The casa is a semi-easy 5 minute walk to the far end of Playa La Ropa. At the other end of La Ropa, 0.75 miles away, we could easily spot the trail heading towards Playa Las Gatas. If you don’t want to walk to the trail head, then you can jump on the 10 peso La Ropa / Centro combi bus. The La Ropa combi bus’ final stop is right at the entrance to the Playa Las Gatas trail. We saw two Playa Las Gatas restaurant workers jump off the bus and they confirmed that we were heading the right direction. 50minutes after we left the casa we arrived at Playa Las Gatas. I would rate the walk along the shore from La Ropa to Las Gatas as moderate in difficulty, rating it a 4 out of 10 on a difficulty scale. The total distance we walked was 1.75miles to get to Playa Las Gatas from the casa. If you take the bus to the final stop, then it’s only about a 20 minute walk to Playa Las Gatas.
Melly, our friend from the bus stop, worked at Chez Arnoldo, so we stopped there to park our stuff and have an early lunch. Papas fritas or guacamole and chips will cost you 60 pesos each. Beers are a very reasonable 25 pesos. At 10:30am we saw the boats pulling right up on to the sand in front of the restaurants and workers hussling to unload crates of beer, sacks of potatoes, bags of ice, and whatever else could be useful that day.
Playa Las Gatas is lined with 10-12 restaurants. There aren’t a lot of places to relax without being a restaurant or bar customer. However, everyone is friendly as they recruit you to their restaurant, or offer to rent you snorkeling gear, kayaks, paddleboards and life jackets. If for some weird reason you forgot your bathing suit, there are a few beach tents that sell those, too.
Although we didn’t stay too long on our visit, the views of Zihua Bay were really great. If you choose to take the water taxi, go to the pier in Centro Zihua and purchase a round trip ticket from one of the ticket offices for 50 pesos. The trip across the bay only takes about 5 minutes, but getting on and off the boat can have moments of stress. The pier workers are mostly interested in moving people as quickly as possible, and then requesting a tip for their “help” in yanking you off the boat. The pier is a 0.75mile walk to our casa, or a 40 to 50 peso taxi ride.
Final Tips:
- Get there early. By noon the beach is packed with locals and tourists fighting for snorkeling space.
- The snorkeling can be exhausting. I would recommend a lifejacket, or don’t venture outside of the rock wall / barrier. It is pretty cool, though.
- If you walk over and take the ferry back, then you should either purchase your ticket in advance at the ticket office, or negotiate your price after you get on a boat at the dock. We talked to a guy at the dock who looked official, but it turned out he overcharged us for the trip from Las Gatas back to the Pier.
- We didn’t see any cats at Playa Las Gatas, so you can leave the cat treats at home