Bus, Walk, Taxi, Plane, Plane, Taxi & Home

We spent our last day in Puerto Escondido in the pool, reading our books, walking along the beach, eating fresh fish. Steve is kind and offered to take us to the bus station in the evening. He was wearing a Dexter tee shirt and Chris asked if he had worked on the show and, in fact, he was a location scout and manager for four years before coming here. He was visiting a friend here two years ago in November and when he got off of the plane—before leaving the airport—decided he could, should and would live here. He stayed the month of November, went back to LA, put in his papers for retirement and by March was back here for good. Chris and Steve talked Steve Earle the rest of the way to the airport. It turns out before Steve was in film, he was a record producer (an experience he describes as outhouse to penthouse to outhouse again, requiring a reinvention), and he was interested in Chris’ reviews of Justin Townes Earl, with whom he was unfamiliar. He made it clear he would like to have us back and we made it clear that we would like to come back and I think it was clear to everyone that next time we’ll probably share meals and drinks. 

Steve got us to the bus station at just the right time; we only had to wait minutes before the bus arrived and we were off. Unlike the colectivo we took to PE, we arranged for a first class bus back to the city. It was scheduled to leave at 8:45 in the evening and takes between 10 and 11 hours. We hoped to not lose a day of our trip in transit and that sort of worked. The bus was relatively comfortable and air conditioned and had a bathroom—all of which were positives. There were movies and it turns out it is relatively easy to piece together the plot of Rio even when it’s in Spanish because it is basically scene after scene rip offs from other movies, so really you’ve seen the whole thing before .The second movie was a Mel Gibson movie, and, as those closest to me know, I have an irrational and unnatural loathing of Mel Gibson. You know, mostly because he’s a racist, misogynist, anti-Semite, who denigrates almost everything I believe in and still gets cast in major motion pictures. I didn’t love being stuck on the bus with that. It would be like if Chris was stuck on the bus with John Edwards—about whom he feels as vehemently as I do about Mel Gibson.

We played some backgammon and then, thankfully, nature took its course; we eventually fell into fitful sleep. Really, we slept most of the night because we’re too damn old to stay up all night no matter how uncomfortable the situation is. Several years ago, Susan gave me a clever travel kit—blanket, mask, pillow small enough folded to tuck into a purse—and I was glad I had it on the bus. That said, for a number of reasons, it wasn’t terrifically restful. In the middle of the night, an abuela’s Tupperware full of juice glasses fell out of the overhead compartment, opened and glasses rolled everywhere in the dark. It was spectacular, however, when we woke up before dawn, to watch the sunrise over the mountains. We began to recognize the small outlying towns we had visited on the first leg of our trip and knew we were close. 

Within a half hour, the bus had stopped and the driver got off, got back on, got off again. There was another bus perpendicular to ours and Chris craned to see if it was an accident. The bus perpendicular to ours jumped a curb, drove through over a pedestrian path in a median and headed back in the direction we had come from. There was some muttering on the part of the driver and then we were doing what seemed to be a reverse three point turn in something the size of a Coach bus. There was some rocking back and forth and eventually the driver said the streets running into the city were closed and he could go no farther. There was no further explanation. People shuffled off the bus and collected their luggage and looked for cabs. We found a cab and gave the driver our address in the city and he said he could not take us there, that it was impossible to get a cab to the city center. There was no further explanation. We removed our bags from his trunk and started walking. We were not far from the bus station, no more than several city blocks, but we were not close to our residence. Some streets were totally deserted and others were filled with cabs, all parked perpendicular to the causeway. It quickly became clear that we were in the midst of a cab strike. We walked for over an hour and probably miles with our suitcases and carry ons (plus guitar!) and saw that the cab strike had affected garbage pick up, which was a more major issue than usual because it is the time of a Guelaguetza—an annual two-week long celebration that has occurred in some fashion for over 1000 years and in its current fashion for over 80 years. It has only been interrupted once—by the teacher’s strike of 2006. In the Benito Juarez park, which we walked through with our luggage, Guelaguetza is reminiscent of Taste of Chicago. Imagine the Taste without garbage service. There was what seemed to be an increased police presence in the streets as well, and it felt a bit like everything had changed while I was trapped on the bus with Mel Gibson and that possibly there was a war going on, but in the end it really was just the cabs.

We finally arrived at 301 Independencia and I was mid-apology for our arriving so late, when Kelly told us that we had arrived a day early so that was awkward. He’s a kind man and our room was open so he rushed to plug in the refrigerator and light the pilot on the hot water heater and generally make us comfortable. We probably could have done the bus ride without the nap but there was something about the bus ride and walking the last bit of the journey that forced one. We settled in and Mexican Foof joined us as if we had never left and we all felt better after some rest. We spent the afternoon wandering around and headed back to Benito Juarez to enjoy their Taste and did. We had elote, crepes—it turns out that while Nutella makes almost everything else better, cream cheese makes Nutella better, and quesadillas with chiles and mushrooms. There was an International Mezcal Festival going on in the center of the park and artisan booths at the perimeter.

