Posts Tagged ‘Puerto Escondido’

Puerto Escondido — ¡Carnaval!

March 21st, 2011

I spent most of Saturday on the beach in a little town called Mazunte about an hour south of Puerto Escondido. When I returned in the evening, “Supermoon” was out in full force and I grabbed my camera and headed out to the beaches to see if I could get some decent night shots. To my surprise, downtown was full of lights and music and color and people — turns out Puerto Escondido was celebrating its Carnaval de la Costa.

I am a bit bummed that I missed the beginning of the party, as described by the Oaxaca Secretary of Tourism web site: “The fiesta starts with the ‘Burning of the Bad Mood,’ symbolizing the disappearance of all negative feelings to give way to boundless joy and good humor.” Who doesn’t love a therapeutic reason to burn things? But, I did catch a few minutes of the parade, the pumping music and the chicks on the floats absolutely working it.

¡Viva Carnaval!

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Puerto Escondido: Dolphins!

March 11th, 2011

I assure you that few things could get me willingly up and out the door by 6 a.m., but a combination of boating and seeing one of my favorite creatures in their natural habitat — in this case, dolphins — had me watching the sunrise from a small fishing boat tooling out of Playa Marinero.

Our party was truly international, with me as the sole American along with a couple from the Czech Republic, a guy from Germany, a guy from England and a woman from South Africa (and, of course, our Mexican boat captain and first mate). The trip was billed as a fishing expedition in which you were guaranteed to see spinner dolphins, sea turtles and other marine critters, but none of us passengers paid much attention to the fishing part. Our boat cruised up and down the mouth of the large port, with us scanning the shimmering morning waters for movement.

Before long, shrieking flocks of seabirds circled a big school of fish, and where there are fish, there are dolphins. Our boat turned in that direction and headed over. It wasn’t long before we could see a pod of dolphins among the cacophony of birds, just their silver-finned backs undulating out of the water, creating a bubbly ripple effect over the choppy blue-gray waters. They scattered when we cruised up. We kept going like this, following the birds, and either the dolphins got more comfortable with us or we found different dolphins — because after that they started swimming right alongside our motorboat, riding the wake, keeping up with our speed, weaving in and out of the surface of the water, so close that I was worried our boat was going to whack one of them (it didn’t).

At one point, three of them started bursting — and I do mean bursting — way up out of the water, one after the other, almost as though they were seeing who could jump the highest. Maybe they wanted to provoke a response from those of us in the boat — if that was their intent, they succeeded. We could hear them squeaking and screeching while they jumped. As long as I remember this, I will always wonder what, exactly, they were saying to each other. Luckily, it all happened on my side of the boat.

That was the only big show we got — but just being surrounded by racing, undulating dolphins, as we were, would have been enough. We also saw manta rays flying out of the water, but not nearly as close to us as the dolphins. I never knew rays jumped out of the water like that and wished I could have seen them closer; they looked like wiggly kites springing up from the ocean. We crossed paths with three or four big sea turtles, but their giant powerful flippers propelled them away before I could take a decent picture. Like the manta rays, they probably didn’t like us that much. We also saw one sea snake, a baby compared to some of the ones I’ve seen while diving in Southeast Asia, but our boat captain told us that this kind was poisonous. Eeep.

And here are some snaps from a truly stellar morning:

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Puerto Escondido: El Bueno, El Malo y El Feo

March 6th, 2011

El Bueno

Here are my feet enjoying the sun, sand and surf at Playa Coral in Puerto Escondido (the rest of me kinda dug it, too). On an absolutely stellar Saturday, this beach was nearly deserted. I was imagining beaches in the States on a day like this — they’d be packed — and I felt so privileged to have this killer beach practically to myself.



Here are two of the resident watch cats of my guesthouse, Hotel Tower Bridge, on the deck outside my room, keeping a vigilant eye out for creepy crawlies.

Well, maybe not so vigilant. Even highly trained Mexican asesino watch kitties need some shut-eye.

El Malo

The ocean here is beautiful but dangerous, with a deadly strong undertow and razor-sharp rocks at the western end of the beach. In the non-rocky area I didn’t dare go in the water past my waist, and even then was pulled around a bit more than I prefer.



I don’t know what happened to this poor guy, but he was magnificent. About 18 inches long, thicker than a football, his scales and fins the most vivid shades of blue, silver, green and purple. He had washed up on the shore, but got sucked back in by the powerful surf just after I snapped this. I wish I could have seen him through a scuba mask, swimming and doing his thing.

