Here comes the first FUN Fundraiser for Guitafest 2009! For six years now, Zihuatanejo has been hosting an annual International Guitar Festival every spring that brings together musicians from all over the world to play in large and small venues in Ixtapa Zihuatanejo during the course of a full week. The festival has grown and matured and we’re sure this coming 2009 festival will bring us some wonderful surprises in the selection of musicians and genres that will be featured.
Musicians submissions to the 2009 festival just closed at the beginning of December, so it will be a few weeks yet before we hear the results of just who we can expect to hear this year, and what parts of the world they will be hailing from. Meanwhile, the community is getting geared up as we always do as of December, as the Guitarfest monthly fundraisers start that help gather the funds that allow this fantastic musical event to happen right here on our “front porch”.
Appetizer trail map for the Zihuafest 2009 fundraiser
The first FUNDRAISER is going to be held this coming Tuesday, December 16th with a unique “TASTE OF ZIHUA” FOOD CRAWL, from 7 p.m. through 10 p.m.
Tickets can be purchased in advance from El Sanka Grill on Ejido Street. The tickets will allow you to visit a series of participating restaurants and bars in the core area of town, all within easy walking distance of each other, sampling specially prepared tapas and snacks as you go. If you’re a visitor in town, it’s a great way to get a taste of the fare in some of our best restaurants, meet both locals and other visitors participating on the walk, and on top of it have a healthy evening stroll through the streets of Zihuatanejo.
Participating restaurants and bars are:
- El Sanka Grill on Calle Ejido
- The Captain’s Daughter (La Hija del Capitan), on Calle Nicolas Bravo, upstairs
- Paccolo’s, on Calle Nicolas Bravo
- Garrobo’s, on Juan. N. Alvarez
- Caprichos, on 5 de Mayo
- La Sirena Gorda, on Fisherman’s walk, right near the pier
- Porto di Mare, on Fisherman’s walk at the base of 5 de Mayo
- Sunset Sports Bar & Grill, on Fisherman’s walk between Casa Arcadia and the Museum
- Coconuts, with access from both Agustin Ramirez and V. Guerrero streets
For further information about the “Walk”, contact info @ zihuafest.info.
The 2009 Zihuatanejo International Guitar Festival will be held from March 22 – 29, 2009 – don’t miss it – start making your plans to be here and enjoy!
Guitarfest is a nonprofit organization that helps raise funds to stimulate cultural endeavors in the community, and all funds come from donations from our community supporters, businesses and personal contributors. Over the past years Guitarfest has donated significant funds to the local Casa de la Cultura to aid them in providing better installations and supplies to their art and dance students. Ticket sales, t-shirts, posters and other Guitarfest souvenir sales and promotions also contribute to covering the expenses of bringing in these talented musicians from around the world; local hotels and lodging providers donate rooms, restaurants donate food, hard-working volunteers donate tons of energy and time, and everyone who loves music pitches in to help make this event a success every year.
The Zihua Guitarfest food crawl was a fun evening event despite the fact that the snacks and tapas sometimes were a bit (ahem) slow in coming out of some of the respective kitchens… I particularly thought Capricho’s tender beef kabobs and shrimp-studded pineapple were top-notch, Sunset Bar’s Spinach Salad with Mahi-Mahi was luscious, and La Hija del Capitan’s spicy chicken wings were great. We heard that Coconut’s seafood raviolis were indescribable, but we got there too late to smple them, they were snatched up so quickly – and in any case their tasty, peppery sashimi rolls were nothing to sneeze at. It was a chance for the participating restaurants to give the public a taste of what they can expect when they dine in each place, and try to lure them back for more. Many of the restaurants in the circuit did an excellent job at that, but others just didn’t get it…
It was fun wandering around town and bumping into other groups of “crawlers”… old friends and new “crawl” acquaintances, alike. If this continues as a future event, though, I’d definitely suggest reducing the number of restaurants on the nightly circuit to a maximum of 6, so that the crawlers have a minimum of 30 minutes at each place over the course of the 3 hour “walk” – more value to the crawler and more value to the restaurants involved as they’d have a better chance to shine as well as entice the crawlers with special drinks, peeks at their usual menus and exposure to perhaps alluring aromas wafting out of their kitchens…