Hola!

Hola amigos!

First day back to work after a wonderful week in Ixtapa, Mexico. What a place! I highly recommend Ixtapa as a destination and will gladly guide your tour of the area at cost.

It was amazing to see not only the contrast between where we live and Mexico in general, but also the juxtaposition of a "designed" resort town, Ixtapa, and it's poorer next door neighbour, Zihuatenejo. In Ixtapa you see a town catering to Canadians and Americans while still providing some truly Mexican feel, but it is first and foremost a place for N. Americans to feel comfortable. In Zihuatenejo you find a "Mexican town" (100,000 pop.). It is there because it is there. It wasn't built to be a destination, which makes it more representative of where and how the average citizen lives. I fell in love with both towns because they don't pretend to be what they are not. One is a tourist town first, Mexican town second and the other vice versa. Again, highly recommended.

The only bad part about the trip was the weather - here. I think the high each day we were there was 32° and a low of 24°. Coming back to -20° is a bit tough. The old 50° temperature swing in one day makes me wonder why I'm here. I'm going to have to take a Canadian history refresher to remember why our ancestors/settlers came out here and decided, "Hey the weather's the shits but let's stay and build a highly successful economy/country. I know we could probably do the same further south where the weather is great, but hey, our future generations are going to be soft and lazy so the winters will be their punishment." It must have gone something like that anyway.

Hasta luego and Vaya Petroleros!