Ixtapa sketches

This is the sketch  of my memories of our bus tour through the towns of Ixtapa, Zihuatenejo, and the surrounding countryside.  We visited a coconut plantation and learned about how all the parts of the coconuts are used for something - from fuel, to food, to skin creams.  The yellow coconuts are not quite ready for harvesting. There are many plantations in this area, and the trees are all planted in neat, perfectly straight rows.  For those of us used to seeing haphazard palms leaning over the beach, it was a revelation to see them so cultivated.
Then we went on to a brick making...well, place, I guess.  I want to say "factory" but both the shaping and the baking areas were outside.  No buildings at all.  The hand-shaped tiles or bricks dry in the sun, and then are fired in an outside kiln that is heated by burning coconut husks.  That quintessentially Mexican sun and moon piece was bought there.  It will hang on my garden fence in the summer.
We drove on to the coast where we boarded a small boat and toured a huge mangrove swamp.  There were many species of birds and tons of fish.  The birds feasted well.  I think that is a cormorant that I saw sliding a pretty sizable fish straight down its gullet.  We humans feasted on freshly caught and grilled Spanish Mackeral on the beach, along with salsa, beans, and icy cold Coronas.
Back at our hotel, just as the sun sank in the ocean, we guests and the hotel lifeguard released the baby turtles (a.k.a tortuguitas") that had hatched that morning in the protected area of the grounds.