Las Gatas Beach in Zihuatanejo

On Friday I went to Las Gatas beach with August, my friend Lois and her two boys. It is known as the prettiest beach in the Zihuatanejo Bay. If you are at the municipal pier it is directly across the bay. There is no road access to the beach, you have to either walk over the rocks from the end of La Ropa beach, not a long walk maybe 15 minutes, or you can take a small boat from the municipal pier near the basketball court in the center of town.

There are a couple of little windows that you can buy boat tickets from. The price is the same (30 pesos round trip) each window gives out different color tickets. When you get to the part of the pier that the boats take off from, about half way out on the left, the captains will call out white ticket (boleto blanco) or blue ticket (boleto azul), and that is how you know which boat to get on.

It is a nice ride, you get a great view of the city and it only lasts about 10 minutes so no worries about sea sickness. There are life vests on board (amazing) and shade. Zihuatanejo is a lovely city from the water. The cliff-side hotels and rolling hills are almost cliché, you can easily pick out the most famous ones from the water. La Casa que Canta, Hotel Villa del Sol, Villa de la Roca, and the myriad of glamorous houses higher up. It’s neat.

The dock at las Gatas is on a small rock outcropping at one end of the beach. The crescent of restaurants stretches out to end at the oldest place on the beach, Owen’s Bungalows. The businesses are packed in one after another. I guess there are about 20 restaurants with a scuba center and various bating suit and float shops mixed in.

We went to the third restaurant that we came to. This is Lois’ favorite, called, Chez Arnaldos, run by Noyo who has been in the biz for about 30 years. There is a small blurb on Rob’s page. http://www.zihuatanejo.net/restaurants.html. The food was good and the fish fingers we ordered for the kids were reasonable, but the same cannot be said for the lobster and other high end items. Expect to pay about 25$ a dish.

We took a walk down to the other end of the beach, about 10 minutes, and checked out Owen’s place. I have heard a lot about it over the years. Owen came to Zihua in the early 70’s and is kind of one of the founders of the gringo community there. Anyway it was pretty deserted, no one in the restaurant or on the grounds, just some Mexican music blasting away.

The nicest thing about Las Gatas is the water. It is Caribbean turquoise, with no waves to speak of. There is a line of rocks about 25 meters out that was supposedly put there by an ancient Indigenous Mexican king who wanted to make the beach like a pool for his wives. (This is the basis for the name of Zihuatanejo, which in the native language means bay of the beautiful women). There are more detailed accounts of this history on other sites, here is one, http://www.zihua-ixtapa.com/zihua/history/. But that is the gist.

The rocks work wonders, they make a breakwater and a lovely place to go out and snorkel. It is not deep, no more than 14 feet. You can snorkel on the beach side or on the bay side. Lois’ son went out and saw lots of fish including a school of rays. The day we were visiting there were about 10 other people snorkeling. It didn’t seem too crowded. The beach however was very crowded. Most people didn’t start showing up till about 12:00 but then, every boat that arrived was jam packed. Beware, and arrive before 10:00. The boats stop running at 6:00 pm.

All in all it was a lovely day and a recommendable outing, especially if you have children or love snorkeling.