When we returned home at the end of the day, our entire street was filled with taxis—three lanes of them from corner to corner and we wondered if the strike would continue today, making our trip to the airport difficult, but it seems to have been a final stand kind of thing. Kelly mentioned that cab strikes are not unusual and only last a day or two at a time.

Last night, I dreamed that Archie was with us except each time I went to take a picture of him, he was a different age—sometimes his current age and sometimes just a little boy. I think it means we probably should have been bringing him with us since the beginning. We’ll have to ask him if he wants to come with us next time.

We went this morning to a Oaxacan breakfast buffet to have one last regional meal full of things we just won’t find at home: chocolate con agua, quesadillas con flors, espinaca y nopales, papas con chorizo, jugo de pepino (which I might have to start making at home if I can figure out the ratio of cucumber juice to sugar—the ratio is something like some to a ton) and walked to the Zocalo for a goodbye glimpse. We saw that the headline on today’s paper said SECUESTAN AL TURISMO and we were excited to have a whole article written about how our lives were made difficult by the cab strike. We also saw police in riot gear and tons of people organizing for a rally, something about education and the indigenous people, and I would have liked to stay but we needed to leave for the airport.

I mean, I thought we needed to leave for the airport because I forgot that the Oaxacan airport is nothing like O’Hare. It took us about five minutes to check our bags and move through security so we went and sat in the sunshine for a bit and now we’re waiting for our plane to arrive in a gate that has six other people in it. We probably could have gone on a daytrip given the amount of time we allowed for the airport. 

Last night at dinner, Chris and I talked about how long we could stay in Mexico (or, I guess, anywhere we liked that wasn’t home) and we agreed we could both do this for longer. That said, because we have to come home today, there are things that I look forward to. We’ll have breakfast with my parents and sister tomorrow morning and I’m looking forward to seeing them. I’m looking forward to choosing something that isn’t in my suitcase to wear. I’m looking forward to uninterrupted wireless service. I’m looking forward to Heinz ketchup and once again, I’m looking forward to flushing my toilet paper. Mostly though, I’m looking forward to going home so I can look forward to either coming back or heading out someplace new.

I'll have another

There’s so much that goes unsaid about our experience here, things that are hard to capture and relay succinctly and well. 

Living in the city is loud—car alarms, police sirens, shouting people, screeching brakes, slamming doors, reverberating bass, bursting bombs, not to speak of the clamor and din in our own heads. 

Here, it’s quiet. Except that by quiet I mean a different kind of loud. The first night we slept here, we listened to the night and wondered. And we’re still sorting out the distinct layers of sound throughout the day and night. There are two dogs and two cats that belong to the property, so there is the padding of their feet and the occasional scrape of their claws against the porch floor and screen doors as they try to barrel their way in at various points during the day and night, the unmistakable sound a dog makes when he raises from sleep and shakes himself awake, the rolling over and sighing of an animal in the sun, the yipping when one beast startles another—in this case, usually the cat startling the dog. There are crickets and mosquitos and bees and gnats and fleas and moths and butterflies and dragonflies and countless other bugs, each adding its own timbre. There are birds: some that coo, some that sing, some that whiz past: grackles, cormorants, pelicans, hummingbirds, sandpipers, orange crowned warblers, chickens, roosters. There is the sound, so much like a footstep, of lizards darting through underbrush. There is the clicking of the fronds on a palm tree as the breeze blows through, as well as the creaking of three-story bamboo trunks leaning back towards the earth. Above all this is the sound of the surf—a sound more obvious at night than during the day, but constant nonetheless.

Something that I know at home but forget is that television is foolish and that air conditioning isn’t really necessary if no one else has it either.

Two summers ago, in San Miguel, we went horseback riding for the first time since I was a child. Leading up to the experience, I was afraid—mostly of getting on the horse. Until I got on, I didn’t realize there would be so many other things to be afraid of on the actual ride. I stood on the flatbed of a truck to get on the horse and it wasn’t so bad. In some ways, the ride was a successful experience and in others: my horse ran me through a mesquite grove leaving my scalp and back bloodied and Chris’s horse disappeared with him on it for long enough that our guide, Ray, suspected trouble and left me alone at the edge of a Mexican river without leaving me any instructions about where I was or how to get my horse to move. Over three hours later, at the conclusion of our ride, we were shell shocked but had a good story.   

