If you live in Zihua, have a car, know the bus system, and can get yourself around pretty well, then you can do this tour on your own. We have a good friend that’s a guide, so we were interested in taking a tour with him. Tour guides get some benefits, special meal pricing, discounted snorkel gear, and so on. Plus with a guide we knew we wouldn’t waste any of our day trying to figure things out on our own.
We met Leonel at 9am, took the Playa Linda bus all the way to the bike path in Ixtapa, “Ciclopista Ixtapa” and the entrance to “Ciclopista Ecologica.” It’s about 15 minutes from Zihua. The bike path is well-paved and follows the road and at the entrance here it goes inland where bikers and hikers can take various trails, including the trail to the Ciclopista Mirador.
From this entrance we walked 15 minutes to the T-2 trail, then followed that for a half hour, 20 minutes of which was steep incline. Although you are rewarded at the top with tremendous views of Ixtapa, Playa Linda and Ixtapa Island.
After taking some photos and catching our breath, we headed back down the steep hill. At the bottom of the hill, instead of continuing straight on T-2 back to the bike path, we took a left on the trail T-3. This is a shortcut that leads to the bike path towards the entrance by Playa Linda. The T-3 trail takes about a half hour to hike, but is a very pleasant and easy hike through the woods, followed by a 10 minute walk to get to Playa Linda.
From Playa Linda, after taking a couple photos of the iguanas and crocodiles, Leonel led us onto a boat to ferry us to Ixtapa Island. We were set up with a lunch that included guacamole or ceviche, a fish fillet, and a drink. We relaxed a bit then another guide took us snorkeling, where we held a puffer fish and a sea urchin.
It was a long day, and we were back in Zihua at 4:15pm. But having Leonel made everything go smoothly, plus we were able to get some history of the area during our hike and tour. We walked a lot, and earned our happy hour drinks!
