It was Malcolm Fraser, I think, as Prime Minister of Australia, that said: There is no such thing as a free lunch. Did he include the Free Breakfast? he should have.

There is a place near Zihuatanejo (Zee-what-en-AY-ho) called Ixtapa (Ix-TAR-pah) and it saves Z-Town from the gross resort hotel towers, golf courses, expensive marinas and private beaches - by doing it all a few miles away.

Normally I would not go to such places. They seem false, unreal, and they seem to make both guests and staff behave in such a stilted way, as if they were on their best behavior, as if they were second-rate actors. Besides, we don't have the money.

Now the story begins. In the internet café we met (let's call him) Steve, an American who lives and works here in Mexico, in "sales". Okay, we make friends, and tell him our whole story - living on board our boat, and so on. .Going back to the boat, we meet - let's call him Alfredo - simply by asking him if he sells beer. He does! He's working in a liquor store. I can give you free beer! He exclaims, and leads us over to a podium or small desk on the footpath. It is covered in papers, brochures and forms (the desk, not the footpath.). Who can resist free beer? He is charming, interesting, trustworthy. It takes a long time, because it is very complicated and although he, a Mexican, has good English, we can't understand what he is selling. I can get you a free T-shirt, TWO free T-shirts! And a Free Breakfast, and you can use the pool, the whole "installation"! The hook is we can help him make a commission, but there is a catch, several catches. We have to be, or pretend to be, Living in America. We have to be Staying at a Hotel. So we cook up a story and rehearse it, and - oh yes - I have to pay him One Hundred Pesos (about $10) "fully 100% refundable, of course!" Are we suckers, or just kind, or just lusting after those free T-shirts and specially that Free Breakfast?

So I pay the 100 pesos, and next morning - as arranged - meet him at Daniels, on the beach, for coffee, at 9:30. Next we hop in a taxi, and off we go to Ixtapa, the sun shining brightly. Mumbling our fake credentials we enter the Hotel, looking like grotty yachties but spruced up a bit. We tell our story about how we now live in Long beach, California, and used to live in Australia, and how we stayed at the la Rosa Hotel the last few days .. But guess what? Here is Steve, the guy we met yesterday and to whom we told the real story!. He works for the same people as does Alfredo! And he has told everyone about the living-on-a-boat bit and we are sprung! Chaos! Quickly adjusting our cover story with beautiful, sexy Carlita (not her real name) we trot behind her to one of seven restaurants (overlooking the five pools) - to have breakfast. We'll meet you here after breakfast? we plead, hoping she will leave us to pull ourselves together. No, I'm having breakfast with you, Joe and Adrienne! she chirrups, all high heels, tight skirt, flouncy red hair - and clipboard at the ready.

Thus begins the Free Breakfast, which I have capitalized for obvious reasons. Needless to say it is nearly impossible to enjoy breakfast, with questions coming at us nonstop. And how long were you in Ecuador? Carlita asks, pen poised. Two months, says Adrienne, buggerme - don't I say at the same time, '"two weeks!" Although she realizes we are lying, she presses on, with glowing promises of showing us the rooms.

I want to cut a long story short, but even then, it's still too long. We see the rooms, we stand on the balcony and are told it is a private beach. Adrienne, whose father saved the beaches at Long Beach, California, from developers who would have turned them into private beaches, immediately bridled at the description. Private beach? Well, no, actually the public COULD come and use the beach, Carlita backpedaling fast. And then came the one hour that we promised we would give, to listen to the sales pitch.

It lasted two hours, and for a while it looked as though we were not to get out of there without using the credit card to the tune of a $7,000 deposit. Every means of persuasion was used, and the offer got better every time we refused! The thing that impressed me was the way they could write all the numbers upside down, words too, so we could read them from where we sat, opposite.

It was time to look at the crocodiles. Give me half an hour, and I'll come back with a yes or a no, I said, dragging Adrienne away from a chatty Alfredo, and heading for the croc enclosure, one kilometer away. The twenty or so dirt-brown crocodiles lay not moving, looking like they were fiberglass replicas, partway in the stagnant water, partway dry, in the hot sun. Small turtles swam and white herons clung to the dull green overhanging branches, waiting for the crazy man who brings the fish guts, and who gets down right amongst the crocs to feed them. I had my answer. We would not buy the shares - giving us holidays without limit (are we not already on a permanent holiday?) - with money we did not have, because ---

Back at the hotel, the salesmen waited. For me it had been like being the prey of a huge animal, or perhaps like being a girl, being persuaded by a man to do something she didn't want to do - the whole ordeal - and it was about to end. I have been preparing for this ocean cruise for 3 years, I began. And dreaming of it for nearly fifty years. I cannot do two things and I am not going to give up this life that we have begun. I spoke passionately, and when the top guy tried again, saying just give me two seconds I said, No. They looked at us as though we did not exist, I shook an unwilling hand and we left, clutching our free T-shirts, re-entering the sunlight, immediately hopping on the old bus, back to Z-Town.

Guess who got on next stop? Alfredo! - and we chatted all the way back, he promising, yes he would love to come to the boat tomorrow, at 4:30, for a drink, and could his friend Louis come too? (Louis laughing like a child). And next day that's what happened, and they brought crocodile key rings, oatmeal cookies and red wine, chilled. As the sunset goldened, Alfredo told us the story of the president's friend, who kept lions and tigers and prisoners in dungeons, right here in Zihuatanejo.