Last summer, when we were camping in the Smoky Mountains, we went horseback riding again, this time in the national park and there were rules, among them: no open toed shoes, long pants, all horses should follow a single file path. Chris remembers it was about $45 a person, and I remember that there was a platform from which each person got on their horse. I remember because I was still afraid of getting on the horse. 

Today, we went horseback riding on the beach. It was $6 a person, we both had on shorts, I was wearing flip flops and there was no truck to stand on, no platform. There was just the beach and the horse. Our guide, Jose, didn’t speak English, but he made it clear in Spanish that I was just supposed to get on the horse so I did. For someone of my general size and shape, this was a victory. And now I don’t think I’ll be afraid of getting on horses anymore, except maybe a little. We did this in the early evening when the sun was setting, heading toward Punta Zicatela, with no path but the edge of the ocean. It was nice for there to be no rules.

Tomorrow, we’ll spend the day here and then take a night bus to Oaxaca City. The ride is supposed to take 10 hours, and we hope to sleep so we’ll have the whole day to play on Wednesday, and then Thursday we return home.

Together, Chris and I have been to California, Nevada, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, and Kentucky. In Mexico, we’ve been to Oaxaca, Yucatan, Jalisco and Guanajuato. In Europe, we’ve been to Italy and Spain. We’ve been to Puerto Rico and Guatemala. This is the first place we’ve been that Chris has said, “We should come back here,” and that makes coming home easier.  

2 for the price of 1

Having seen turtles in a hatchery in Manzunte which was on the lame side of cool, we thought it might be more interesting to see turtles in the ocean, so yesterday we rented a boat and a captain for a morning ride. We were assured we would see turtles and told we could only hope to see dolphins, no promises. It was funny then when we got to the shore and immediately—before embarking—saw dolphins playing in the surf. Unlike home, there is no pier and our captain—who could be in my third period American Lit class—had to hitch a ride with a fishing boat pushing off the sand to get to his boat, anchored out a ways in the water, and bring it into the sand for us to board. There’s no doing this without getting wet, but we’re pretty much constantly soaked now and used to it. In the meantime, we watched groups of men push boats from the street to the shore using a series of logs to facilitate the roll into the water. There’s definitely a system and it definitely involves sweating and swearing. 

I’m happy on boats.

We headed out from Playa Principal and as soon as we were out in the open water, our driver began to point here and then there at turtles coming up for air. It’s hard to get photos of them, because they move fast and the water is deep but it’s fun in the moment to first see their heads pop up and then the balance of their body shift so that their shells are on the surface and then their tails as they dive back down below. These are not little terrarium turtles, classroom pets that a six-year-old is asked to care for over the summer.  They’re big enough to see in the distance from the boat.

Our captain also gave us a tour of the seven beaches of Puerto Escondido: Playas Bacocho, Carrizalillo, Manzanillo, Angelito, Principal, Marinero and Zicatela. We were able to see the Andador we had walked from Principal to Manzanillo and realized from the water how long it was and—more startlingly—how dangerous.  

The tour was the breakout hit of the day, although a slight misunderstanding with a waitress in the evening led to our receiving four drinks at happy hour rather than the two to which we’ve grown accustomed and that was its own kind of hit. Kay Smith would be happy here—the Brandy Alexanders are made with fresh coconut milk and, as mentioned, come by the two.

Today, we decided to walk the Andador again in the opposite direction, from Manzanillo to Principal, this time bringing the good camera. The beauty of it wasn’t dulled by doing it again. In fact, knowing the terrain helped us look up and away from our feet to see some things we had not the first time and among them—hundreds of crabs, and snails, and fish. I was hit by a wave that soaked me from neck to knees about halfway through the trail which was refreshing but I also wondered if someone couldn’t be swept right off the rocks… Something like the Andador here would never be possible in the US for this reason. You would never be allowed to be so close to the rocky shore or on a stone bridge with no handrails over which the surf crashes. It’s dynamic.

It’s also hot and long and we had to collapse in the shade for a bit after we were done enjoying limonadas, gathering the energy we needed to get back home for lunch and some pool time before heading out again.

It was our intention to go horseback riding today before sunset and we headed out with that in mind but alas could not find the man with the horses. He’s either standing somewhere on Playa Zicatela with his horses or he’s off on a ride. We’ve seen him several times in different places on the beach and talked to him once to determine that the hopes of a horseback rider are hit or miss—one either sees him or they don’t, there’s no office or arranging a ride in advance. We ended up walking the length of Zicatela at the start of sunset looking for him and that was a lovely way to spend our time, too.

 And that made us thirsty so…

36 hours

Some things we’ve seen in the last 36 hours: 

A man and woman on a motorcycle with a small child between them cruising down the panamerican highway, all three bungeed together at the waist.

