Zihuatanejo, Mexico

Right now I´m sitting in an internet cafe in a state in Mexico that I can't pronounce. It's called Guerrero which means warrior. I took the all night bus last night from Toluca and arrived at six in the morning. Due to extreme fatigue - it's nearly impossible to sleep in most buses in Mexico due to the fact that they play movies at full volume - it took me awhile to settle in. I haggled with the cab driver to drop me off in the center of town. He had never heard of the 50 pesos hostal from my guide book, so I spent about an hour groggily stumbling through down looking for a place just as cheap. Zihautenejo is a resort town so the cheapest hotel cost about 300 pesos - 30 dollars American. I made it as far as the plaza de armas near the beach before I ran into Jose, or Pepe as his friends call him. Normally I would be extremely wary about any overly eager Mexican offering to help me, (usually people in this country are shy when it comes to foreigners), especially one who spoke such good English, but I was tired so figured what the heck. It took two blocks to realize he was trying to scam me. After offering me any drug I wanted - marijuna, cocaine, etc. - he led me to his friend's hotel. I asked him the price expecting him to make me a deal of around 150 pesos, when he laughed and told me 15,000 pesos! That's almost what I spend to stay at my apartment in Toluca for a whole month! Needless to say it wasn't long before Pepe and I parted ways.
Zihuatanejo is pretty nice. It's not like the Yucatan with it's mile long pearly white beaches, but it holds a certain charm and it's far enough away from Acapulco that there is barely a gringo in sight. But that might be because it's the off season now. I came here because of that movie, The Shawshank Redemption that came out about ten years ago. In it the main character played by Tim Robbins escapes prison after being incarcerated for 30 years and ends up here. Don't ask me why but since I saw it the name Zihuatanejo has been burned in my memory. It's too bad that the scene at the end of the film that supposedly takes place here was filmed in the Virgin Islands. You just can´t trust Hollywood...