Manzanillo, Cuyutlan, and our 12th Anniversary

I recently made a list of the places I still want to go before I leave Mexico. It looks something like this:

Guatalajara Centro
Mexico City ruins
Beach one more time
Patzcuaro (try again)
Tonala
Tapalpa (check)
Ruins near Tequila (check)

Keep in mind there are many more I would love to see but these are within driving distance.

So this last weekend we debated between going to Mexico City and the Beach. I leaned more toward the beach (I always do and always will) and Dave relented. But I worried that the more we put off Mexico City the harder it would be to get there. (It's an 8 hour drive and only barely within our kid's car-tolerance-parameters.) And I was right. The now-famous Swine Flu is going strong in the D.F. and we probably won't make it there. But I'm also glad we didn't go because we might have caught it and that wouldn't be good either....especially if we died.

So we had a swine flu-free 4 days at the beach in and around Manzanillo. I picked this beach because there is a town to the south, Cuyutlan, that is supposed to have an Ola Verde (green wave) in April and May. It's a wave at dusk that glows green. Sounded cool. Well as is our luck on road trips, it is really only in May. We only found this out after we had settled in for a long stay at a beach side restaurant.

It's also famous for black sand. I'd call it dark brown, but look at that sand, it's not wet.

Luckily Dave thought to ask the waiter if we would be able to see the wave. No, solo en Mayo.

Also luckily we had already had a great experience nearby at a turtle sanctuary. After looking at full-grown rescued sea turtles in their tanks, the kids got to each release a baby turtle into the sea.

I thought it was one of the coolest things I'd ever done, while the kids acted as though this was something they did everyday. Charlie, although, would have nothing to do with it. After handing me the turtle, with a "mom. do. it," he wandered back toward the sanctuary.

The rest of the weekend was spent swimming in a great pool at a cool hotel in Manzanillo, eating lots of food and playing card games. All the kids were crazy for the pool, especially Charlie.

On Sunday, on our way home through Colima, we stopped to see a cave that we missed last time we were in Colima. It was not what I was expecting. This was how we got down to the cave.


I was so nervous. 87 steps with huge spaces between the railings that any one of my children could have fallen through to their deaths. Ok, a little dramatic, but I'm terrified of heights. It was really cool in the cave. And I did much better going back up.


And to make it even better, Sunday was our 12th wedding anniversary. Great weekend.