The pristine beach of San Agostonillo, on which for lunch we had the freshest fish possible filleted outside after we ordered.

A clown juggling fire at the stoplight.

An older woman in a huipile selling a restaurateur 100 limes for 60 pesos. She emptied them out of her mesh bag and into a large bowl a girl brought out from the kitchen.

Chris’s shorn chin for the first time in at least a year. He came out clean shaven, with sunglasses on and a hat. It was like he was incognito.

A turtle hatchery in Mazunte. Turtles aren’t winning at natural selection because they’re good looking. They’re ugly but in a kind of cool way when you’re looking at one that is unbelievably enormous.

A foal grazing in the meadow by our house.

An alley that ended in the ocean filled with boats rather than cars.

A takeout delivery boy holding the meal in one hand, navigating his motorcycle up an unpaved and steep hill with the other hand—in the rain.

The end of a book that captivated me these last few days and that everyone should read: The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea.

An electrical storm that lit the night sky like the sun and bellowed and raged for hours.

Enough things to know that we’ll see more things tomorrow.

Today was like a poem.

There is often a time during each of our trips when I think we might die. I never actually got to that point today, but I did think to myself, “Well, this is it. No one but God knows where we are, at least one of us isn’t in particularly good standing with him and we haven’t seen another human being in at least an hour. We don’t have any water, the ground is alive with sand crabs and that’s either a piece of drift wood, a lazy crocodile or worse a crocodile pretending to be lazy.” But that was today, and I haven’t said anything yet about yesterday.

We headed to the Puerto Escondido mercado yesterday midday—because for some reason we persist in leaving the house when the sun is highest in the sky—to see what was what. We were reminded of a travel foible we’ve experienced before: in Spanish the difference between right and straight is a single letter. Despite turning derecha and then realizing we were supposed to go derecho, we found it, and it was similar to other markets we’ve visited, although Chris and I have been struck repeatedly by how gracious the vendors here are. Chris was looking at guayeberas and went so far as to try one on, but there was no real pressure to buy. When Chris said it was a beautiful color, the young man simply agreed and thanked him. We were there primarily for a sombrero but unfortunately Chris’s head is enormously too large to fit in any of the hats that were available in the market. The woman we met with didn’t even try to pretend she had something or that she had a sister two stalls over and three down with something to accommodate that big old brain. We had lunch in the Mexican version of the food court and there Chris grappled with sopa de camarones from which antennae arced out of his bowl and rested on the table between us.  There were eyes looking at me out of that bowl and in every direction. I mentioned that in the city of Oaxaca vendors offered samples of their product and that remains true in this part of the state. Chris and I feel compelled to buy anything that anyone offers us a taste of and, because of this, on our way out of the market we purchased a baked product about the size of a frozen waffle that was part cornbread, part honey cake, all good, and we also got something that reminded me of something my mom made when I was little (I want to say pizzelles, but I think not quite pizzelles?). Whatever they were, they triggered an instant memory of a box in the cabinet above the fridge in our old house on Oak Park Avenue in which were stored the apparatus, and if memory serves there was a butterfly shape that took my fancy.

When we returned home, we chatted with Nina for a bit and she mentioned that if we’re leaving our shoes on the porch, which we’ve been doing, we should check them for scorpions and tarantulas in the morning which was good advice that we will happily offer to other people who will continue to leave their shoes out on the porch. Our shoes will be coming inside with us from now on. She said the hurricane affected natural habitats and displaced some of the indigenous animals from the hills, and jaguars and leopards have been sighted in nearby towns in the last month since the storm hit. I’m not sure how I would behave if I was walking through a small town here and saw a leopard, but I’m quite sure I wouldn’t demonstrate the calm and poise of Atticus Finch. Other than lizards and crabs and some tremendous birds, we’ve only seen dead animals: a tiny dead bat, a long dead snake and a desiccated dead frog. 

We’re using the Moon Handbook for Oaxaca and on some subjects it is full of valuable information and on others, not so much. For instance, it often says things like, “for a longer walk, keep walking…” and I’m not sure that someone who is savvy enough to get themselves to Mexico in the first place isn’t also clever enough to figure that if they wanted to walk longer than they already had, they simply could. We read that Playa Barra de Colotepec was worth a visit for its pristine beach which ends in a jungle-fringed lagoon at the mouth of the Rio Colotepec. What the book failed to mention was that this beach would be utterly deserted, though perhaps that’s what pristine meant to the author. We were waiting for a camionetta, when a taxi pulled up so we took that instead. This may have been the mistake that lead to me to wonder if all that GPS phone tracking they talk about on cop shows is real or if our dead bodies would never be found or identified. We asked to be taken to the beach at Barra. I was confident about our plans all the way down the panamerican highway to the turn off for La Barra, through the town and when it seemed like we left the town behind my confidence waned. The drive became greener and shadier and we seemed to be on a road running parallel to the Rio Colotepec, but then we turned and from then on only saw people with machetes. Eventually, the driver pulled up in front of a pile of sand, next to a completely isolated private home, and told us the beach was “through there.” He charged us more than any driver here has yet and, one quick three point turn later, he was gone before we realized it wasn’t an inhabited beach and there was no chance a taxi would ever happen down this road again. There was nothing to do but climb the sand pile and head out towards the ocean. 

