Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Gabriela Quintero, one half of guitar duo Rodrigo Y Gabriela, shows Jon Bennett round her traditional home town of Zihuatanejo and the surrounding area - a nice change to the popular destination of Cancun which is becoming more like Miami every day. Travellers to Mexico who want to visit places other than popular destinations can go to Zihuatanejo and stay in Troncones, which is just 10 minutes away and flush with lovely cheap villas to rent.
For a big house that will sleep five you would pay only about BD112. It's a surfing beach, very laid back, with an organic market on Sundays (see zihuatanejo. net/rentals.html for details.).
There's a small international community, lots of Scandinavians and Americans, but they're very respectful of the Mexican culture.
There are still little Mexican restaurants where they serve food from the ocean and cook it in front of you. But don't go when you're very hungry as they take ages to bring it.
Some like it hot
For good Mexican food I would take you to Las Marghueritas (Vicente Guerrero 5). It's in the centre of town, very close to the main beach and you will eat very well. A traditional breakfast is huevos a la Mexicana, which is fried onion, green chilli and green tomatoes with scrambled eggs. You eat it with refried beans and corn tortilla.
You get chilaquiles as well, which is stale tortilla fried into chips and served with green salsa, sour cream, cream cheese and onion. It's delicious and very good if you have a hangover.
Sometimes my foreign friends get a little bit tired of tortillas. So, if you're not into Mexican breakfast there's a new place called the Pancake House (740 C/Guadalupe Sanchez, Puerto Vallarta), where you can get muesli, really good eggs benedict and all that. It's very fresh, local produce.
Cafe culture
My friend Juanita owns a coffee shop called Cafe Zihuatenejo (170 C/Cuauhetemoc). She has a plantation up in the mountains and it's all organic. There is a lovely boutique hotel in the mountains called La Casa Que Canta (lacasaquecanta.com). It's a beautiful spot, you can go and have a drink and see the sunset.
The restaurant is very good, but it's a bit pricey for locals, about 20 euros a dish. I'm a vegetarian and there's a special veggie of the day. There is also a hotel called Tides (Playa La Ropa) that is very good. They do a buffet on a Friday night on the beach and there is a good mariachi band playing.
Out of town Barra de Potosi is a beautiful lagoon that feels a little bit like the Amazon, where you can hire kayaks. There are different species of birds and it leads to some super virgin beaches. You can eat good fresh fish there as well as l'escargot, the local speciality.
Take some sparkling wine with you and you can spend all day there swimming, eating and drinking. I really love this area.
Guitar heaven
There's a guitar festival in March (zihuafest.info). It runs for two weeks and a lot of international musicians perform all over Zihuatenejo. There's jazz, classical, singer-songwriters, blues, jazz and reggae. It's all for charity for local kids and schools.
The best place to buy traditional Mexican gifts is Casa Marina (Paseo del Pescador 9, Ixtapa), a big, old house that holds lots of shops selling handicrafts from different regions. It's fair trade so everything goes to the community that made it.
