Manzanillo / Colima question

[csacsoka]

Hello,

 

This is my very fisrt post, since I have just joined in. I will take my frist cruise ever to Mexico on the Carnival Spirit in March, and I was wondering if anyone could help me with some questions.

The last port of call is Manzanillo, and after some research on the internet I have found out that one can take a taxi to Kolima/Colima to have a nice beach day. I have also found some info on an archeological site in Colima - La Campana, which I would love to see. Has anyone ever been there? Can you do La Campana by yourself? I am not crazy on organized tours...

I thought I would take a cab to Colima, go check out La Campana and maybe the other archeoligical site "El Chanal" and then spend 1-2 hours at the beach. Actually, the beach is not really that important if the excavasions available... Is it feasible or I am just being overtly idealistic? Does anyone know the cab fare between Manzanillo and Colima?

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[candigirl41]

I would also be interested in hearing the answer to this. Anybody who has done this please reply.

 

Candi

[Arisia]

I just returned a week ago from a cruise including a stop at Manzanillo. We took the ship's tour of Colima and Comala and it was a very enjoyable day! We were on Celebrity Mercury.

 

First of all, Colima City is not a beach city but lies inland. The bus drive was approximately 1 - 1 1/4 hours from the dock in Manzanillo. We toured the Government Palace, The Archaeological Museum and the cathedral in Colima City and had a little time for shopping across the street from the plaza and cathedral. From there, we drove a few miles to La Campana. I really enjoyed the pyramids, some of which could be climbed upon. The two volcanoes (one quite active) were in the distance----quite impressive! We were lucky that clouds cleared and we had a fantastic view of the volcanoes. The pyramids were fascinating--wish we had even more time there.

 

From there we were driven to Comala (a small town) and were treated to a Mexican snack lunch. We had some free time there as well visiting the plaza, the church and doing some shopping.

 

The entire trip lasted for about 7 hours. Hope this helps a bit.

[emporess]

This sounds very much like Carnival describes their Colonial Tour. Did you get up close to the volcano? If not, where you able to see anything happening with it?

On the Big Island of Hawaii we actually hiked it, but it sounds like you don't have time on this type of tour.

[Arisia]

We were not close to the volcanoes. I would estimate that they were about 25 - 30 miles from Colima City. There was no activity when we were there on March 8. A set of binoculars would allow you to see any activity on the Colima side. As long as the cloud cover is not present, I'm sure you could see a volcanic cloud with eyes only very easily. The volcanoes are actually located in the state of Jalisco.

[csacsoka]

Hi,

 

I got back last week, and I did visit both sites on the Manzanillo port day.

We rented a guide with an air conditioned car for 7 hours (2 person). He asked for $240 from 8 am to 2pm, but we told him we will pay $150. He took it.

So he drove us to Colima, it took about 1.5 hours. He wanted to stop on the way on several tourist places (turtles, Corona factory etc), but we told him no, just keep driving until we hit Colima. There we went staright to La Campana, spent about an hour looking around there. While climbing the ruins, a couple arrived from the same cruise, they took a bus from Manzanillo for about $4 each I believe, although the wife did speak Spanish, and they said that was a great help. We did not have to pay any entrence fee.

Later we told the guide to take us to downtown, to the archeological museum, which was closed, so we ended up just walking around the main square for about 30 minutes. Then he took us to El Chanal, although he did not quite know where it was. We had to ask a girl to hop into the car and she showed the way.She was really nice, I think she was a high school teacher.

We had to pay $2 (each) entrence fee for El Chanal. It is a smaler site than La Campana I believe, and both are still being worked on. I liked El Chanal better, because it was more like a complex, with a ball court, main pyramid etc. Both sites are quite interseting, if anyone wants to know, I can suggest before cruise readings. I actually got them from the curator of the Mexican Archeological Museum in Colima, well, maybe it is more likely that the email was written by some research fellow, who works there... :) Either way, they did respond to my email.

On the way back, the guide still wanted to stop on places, as it turned out, he was trying to strech out his time. We were going to give him a tip in addition to the $150 anyways, so we did not really mind. He took us up to the hill in Manzanillo overlooking the bay and Las Hadas, it was very beautiful.

 

All togehter, if you want to see both sites, it is possible. The guide wants you to pay ahead. To be honest, he was quite annoying, and was saying bad thigs about his boss 30 minutes after we got into his car. And he did have some sick fascination for the dead animals we saw on the roadside...

Although he probably also thought we were weird, crazy people. Especially when I asked him about an altar/shrine to Mary he started to say bad things about Catholics. He did stop though when I told him I was one. As it turned out, he did not like Native Mexicans either, he did not understand why on earth do we want to see these sites, and all he wanted to know if there was gold on these excavations. So yes, he was quite annoying, but anyhow, we did see what we wanted to, and we were glad we went.