Still, too many norteamericanos have been around Manzanillo for too long. When I heard one of them say that he had stopped at a particular hotel "not that long ago, maybe fifteen years," I knew it was time for me to escape, like the convict, to Zihuatanejo.

For some thirty years, Mexico has cultivated tourism by developing resort cities from scratch. The most wildly successful has been Cancún. A more subdued example is Ixtapa, about nine hours south of Manzanillo by car, though I opted to fly there. Perhaps most notable about Ixtapa—with its expected line of high-rise hotels along the beach (which is attractive but often too rough for swimming)—is not the resort itself but that it has provided an economic base which makes tourism, on a much smaller scale, viable for its next-door neighbor, the still authentic-feeling fishing village of Zihuatanejo.

"Zee-wha" is on Zihuatanejo Bay, protected from the full force of the Pacific. The fishing fleet flourishes there, and the beaches are popular for swimming. The calmest beach, Playa Las Gatas, is most easily reached by water taxi from the town pier, just past where the fishermen pull their boats up onto the sand. But Playa La Ropa has a prettier setting and is only slightly more exposed. Even so, it evokes none of the dreamy images of The Shawshank Redemption. The sand is darker, headlands circle around to close off part of the horizon, and I doubt if the film's hero ever came, as I did, within inches of being intimately involved in the landing of a Para-Sail. There was a little hotel, though. . . .

Not really on Playa La Ropa but close enough to walk to it, if you don't mind the hike back up, was the twenty-four-suite La Casa Que Canta ("The House That Sings"), one of Mexico's most pleasing and architecturally distinctive hotels. Spilling down the face of a cliff, the rooms, each with a private terrace, all seem to be on a different level. And the embellishments up the ante: The array of fresh flowers on my bed was so elaborate that I almost backed out of my room for fear of sneezing.

My suspicion is that most of La Casa Que Canta's guests seldom make the walk to the beach, or anywhere, preferring instead to recline by the infinity pool, gazing out at the superb views of the bay and worrying, above all else, what time they will have to arrive the next day to claim rights to their favored chaise longue. My suspicion is also that most Zihua visitors take some comfort in knowing that should the reclining life or the authentic fishing village ambience wear thin, a Señor Frog's restaurant is only five miles away in Ixtapa. Of course, if it's action you want, there is Acapulco.

Mexicans, who visit Acapulco in much greater numbers than they do Cancún, say it is because Cancún is so sterile, so manufactured, and Acapulco is still authentically Mexican. Which I say is so much—what's that south-of-the-border expression?—bull. Mexicans on vacation, most of them coming from Mexico City, go to Acapulco because by car it is the nearest resort town. After less than four hours on the four-lane Autopista del Sol, they can be sipping margaritas by Acapulco Bay—the place, it is alleged, where the drink was invented.