Out at 5:30.  Tortilla factories have to get an early start to fill the orders from restaurants, street vendors, and mom and pop eateries.







 
 
Checking on where the bus stations are in relation to my hotel. There are three, all within a three block area (the hotels are all within a six block area). There’s the bus depot where I came in, then there’s another one that I came across during one of my walks, and the last one I ran into just this morning while looking for the others. This last one doesn’t go to Zihuatanejo, and of the other two one is a higher class one so I’ll probably take this one.  


My second reason for being out early was to take pictures of the shanties and the seafood market.  


Shanty towns are everywhere in Mexico. Sometimes you see a shanty between nicer homes. Mostly they are congregated together in different areas. I didn’t cover all of Lázaro, so there may be others, but these are along the lagoon that feeds out into the ocean; it covers about half a mile, and it’s one after another. Across the street are rundown houses and businesses, but not anything like these shanties.  


After the shanties is ‘fisherman’s wharf’. No, nothing nearly so pretentious: there’s not even a wharf, just some small docks along the way. But it’s about half a mile of open front shops filled with tables for prepping and displaying the catch.  
 

Yesterday morning it was too dark to get good pictures, but nearly every table was full. One place even had around 30 large (4 ft long) coolers waiting to be filled (don’t know if these were for preorders, or to be taken around to the restaurants in hopes of making sales). After the day’s business, everything gets washed down, then they go home. The stalls stay completely open, but what is there to steal?  


Pissed off about this internet business, so I haven’t taken any hotel pics. They’re cheap rooms, at $21per night, but they’re not roach motels: they’re clean (for the most part, but I’ve found dirt in more expensive places too) and comfortable and have most of the amenities. Like I’ve mentioned before, the better places start at around $40, but those are comparable to $100 plus in the US. I did see a place for $9 for 3 hours, but I didn’t check it out!  





So I bused it down to Zihuatanejo - $6 for 96 min and 60 mi. Wasn’t as hot as I expected when I got off the bus. Saw a sign for a hotel; it was full, but the clerk said the next closest one was two blocks away. This one was only $15, no a/c, wifi, cable tv; a touch shabby, but it’ll do. I changed rooms to be closer to the modem, and that worked for about an hour, then no wifi. Watched the Patriots (they played like crap; should have lost the game). Went and sat in the lobby to work on blog; wifi dropped out after about 15 min. Kept restarting the computer and it would work for a few minutes, then less and less. Also the heat in here is worse than the air outside (what’s up with that?). So in the morning, I’m going looking for another place, and definitely with a/c. Bought sandwich, chips and beer to watch the game. Went out for a coke at halftime. I’ll probably go out and get another sandwich and either watch the night game or a movie.  


Ended up watching the game until the 4th quarter, then fell asleep. So I turned off the tv and rolled over.