El Feo

Walking back to my guesthouse on my way back from dinner tonight (carne asada, which fits into the “bueno” category), I came across two girls, about 9 and 11, looking at a dark critter scurrying along the side of the road. It was the diameter of a baseball and I asked them, is it a frog? Es sapo? “No,” the older girl replied, casually smacking it with her rubber sandal, “es tarantula.” Which is absolutely the last thing on earth I want to encounter, ever … I have awakened to a tree rat scurrying across my forehead in Laos; I had a 5-foot boa constrictor enter my yard in the Philippines; I have crossed paths with a big monitor lizard in Kenya, and I would choose any or all of these over a huge furry tarantula. After I took a picture of the now-dead thing, the rest of my walk in the dark became agonizing … every shadow or fallen leaf was a tarantula, plotting to run up my exposed feet and legs. I got back to the guesthouse and told a few people there about the girls and the eight-legged beast. Their reaction: “Oh, why did they have to kill it? Why couldn’t they just let it live?” Sigh. International hippies … I love animals, and I know logically that tarantulas are relatively harmless, but to me the only reasonable response to seeing a tarantula is to murder it immediately. I hope the resident watch cats share my views.

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New York to Oaxaca

March 4th, 2011

1 p.m.

I am sitting on the plane en route from NYC to Mexico City. Not a good flight. Aeromexico, your flight attendants are very nice but your omelets are rubbery and your coffee sucks.

I had to decide between a middle seat or an aisle seat in the last row of the plane (and therefore can’t lean back). I chose aisle/upright and am regretting it. The lady next to me has kept her elbow jammed in my side this whole time, and I am right in front of the bathrooms and kitchenettes, constantly grazed by flight attendants and people going to the bathroom (an ass just banged against my shoulder as I type this). However, had I chosen a middle seat, I know I would have been squeezed on one or both sides by big/ gangly/ unhygienic seat mates, or have had my seat kicked repeatedly by someone’s kid. That’s my luck.

That said, I’m a pretty patient flier and can deal with the upright seat, the traffic, the jostling and the elbowy neighbor. Then again, it’s only a four-hour flight; had it ventured into six hours or beyond, I might be typing something very different now.

We are approaching our descent, sayeth the captain. Time to prepare for the drill through customs … hoping the wait is not too long … and I have to pick up my GIANT backpack and check in again for my connecting flight to Oaxaca. I can already feel the temperature change and am getting excited. I left New York in the chilly chilly cold and am landing in the tropics. Awwww jeeeah.

Time to stash my electronic devices. Hola, Mexico.

3:45 pm
Plane #2 (puddle jumper from Mexico City to Oaxaca)

I just barely got on this plane … I was automatically put on standby due to “weight and balance issues” and had to wait until the plane was loaded until they could decide whether my giant bag and I made the cut. I was probably one of the last people who booked the flight, and that’s what they do with these mini planes. Either that or my bag is so heavy that they flagged me at check-in … in any event, I had to stand around with five or six other standbys, and at the last minute the gate attendants rushed me through with a GO GO GO GO and so now I am a little nervous that my giant bag will bring down this aircraft. Which would be fine, if I were coming BACK from my trip. To crash en route to Oaxaca would suck indeed. I’m in the single-seat row alongside the left of the plane. At least I’m not crammed next to someone. Oh and I sailed through customs and even did the whole exchange in (horrible) Spanish.

7 p.m.

Now I am in Oaxaca, at a small guesthouse on the outskirts of the city called La Villada Inn. This place has got that right amount of developing-country funk (the pool is nice, but cloudy, and no way in hell would I get in it.) It’s nearing 7 pm, night is falling and the mountain air gets chilly fast when the sun goes down. Just met a crazy cute German guy staying here, who is also traveling to Puerto Escondido tomorrow … hmmmm. I am drinking a Corona and relaxing in the hammock outside my room looking at the lights of the tiny houses at the base of the rolling, red-streaked mountains, listening to dogs barking and the wind rustling through the trees. It gets so dark in these little towns. I haven’t had a real trip since Africa last July … Montreal and Vancouver were great but don’t really count as traveling. When there is a sign in your bathroom telling you not to flush the toilet paper … THAT’S travel.

Holy crap, mosquitoes! I had forgotten they would be here. I know I have some bug juice in my travel medical kit but that is buried at the bottom of my giant bag, and I don’t feel like getting it out right now. Pretty soon I will have to venture inside anyway because the wind is kicking up and, damn, it really does get cold fast.

I was supposed to spend the night working, but have had problems logging in. Cop-out? Maybe, but there are things I can be working on that don’t require the Internet. I have to be able to work while on the road to, ah, support myself and fund my trips, so I can’t cop out. Time to remember that I am not on vacation; I am traveling, and there is a vast difference between the two.

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