Each of the beaches we’ve visited star gorgeous, clear water. The water crashing to shore on this beach was brown out almost as far as the eye could see—presumably because we were close to the mouth of the river. There was only the slightest ribbon of blue darker than the sky on the horizon before us. If you’re not sure where you are and you’re not sure how you’re going to get home and you’re not sure you’re totally safe, you may as well commit to enjoying where you are.  There was no one in sight as far as we could see down the beach in either direction and there was something about being totally alone in the setting that was stunning and beautiful. We decided to walk towards the mouth of the river, which we couldn’t see from where we were. Beach walking is harder than walking and the sun is blazing hot and we never seem to have any water with us so we stopped occasionally to recommit to the plan. We’ll just walk up to that bend and see what we can see from there and then make a new decision to continue or go back. We’ll just walk up to that collapsed structure ahead on the left and then make a new decision to continue or go back.  We kept deciding to continue and eventually found ourselves at the lagoon at the mouth of the river which was a joyful place for egrets and pelicans and little birds, too, and us. We haven’t brought our best camera on any of these beach walks with us because it is cumbersome and it would be a shame if it was drenched, but Chris got some nice panoramas on our smaller camera at the river. 

We had a new decision to make, try to walk up the river or head back. And heading back dealt more than one option: heading back to Zicatela along the beach which was four or five miles (again, without water) or heading back to where the cab dropped us off and trying to traipse our way through the maze of dirt roads. Crocodiles. A quick discussion resulted in the elimination of option one, though I think in different circumstances (circumstances without me!) Chris would have attempted that river walk. We decided to try to retrace the taxi route because it was shady in places and it’s easier to walk on the road than the sand. On our way back down the beach, we realized that the sand was in constant motion and before long our eyes adjusted and were able to pick out the hundreds of crabs that burrowed into the sand to avoid our footfalls. Once we left the beach, we passed a few field workers and a mother and child sitting in the road under the shade of a tree. A little farther on, we passed a small huddle of children who seemed to be on a work break of some sort; their machetes tossed aside, they were enjoying a coconut they’d cut open and giggling. We turned and turned again and—since I have to walk a route 22 times to remember it—it all seemed new to me on foot even though I’d just driven it earlier in the day. Eventually, the road pushed us into the tiny town of La Barra, where we saw the most beautiful woman in the world walking barefoot carrying a child, and the scene left Chris breathless. We stopped in this town for water, which turned into lunch at a riverside restaurant. The restaurant was open air, only large enough to accommodate eight or nine tables—though it didn’t seem there were enough people in the entire town to sit one person to a table—and we sat facing the river which was only a couple of hundred feet in front of us. There were cows drinking from the river on the far side and two or three women fishing in it with sieves on our side and we had to wonder how many people actually find this restaurant and get to enjoy the scene? I’m thinking we’re members of a select group. We had only stopped for a drink really, but decided to snack and ordered a medium shrimp cocktail to split which ended up being like an all-you-can-eat event. It was substantial, cheap and delicious. After walking through a group of ducks that had wandered up to the restaurant, we were able to jump on a camionetta right outside that brought us back closer to home. 

We spent the rest of the day in the pool and reading our books before heading to Zicatela for dinner. Home now and tired. We’re thinking about heading outside of town tomorrow, maybe to Puerto Angel. Our taxi driver told us something, something, something, something about getting there. Chris is confident he can figure ot out, and I’ve no doubt he will. To tomorrow!    

Playas y Playas

On the evening of Friday the 13^th, the resident black cat of Casa Naranja at the esquina of Infragrante y Electrista crossed our path and, in the night, a tiny dead bat showed up outside of our door.  And still—despite these horrible omens—our trip is wonderful. Yesterday, we were desperate for cleaner clothes than we currently had available so we walked to the Panamerican highway and, in the hopes of finding a lavenderia,  hopped on a camionetta (this is a pickup truck that is outfitted like a covered wagon on the Oregon trail by removing the back gate, installing two narrow planks of wood as benches along the sides and stretching canvas like a tent over the top). Chris always makes a habit of trying to use whatever means of transportation the local people use, and I’ve noticed time and again that this might not be what all tourists do. It cost about 40 cents for us to get to the center of town and we walked a bit in one direction and then a bit back and then a bit in a different direction before finding Rosy, who agreed to do our laundry the same day. We were close to the supermarket so we returned there to restock. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a great day to purchase vegetables—the bins were literally empty, but we did pick up some other things we needed.  It doesn’t seem like running to the laundromat and the grocery store would be hard work, but it’s running errands without a car and without knowing for sure how to get the camionetta to stop where you need it to and it’s carrying 10 pounds of dirty laundry in a bag on your shoulder (and by “your” I mean Chris’s because he’s always does the heavy lifting) and it’s hot, which is why we had to siesta after all of that. 

The afternoon took us back to Playa Zicatela, but this time instead of walking west along the beach we walked east. This meant leaving behind the gentle surf of the swimming beach we’ve been visiting and heading towards rougher waters and—by all accounts—the best surfing in Puerto Escondido. We walked along the shore for several miles before arriving at Punto Zicatela (although graffiti would have you think it was Playa Bruja) where we sat and watched the serious surfers for longer than I would have thought I could be interested. It’s like a movie—any movie you can think of about surfing: from those starring Sally Field and Elvis Presley to Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze. Everywhere you look there are people trotting through the sand with surfboards and paddling out into the ocean and waiting for the next perfect wave.  And when they find the one they think is it, it’s captivating to watch them surf the pipeline.   And you think, it’s amazing they aren’t injured, and then someone will come in out of the water with ashen face, it’s clear they’ve had the wind knocked out of them and they’re compromised but they only wait a few beats before heading back out and you realize they think whatever injury is at stake is worth the chance at the next great wave. As I said, it’s captivating, simply beautiful to watch and we stayed till dinner. 

We returned home and made chicken soup with avocado for dinner, while thunder and wind threatened a storm that never materialized. Having heard so much about the recent hurricane, I’m glad.

Today, our adventures took us in the opposite direction. We took a camionetta towards the center of town to go to Playa Principal, which is a beach that boats motor right onto, and from which there is a “concrete pathway” to Playa Manzanillo.  I hear “concrete pathway” and I picture the Malecon in Puerta Vallarta which is, in fact, a concrete pathway that runs the length of the beach and is a lovely stroll. It is essentially an American sidewalk. This “concrete pathway” is not that. It is a path carved out of the rocks along the coast, sometimes with man-made stairs allowing you to go above the crashing waves and in other places, the orchestrators have allowed natural rock formations to serve. It was exhilarating—at times, you’re not sure where to place your next step and then a wave crashes in and you’re totally drenched, and it was frightening—Mexico doesn’t subscribe to guardrails or even not so much guard but just simply handrails. There are places where you have to scoot through sideways because the passage is narrow and there are crabs scuttling through right along with you. And then there’s the fact that you’re not really ever sure that the concrete pathway will come to an end because there are no markers letting you know how much further you’ve to go, but it doesn’t matter and the heat doesn’t matter because it is just so breathtakingly beautiful you forget the rest. 

Eventually, the path spits you out rather unceremoniously at the bottom of a staircase and you think—aha! the celebration for completing this journey is just above—but you get to the top and you’re on a dusty quiet street and all you can do is pray that on the next corner there will be somewhere to buy water. And there is, so you can keep walking. 

The only sign we could find was one pointing us in the direction of Manzanillo so we followed it and it lead us to a long flight of stairs down, again, to sea level. This beach was terrific fun. It was full of people—the way the mall is full of people before Christmas—and they were playing in the surf, climbing out of boats, putting on life vests for snorkeling tours, having their hair braided in corn rows. It was a great beach to visit because all of these people were Mexican. We had lunch there, ceviche and fish tacos, before heading home.

We spent the later part of the afternoon in the pool—which to my delight, Chris has taken to—and reading our books. Everyone who has read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should read My Jim by Nancy Rawles. I’ve already asked one of my American Literature colleagues to read it, and I hope she’ll agree that we need to teach it.  We headed to Zicatela for happy hour and returned to Trattoria Vasco Escondido, where we had delicious mojitos the other day and tried to recreate the scene today. It worked. If you are ever in this town: Vasco has a skilled bartender, a skilled chef and a kind wait staff. 

I heard thunder earlier but I also heard it yesterday to no result so instead of worrying about what a storm here looks like, I think I’ll think about what tomorrow might hold.

Pacifico

Hemingway: Sleep. Breakfast. Nap. Beach.  Margarita. Pool. Books. Guacamole. Hammock. Books. Mojitos. Dinner. Beach. Sunset. Blog. Sleep.

Michener: Despite the possible financial ruin that was Thursday, it’s increasingly difficult to complain about anything that happens here. It is this kind of place: yesterday when we were looking for wireless, we stopped in a beach-side bar for happy hour—where there was wireless, mind you; that’s why we stopped in, and we returned to the same place for dinner this evening. When we arrived, the same waiter hurried up to our table and presented Chris with a crumpled, tattered piece of paper. Somewhere in getting out or putting away the laptop and drinking margaritas yesterday, Chris dropped said paper on which I had written directions to our place both in Spanish and English, along with the Mexican cell phone number of our host. It was a piece of paper that was extremely important when we first arrived because we didn’t know where we were going, but it no longer holds value: we know our intersection and how to get there. No matter it’s relative worth, this is the kind of place where a waiter picks up a piece of paper you have dropped and looks out for you—over the course of days—to return it, and that has great value. 

Our drive turns out onto a road that runs straight into the ocean in a matter of blocks and each time we walk down it, I’m struck by its beauty and how unbelievably lucky we are to be here and to have found a reasonable place so close to the ocean. Today, as we walked, Chris mentioned how different it is here, where people of wealth live in two and three story homes, on large lots with in-ground pools and ocean views but have next door neighbors who live in one-story shacks with corrugated tin roofs and mud lawns. I’ve described where we’re staying. Outside the iron gates and across the road is a dilapidated trailer where a woman lives and grows flowers to sell from a basket she carries into town. It’s possible this road is the Austin Boulevard of Puerto Escondido but it’s more likely that there is actual economic integration here. There’s so much I would like to know more about. 

One weird thing that I hope is coincidence:  Last night, we made dinner. We’ve had our breakfast and lunches at the table on the lanai, but at dinner time it’s dark out there. The kitchen has a huge curved island but no table and chairs, and, after food prep but before eating, I said to Chris, “it would be great if there were stools here because then you could serve from and eat at the island instead of sitting on the couches and eating at the coffee table.” Today, four hand-made wooden stools were delivered along with a dining table and four chairs.  So, now I’m feeling like I’m part of some sort of creepy Mexican focus group, and I’m looking for the tiny cameras that cop shows lead me to believe are basically everywhere… 

On the road to find out.

On the road from Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido, the van shares the road. It shares the road with roosters and chickens and donkeys and horses. It shares the road with teams of oxen in wooden yokes and packs of could be stray dogs. It shares the road with grazing cows and just plain ugly turkeys. It shares the road with men with machetes and women with machetes and children with machetes. It shares the road with people on bicycles carrying loads of branches. It shares the road with tuk tuks and petrol trucks. It shares the road with mud and water and boulders. 

We decided on the collectivo because it was so much less expensive than flying and so much quicker than the first class bus. The collectivo was scheduled to leave at 12:30 and we were instructed to arrive at 12:15. We got there ahead of noon and were immediately ushered into a van—after a few moments of hemming and hawing about our luggage. When we arranged our seats ,we indicated we had two suitcases and two smaller bags (plus and always a guitar), but there was still a moment of surprise until the dispatcher and driver put their heads together and, within five minutes,  our suitcases were strapped to the roof and we were on our way. It isn’t clear to me if we had arrived at 12:15 as instructed if our ride would have been gone…

Chris had gone early to get our tickets and we were assigned seats 2 and 3 which was a blessing. These are the first two seats in the second row behind the driver. Let me provide context: there are four people on a bench seat along the back wall of the van, who can’t see at all what’s coming. In front of them, there are two people on a bench seat and one on a fold down seat who also cannot see what’s coming, then another row of the same. Our row had only our two seats and, in front of us, the driver, someone in the passenger seat and someone in the jump seat between them. Eventually, we made a stop, and a man stood hunched over between Chris’s seat and the door for about an hour of the trip. It turns out, all the hoopla about car sickness isn’t hoopla so much as it is a reasonable interpretation of past events and a sound estimation about future ones. Which isn’t to say we got sick; we’re not really throwing up in the van kind of people. Shimons are stoic, and Chris has grown to be. When we feel sick, we shove it down deep inside without comment and read a book to pass the time. The first two hours weren’t so bad. The second two hours made me feel desperately nauseous, as well as emotionally sympathetic to my friend Janna Nobleza, who I know experiences car sickness on flat roads. I can’t imagine anyone who suffers the way she does could do this ride. It reminded me a bit of our driving trip through the Smokies last year, because the turns were severe and steep but severe and steep in a Mexican context which means without speed limits, guard rails or, in some places, pavement. 

As I said, we shared the road which was, at times, startling. The driver slowed to pass cows that are not the least intimidated by vans, to navigate enormous potholes and spots where the road washed out a bit. Since arriving, we’ve heard about the recent hurricane which no doubt played a part in the mud sliding into the road in places. It made for a slightly longer than the advertised six and a half hour ride. So did stopping in the fourth hour at a roadside service station for 45 minutes so that all the tires could be removed and rotated. If you’re picturing a Firestone, you’re not picturing our experience. This is the panamerican highway and there isn’t a lot on it but for publico sanitarios every 1500 meters or so and I’ve come to understand that sanitario might not be a cognate. We arrived at an oasis which had a choice of two different publico sanitarios (one unmanned and thus free but also thus without toilet paper), a roadside comedor complete with a television blaring a telenovela and this corrugated tin tire shop upon which a spray painted sign alerts customers it is open 24 hours a day. In addition to rotating the four, the driver also traded in his spare which had zero tread at all. I might mention, too, that the driver communicated nothing about this stop to us. He did say “sanitario” when he stopped the van and then all of a sudden he was eating his lunch, kicking tires and never said another word to us about when we might leave. So we stood at the side of the road and considered ourselves lucky he wanted good tires at least for the last two hours of the trip. 

There is a point where the foliage subtly changes and palm trees polka dot the mountainside and flowers bloom in more lustrous colors. And the air changes from mountain crisp to ocean muggy. And it gets exciting because, after not knowing anything about how close or far you are in the hours that precede the moment, you know that finally you are close. 

There was a flurry of activity as the van dropped us of in the middle of the street in the middle of town and the driver scurried to the roof and hefted our bags off of it and we hailed a cab and climbed in and hoped for the best about our accommodations. The collectivo took about eight hours after all so it was dusk by the time we arrived and difficult to assess the relationship between where we were picked up by the taxi and where we were dropped off but it was clear we left the bustle of town for the quiet of a dirt road. We were nervous and tired and hungry. 

Nina is the property manager here. She’s originally from New York and has been living in Puerto Escondido for nine years and currently lives on the second floor of the property with her boyfriend and her granddaughter who is staying with her for the summer. Nina is one of those redheads whose hair, skin and eyes all seem to be the same color. She reminds me a bit of Melissa Leo and sounds like her, too. She is clearly shaken by the recent hurricane. The building’s palapa (thatched roof) was destroyed in some places and she said water poured into their apartment from above. Trees were down, the road was washed out. Her boyfriend Steve said that the Mexican government gave everyone three sheets of corrugated tin roofing and a 5-gallon bottle of water by way of reparations. 

Nina kept saying the place was a disaster and apologizing in advance for things but the property is lovely even if it has been damaged by the storm. There is a large pool, sun deck and lanai. The building is circular and every room has a wall of sliding screen doors so wherever you are, you are looking out on something beautiful and you can see the Pacific Ocean from the bedroom, living room and kitchen windows.

We took a cab to Zicatela for dinner, though in the light of today realized it is within walking distance, and we strolled up and down the street side of the beach before returning home to bed. The bed is huge and comfortable, and it was good to crawl into. 

This morning, Steve offered to drive us to town so that we could get the rent we owed him and we ran into a bit of trouble. We used an ATM at the supermarket and the transaction registered and the machine spun like it would deliver our pesos but it did not. A further frustration was that after the failed transaction we were unable to get any additional money because we had reached our withdrawal limit. So we spent most of the morning trying to process a claim at the HSBC here in Mexico and trying to call Chase in the States to process a claim at that end, as well.  That involved visiting what can best be described as a phone store but—again, if you’re picturing a T-Mobile, you aren’t picturing our experience. There was a bank of wooden phone booths and an operator. You present the operator with the number you wish to call, she enters it and then a phone in one of the booths rings for you. If Chase didn’t have a toll free number, I doubt we could have facilitated this. In the end, it is more likely that we were successful starting a paper trail with Chase over the phone than we were at HSBC where the woman we spoke with in person was kind and patient but didn’t actually write down anything we said. If you love us, hope we aren’t on the hook for that transaction because it was over 6000 pesos.

We went back to the supermarket to get some groceries for our stay and returned home where we felt like interlopers at the least and criminals in moments of extremity because we still hadn’t paid for our stay. It didn’t stop us from dipping in the pool and sitting in the sun, but still it felt wrong. Our internet here is shaky so after lunch we walked back to Zicatela to look for wireless and transferred rent money to our host’s account which made us feel like we were back on the right side of the law. On our way, we dipped our toes in the ocean and walked along the shore before having margaritas which were short on lime juice and long on tequila. We came back to watch the sun set from our lanai and Chris just a moment ago realized that he wasn’t playing his harmonica and thought he probably should. For all of its financial upsets, today was good and I expect tomorrow will be better. 

Did I mention there’s a lizard on the ceiling right above me?