Mexico Part Tres

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Puerto Escondido

We arrived in Puerto a bit shabby after the bus ride and cruised around trying to find a hotel. We ended up picking one with 50 stairs up to our room...the office was all the way to the top. Dont know what we were thinking. Puerto is on the way to becoming the next Kuta. Theres heaps of photographers and dads shooting on the beach and a constant crowd in the water. Puerto Escondido means ´hidden port´but its not so hidden anymore. Should really translate to ´glorified close out´. After chilling in Nexpa, Puerto seemed a bit hectic, but at least we could eat some sushi and party for Michael´s birthday. We stayed on Zicatela beach, but there´s also La Punta on the north end. Zicatela is full of too cool for school kids. We spent four days there, but the surf never got big. Even I went out on Le Boogie.

The night before Michaels birthday, we´d seen them putting up this big green tent, we thought maybe some big concert was going to be on for his birthday. Turns out the Oaxacan governor was coming to Zicatela to give a speech about how things are going to get better. Went out for Michaels birthday with some Aussies and American guys we´d met and had a messy night on the tequila, which should translate to ´da-kill-ya´. The guy at the restaurant where we had dinner insisted we have a shot of mezcal as well, that stuff never goes down well, and the aftertaste is somehow worse....We woke up the next day super parched and we´d had enough of Puerto. We got a van down to Barra de la Cruz with the American kids. This guy Arturo drove us, its a 2.5 hr drive. Michael and I sat in back, where there were no windows...there was some flow from the front, but if we weren´t already on struggle street, we were then. We pulled up in Huatulco, the town before Barra with John´s directions to ´find a lady in a glass booth in a fast food looking place on a corner and turn right.´We tried that for about 15 minutes before stopping and finding another hotel. When the boys went in to look at them, Arturo´s all, ´I´ll put the AC on man, is HOT!´ 2.5 hours too late.

Barra de la Cruz/h2]

The boys went to rent a car and the cheapest one was the little red rocket. The 5 of us squeezed in to head down to Barra for a quick surf before 8pm. Since the WCT contest there, the community got together to figure out what they wanted to do with all the tourists visiting Barra. They decided to keep it small and beautiful instead of building it up and ruining what they have. So they put up a gate, and they charge $2 per person for entry. They open the gate at 7am and it closes at 8pm. The money goes back to the community. Barra was real small and mellow the first night, and we got out just before 8pm. We stayed in Huatulco that night, we tried to find a parking spot and were stoked when we saw one right in front of our hotel. But theres a squillion birds that sit on the power lines above the curb and shit all over everything.

Its about a 5 minute drive from the gate to the beach, and you come over the hill and you can see this perfect right hander breaking on these massive rocks that form the point. A week or so before we came, Barra had 10 straight days of rain, and the rivermouth broke in the wrong spot. There are two palapas at the beach, with a restaurant, and they had to put sandbags to stop the bank from breaking and floating their restaurant away. We spent all day there and sent the American boys back to Huatulco and we stayed in the cabanas just inside the gate. After one day of walking the track to the beach, we thought it´d be a good idea to hire a car, so we took over the red rocket.

The beach was the nicest one we´ve seen, no rubbish anywhere, lotsa butterflies and devil flies. As soon as you get wet, they attack you from all angles and gnaw at your skin. Theyre pretty slow though, so its funny to watch everyone duck and dodge them and run in circles doing the devil fly dance, soon to hit a dancefloor near you. It was way better staying in the cabanas because you could stay in the water til dark after the crowd left to go back to Puerto. After the first 3 days of big swell, I got Le Boogie out and got my best waves ever, had my first twice a day surf. Michael would take off out the back and let me drop in on him.

We were surfed out after a week or so and had met the owner of the restaurant next door, Pablo. He wanted to take us to a waterfall, so we gathered the troops and squeezed 18 of us in the truck. Pablo brought 2 guys with him and walkie talkies and a camera and we headed down the river. Pablo showed the boys some manners, Mexican style, when we crossed the river. The boys went on the left hand side of the girls to break up the current. There were 2 guys floating down the river on logs, but we´d left ours at the cabanas. We hiked on a bit further and got to the jumping rocks. There was a little one and then a bigger one across the river. We had jumped off the smaller one and floated down to get in when the guys started going up the other side. Michael and I tried to swim across, but the current was super strong. Michael didnt make it, and I aimed upstream and had made it to the rock, the Mexcian kid had my hand but all of a sudden he screamed like a little girl and let go. So we floated down stream and climbed back up and around. The bigger jump was probably 10 metres or so. It was really good to be in freshwater and cool, refreshing water. Once we finished jumping, we gave our gear to the Mexican boys and we floated downstream to the pick up.

Pablo had told the guy to pick us up at a certain time...but no one had a watch so we waited for a bit and piled back in, even picked up 2 more guys on the way back. We had lunch at Pablo´s restaurant and some well deserved pina coladas and margaritas. The boys spotted this tree with big green fruit, and Pablo went and got 3. You dont eat them, they are too bitter, but they cut them in half and carve the flesh out. They smell like green apples and are soft and juicy. He called his uncle over to show us how to do it. You boil it then to get the rest of the flesh out and you have yourself a bowl or cup. Michael cracked his big time, it looked like an eggshell. He thought it was special but Pablo threw that one in the bin. After a few too many beers, the boys thought it would be a good idea to get a cricket game going, so they found a piece of wood and taped up a handle and a tennis ball.

Every day you would wake up at Barra and wonder what you were going to do til dark, but all the days seemed to blend into one and all of a sudden its getting dark and you are trying to keep an eye on the spider in the shower. It seemed hotter there than it has been anywhere else, especially at the cabanas. An American couple had a tarantula in their room one night, super big and fat and hairy. Matt and Kelsey had a scorpion in their room the next night. They captured it and then Ed thought he should let it go. But as soon as he dropped it, Jimmy sliced its tail from its head with a machete. The tail still wiggled around for ages. I had sweeped two out of our place at Nexpa that were only about an inch or two big, but apparently the smaller they are the more poisonous because they dont have as much control over their tail.

After 11 days or so in Barra, and after Kel spotted what she thought was a great white jupming out of the water, we figured we should head inland and start making our way over to Belize.

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