While I was in the small town cum beach resort of La Manzanilla located on Mexico’s popular Costa Alegre, I met a very colorful character by the name of ‘Detroit Dave’. A carpenter and building contractor by trade, Dave relocated to this small beach town in the mid 1980’s. At that time, there were just a limited number of Gringo colonists living in this small relatively obscure village. Dave, who hails from Detroit, Michigan, makes the claim of being the first Gringo (a vernacular term used to describe Americans and Canadians in Mexico) to reside full time in La Manzanilla. According to Dave, all the rest of the Gringos in this small beach town at that time were ‘snowbirders’, a term used to describe people who migrate to the tropics to escape the cold winter months, only to return home at the onset of the unbearable hot (and sometimes very wet) summer months.

Somewhat of a historian, Dave explained to me how the earthquake and tsunami of 1995 generated a lot of interest and curiosity about the area, especially among Americans and Canadians. This led to a mini-invasion of gringos to the area. Falling in love with beautiful beaches and landscapes of the region, some of these visitors from the north ended up buying up land and property. After the Internet became a mainstream phenomenon in the 1ate 1990’s, the floodgates really opened up as more and more gringos found out about the beauty of the Tenacatita Bay Region. During the ensuing years up to the present, La Manzanilla has become somewhat of a boomtown as more foreigners flocked to the area, many building vacation homes in the hills overlooking the Bay.

During the dry and relatively pleasant winter months from November to the end of April, the gringo population swells to well over 500 people, most of them snowbirders. The number of gringos who have made La Manzanilla their permanent home and reside all year around is estimated at 40-60 people, most of them retirees. As in most small communities, most of the full-time gringo residents in La Manzanilla know each other.

As Dave explained, after the influx of gringos to the area, there were so many Daves in town that most of the gringos named Dave came up with nicknames so they wouldn’t be confused with all the other Daves. ‘Detroit Dave’ used to go by the name of ‘Carpenter Dave’, but changed his moniker as several more carpenters by the name of Dave settled in town. During my short time there, I met ‘Kayak Dave’, ‘Swinger Dave’, ‘Beatnik Dave’ and ‘Loudmouth Dave’. How many more Daves are there in this town?

FYI, it is estimated that there are about 2,500 indigenous inhabitants currently living in La Manzanilla

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 7th, 2007 at 10:04 am and is filed under Humor, Mexico, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.