L.A.
Times Travel Section April 30, 2000
by Jim Smith
The well-equipped and lovingly maintained house we rented is called Regalo del Mar (Gift From the Sea). It is owned by a Canadian couple, Cam and Bev Gesy, who reclaim the prime front suite from January to March.
We spent a week there at the end of December, luxuriating in an affordable, elegant and virtually solitary escape. We swam in the private pool of the villa we had rented with a few friends. We read pleasantly mediocre paperbacks while rocking lazily in hammocks just a few feet from the ocean. We cooked fresh fish on our barbecue in the outdoor communal kitchen. It was the height of the winter vacation season, yet we never saw more than two dozen people on the beach.
We found fresh flower petals strewn around the bathroom sink each day, and big, thick towels made showering a pleasure. The thatched-hut style is popular in Troncones, a new resort on the Pacific north of Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo. The rustic look hides such amenities as a dishwasher in family-size units at Regalo del Mar.
We kept meaning to check out Zihuatanejo. But day after day went by, and we never did get up the energy to make the journey--what with moving from the hammock to the swimming pool to the beach and back. Friends who did go regretted it.
Jim Smith