How does life on a Pacific beach sound? With your home right on the beach, lulled to sleep at night by the soft whispers of the surf? Manzanillo is a small Mexican city right on the Pacific, down the coast a ways from the larger and much more famous and expensive Puerto Vallarta.

When we spent the weekend in Manzanillo recently, I chatted with Billy Hunter after he and his Golden Retriever stepped off their patio for a morning outing on the beach. The dog happily spent a lot of time in the water!

Billy and his wife have been living in Manzanillo for about four years. They are among some fifty foreign families, he estimated, who make this city their year-round home. He guessed that in winter the foreign population might rise as high as some 2500 people.

Billy loves it in Manzanillo. While it is not inexpensive to live here, there are many amenities such as good restaurants. Property values are rising as more foreigners settle here. The crime rate is extremely low — "practically nonexistent," he said — due in part to the full employment enjoyed by Mexicans here. He said employment is at 99.5% and that you see "Help Wanted" signs everywhere.

Manzanillo is a commercial port — it’s Mexico’s largest container port, with many containers from Asia then being trucked on the mostly four-lane highway from here to Guadalajara and onward into Texas and many US and Canadian destinations. This means that a lot of the city is affected by the port. The downtown area has parts that nobody would call chic. Billy commented that the area is changing. Within the past couple of years or so, Walmart, Burger King, and Kentucky Fried Chicken have come in.

As in other parts of Mexico where foreigners cluster, they tend to do things to help the community. Billy and his wife have been involved in a pet spay-and-neuter project and there is also a project to help families with what they need to do when a foreigner dies here. This does happen, given the age of many of the retirees here.

Kelly and I had noticed the air pollution that you can see in the bottom of the picture just above the mountains on the right side of the photo. Billy explained that electricity is generated by burning oil. There has been talk about ways to improve or change the air quality, but nothing has happened. Our friends from the US with whom we were staying at the hotel told us that the air quality had been considerably worse before we arrived.

But back to the beach. Had we seen the whales earlier that morning, Billy asked. No, we had missed them. There had been two, and this is the time of year that you are most likely to see them.

Retiring in Manzanillo, on the Mexican Pacific Coast is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

We had breakfast with our friends from Colorado, whom we had arranged to meet there:

On a walk to a nearby cafe for lunch. I was intrigued by the semi-rundown, semi-posh quality to the neighborhood. I liked the look of this apartment complex, but as it was across the street from the beachfront hotels, it was not prime real estate. There’s a “For Rent” sign on one of the balconies, and only one of the other places showed any sign of human occupation. Maybe these are getaway places for Mexicans who come more during the holidays.

Manzanillo is a major port, and there is a naval base. On a late afternoon walk, I was captivated by this street sign was in front of the naval base. There were lots of young Mexican men around, but we didn’t see any bicycle groups!

This huge ship, at least a block long and carrying literally hundreds of containers, had glided out to sea while we were in the water and couldn’t get a shot of its immense presence compared to the palm trees and buildings:

But this does show the containers piled high on piers:

Coming into the city you can see how the container cranes rise above the urban landscape. Manzanillo is an interesting combination of busy commercial port — it’s Mexico’s largest container port — and tourism attraction. We know more Mexicans who come to Manzanillo for beach trips, from where we live by Lake Chapala, than ones who go to Puerto Vallarta. It’s more economical here, it seems, and also a shorter drive, not requiring going through Guadalajara.

It’s always good to relax after a vigorous outing…

… or enjoy the sunset from our hotel room. That’s a kite, not birds, flying.

On the drive back home, we stopped at a couple of roadside stands. At the first one, we bought several green coconuts for 2.5 pesos (about 20 cents US) each. At the one below, we loaded up on melons…

… after accepting tastes of several kinds and chatting with the stand owners. They have been there 27 years and their family grows the melons nearby.

2 Comments from the old blog:

• At May 31, 2008 10:09 PM,  laura misch said…

  pictures are beautiful! stories are beautiful! you have even brought excess moisture to my eyes :) this site is great. i’m going to share it. thanks for such an exciting adventure through your words. i want to have my 5th wedding anniversary in mexico. you give all the information i have been looking for and more.
  take care.

• At June 01, 2008 7:20 AM,  Rosana Hart said…

  Thanks, Laura!  Have a wonderful anniversary.

Around Manzanillo is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico