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Published: February 25th 2018
Clavadista Dive - Time Lapse
This crazy guy leapt from a height of 35-meters (113-ft, or something like that) into a channel only about as wide as a Volkswagen!We finally parted ways with our lovely friends Jen, Gavin, Sharon and Roque at a campground south of Zihuatanejo, promising to try to all reunite at some point further down the road. The heat along the southwest coast was very intense, and we spent a few uncomfortably sweaty nights in Tortuga on the way to Acapulco, but I was dying to see the world-famous cliff divers so Ken kindly humoured me and we sweated it out for another 2 nights in a campground just to the north of the city. It was worth the discomfort, although Ken may not totally agree! The divers hurled themselves from various precipitous heights, with the finale being a 35-metre leap with a couple of somersaults thrown in for dramatic effect - and all this was into a narrow channel of ocean between two cliffs, with plenty of rocks poking from underneath the water. The divers had to wait until the perfect wave rolled in, so that the water would be deep enough to dive in to! My heart was pounding every time they jumped, and we were relieved that none of the divers got injured (apparently it's not uncommon, and occasionally it can go really
Clavadista Double Dive -Time Lapse
Wow! Apparently, they've been doing this since the 1930s. It became world-famous after an Elvis Presley movie from the 1960s. wrong and they end up suffering a fatal injury). It was really an amazing spectacle and we were very happy to have been able to see it, even though the bus ride back to the campground was an extreme exercise in excessive heat and noise tolerance (the driver had his reggaeton music on so loud that the windows were rattling and it was unbearably HOT)!
Ken was by this time at his wit's end with the heat and humidity, muttering incoherently about having lived for 6 miserable years in Miami, so we stopped just short of Puerto Escondido the next day and found a wonderful oasis of a hotel, complete with a gorgeous pool and air conditioned rooms! It was such a tranquil place that we ended up staying for 2 nights, lounging by the pool all day and eating at the hotel restaurant each night. It was great value too, so we hardly had to stretch our budget at all, which is always a nice bonus. There are claw marks on the door frame of our hotel room from which I had to prize Ken's grip when it was time to check out! From there we continued south
Clavadista climbing
Almost as impressive as the diving are the clavadistas' rock climbing skills. to Puerto Angel and then east into the mountains to a pretty little village called San Jose del Pacifico. This little town is perched high up on a mountain at about 8000ft and the air was cool and fresh (a dramatic change from the near sweltering temperatures of the nearby coast), with hundreds of species of birds flitting around and spectacular views across the sierras. We were able to stay the night in the car park of a lovely hotel, and although it took us ages to get Tortuga level enough to sleep in (the ground was very sloping!), we were eventually able to settle down and enjoy the beautiful sunset from our galley window. Later we spent an enjoyable evening at the hotel restaurant with Stephen, a British veterinarian who was on holiday in Mexico for a month, enjoying some hiking and bird watching in the area.
After that it was pretty much downhill (literally, not figuratively) all the way to the city of Oaxaca (pronounced 'Wahaka'), with a few road blocks as we got closer to the city that made the journey a little longer than we'd expected (just peaceful protests though). We pulled into the tiny
and tranquil Overlander Oasis campground, run by a very friendly and helpful Canadian couple - Leanne and Calvin - and we have been here for the last 11 days! Oaxaca is an amazing city, with so much rich colonial history, a near-perfect climate, beautiful plazas and a vibrant art and music scene. The food is delicious and ridiculously cheap too, and the area is famous for its 'moles' (not the small blind rodent, but the rich sauce made from chocolate powder and chili!) - there are apparently 7 different kinds, which are served over traditional dishes such as enchiladas or roasted chicken, but so far we've tried just 2 and they are very tasty indeed! The fact that we haven't been driving for almost 2 weeks means that we have a lot more money to spend on eating out, which is great. Petrol is by far our biggest expense on this trip, so it's nice to take a break from the driving days.
Our campground is about 12km from the city centre, in a small town called El Tule, famous for its giant Montezuma cypress tree which is thought to be well over 1500 years old and one of
Lounging Around
After sweating a lot in Tortuga, we opted to stay in a nice hotel for a couple of nights with air conditioning (!) and a spectacular pool. It cost just US$32 a night and we even got to watch some Winter Olympics on TV! the oldest living things on earth! We've been able to take buses into the city most days, soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying the many great restaurants and cafes in the historic centre. Ken had an amusing encounter one afternoon with a tiny, one-legged elderly lady in a wheelchair, who for some reason decided to use him as a human punch bag and chase him around the plaza, encouraging me to hit him too! We're still not sure what her motives were, but it was hilarious nonetheless! On our second day here there was a powerful earthquake about 200km away down on the coast, which measured 7.2 and made the BBC news. It caused a lot of dramatic shaking here in Oaxaca and many aftershocks, but luckily no-one seems to have been hurt or killed. It's definitely the strongest earthquake either of us has experienced, but we were in a nice open space and not too worried. (Ken's account: "All of a sudden, the ground was rumbling and moving. Being a trained expert in the field of ocean rescue and survival, I relied on my tactical training... of sorts. After a few moments of panic-induced screeching and flailing, and an
San Jose del Pacifico
A little town in the mountains, at about 8000ft above sea level. A nice, cool break from the heat of the coast. initial misstep of 'stop-drop- and roll', I realized that it was best just to stay put where we were. The real horror came after the earthquake was over when it became apparent that the wifi signal was out! That was truly terrifying!"). It was quite surreal to see our truck and Tortuga rocking back and forth so wildly though! The whole state of Oaxaca is a very seismically active area, and there have been some devastating earthquakes here in the past, with the most recent being in September last year, incurring many deaths. People here seem to take everything in their stride though, and many buildings have signs showing evacuation routes and where to shelter in the event of an earthquake.
Natural disasters aside, we've already decided that Oaxaca could well be somewhere we'd want to call home and it's the place we've most liked so far on our trip. There is still a lot more to see, of course, and many other countries that we'd like to explore, but we may find ourselves coming back here at the end of our trip and renting an apartment for a while. There is a well established mountain bike scene in
the area, the climate is nearly perfect with hot, sunny days and cool nights, and we've had really positive interactions with both locals and ex-pats here. Healthcare is also very good too, so I was able to get my 4-month post-surgery scan and blood tests taken care of this week (all seems to be ok at this point!). It's still not clear why frighteningly loud fireworks often go off at 5 in the morning, but maybe it's best not to ask too many questions. We're heading up into the sierras tomorrow to check out the hiking and biking trails, and will probably spend a few days up there before moving south to the state of Chiapas. Thanks for following our trip and we hope you enjoy the photos - there should be 16 in total.
~ Fi
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Emily Eby
non-member comment
Oaxaca
I'm so excited to hear that you've maybe found a spot to call home! Even for awhile. I definitely know what it's like to be in search of it.