standard brown bean, soaked for several hours before we arrived. I was instructed to put a little oil in the pot together with a slice of onion, and heat up the oil to infuse it with an onion flavor. The soaked beans were then added to the pot together with a half a cup or so of water, and the pot was brought to a simmer. Once the beans were simmering, I was given what looked like a potato masher, a flat metal surface with holes on the end of a handle. I spent several minutes smashing down the beans to a thick paste. The beans were then set aside to become the main ingredient in the sopas. 

Next came the rice. Mama again put oil in the pot with a slice of onion, and after a minute or so of that, she added a couple of cups of rice. She then turned the rice over to me with instructions to stir. Effectively, we were toasting the rice kernels, which gave the rice a very unique flavor. While I was toasting the rice, Mama put several tomatoes, some garlic and onion in a blender with a cup or two of water and gave it good pounding. She then poured the blender mix into my rice pot and advised I needed to keep stirring, which I did for nearly 10 minutes, as the rice soaked up the liquid and turned a beautiful light red color.

The rice was then set aside as I butterflied the shrimp, and separated the shrimp and fish onto two different plates, one for the garlic saute and the other for the grilling. I was nominally in charge of the garlic shrimp and fish, and a companion was put in charge of grilling the seafood. The sautee began like everything else, a bit of oil and a slice of onion, but then included several cloves of crushed garlic. The seafood was not allowed in the pan until Mama felt certain the oil had been properly infused with the onion and garlic flavors. The sailfish was a thin fillet and it cooked very quickly, and Mama was happy when I pulled it out of the pan. However, when the shrimp were done, Mama did not want them removed from the pan. I said “done” several times and was told “no” every time. They were way overcooked, and mostly rubberized when put on the plate, but the flavor was very nice anyway.

The sopa dough was already made and waiting for us. As best I could discern, the dough is maseca (corn flour) and water. Mama made up one for me to learn from, and it seemed easy enough until I flubbed a couple in the beginning. From the bowl you grab up enough dough to roll into a ball about twice the size of a golf ball. Mama had a well used tortilla press, that had a plastic sheet on the bottom, and another to put on top of the dough. The key is to use a light press, which will give you a five inch round tortilla that is about an eighth of an inch thick, remove it gently from the press, peel off the plastic wrap, then lay the tortilla on the counter. Since the sopa is going to be filled with the bean mix, it is necessary to form about a quarter of an inch rim all the way around the tortilla so that it becomes a low shouldered bowl. The finished raw sopa is then placed on the grill for a minute or so, then retrieved. We made twelve in total, and the more I made the better I got at doing it. When the sopa was taken off the grill, we filled it with the beans, and added Mexican white cheese to the top. The sopa then went back on the grill for a quick melting of the cheese.

I also helped with the making of the Hibiscus water. The flowers had been cooked in water before we arrived, and were steeping as we began cooking. As the cooking progressed, I was told to strain the flowers and add water and sugar to the Hibiscus concentrate. I got no reaction as I filled the pitcher partially with the water and Hibiscus concentrate, but a great guffaw from Mama as I put in what she considered to be too much sugar. I tasted it, thought it still needed more sugar,  and added a bit, to the laughter of all. It was not a flavor I enjoyed, but most thought it to be wonderful, if not a bit too sweet.

When all was cooked, we sat down at their table, situated between the stove area and grill and had lunch with our guide Enrique and his partner, who coordinated the event and was our interpreter when needed for Mama and Ana. We smiled, laughed, talked, and had a truly wonderful meal with Mama and her daughter.

Zihautanejo is the poor older sister to the city of Ixtapa. The difference is night and day. Ixtapa is new, cluttered with high rise hotels, resorts, and condominiums. It is affluent, if not a bit snooty. It has a very nice bay, and a modern marina, but is populated mostly by tourists. It is a stark contrast to Zihautanejo where buildings are old and not taller than three stories. While there are a few tourists around, by far the majority of folks on the street are locals. Old Town has many cafes, restaurants and bars. Most service folks can speak passable English, and all were very nice and inquisitive about us. It seems most of the tourists in Zihautanejo are Canadian, so our American group stood out.

This entire area is very rural. I already mentioned all the pelicans in Potosi, but there were as many or more in Zihautanejo Bay. We visited the Tamakun Sanctuary and marveled at the crocodiles, turtles and birds. Egrets, Ibis and a beautiful pink bird I couldn’t identify were so close you could almost reach out and touch them.

One of the most beautiful beaches in Mexico is Playa La Ropa, lying on the south side of  Zihautanejo Bay. It is a playground for tourists and locals alike, with a gentle sloping sandy beach, and negligible surf or riptide. We had a memorable last meal at La Gaviota, an open air spot looking out on the beach. We had one of the most gorgeous sunsets that night as we ate our seafood pasta, accompanied by a nice glass of local Albarino.

Getting to Zihautanejo is not particularly difficult. I patronize Alaska Airlines, and they fly there via Los Angles. It is about 2.5 hours to get to LAX, and another 3.5 hours to fly to Zihautanejo. You need a car to get around, and one can be rented at the airport.

We felt safe the entire trip, and wandered all over during the day into the late evening on some occasions. US dollars are not generally accepted, but credit cards are. If you go, get some pesos locally to take with you. The average exchange seemed to be 16 pesos to a US dollar.

Zihautanejo is a wonderful place to visit. It is calm and peaceful. No hustle or bustle. The locals are nice and accommodating. I did seriously wonder why there were jeeps and pickups full of soldiers with machine guns driving around, but after the cartel violence in Puerto Vallarta a day after we flew home, I gained a much better understanding of the armed presence.