On to Oaxaca City

I decided that I had had enough of Puerto Escondido as the days were becoming scenes from that movie Groundhog Day. Everyday I would walk down the main drag and see the same man opening his mini-super, the water delivery guys, the lady baking pizzas, the town drunk skateboarding with his fat dog, beer in hand, and the local psychopath sprinting down the street, waving at his fans, with a loin cloth on. I was craving a change of scenery, so I took the bus to Oaxaca City, pronounced Wa-Ha-Ka. The city of Oaxaca is super old and is the site of Monte Alban, the ancient Zapotec city dating back to 500 B.C. which now stands in ruins. Oaxaca City was founded by the Spanish in 1529.

There are two ways to get to Oaxaca City from Puerto. You can take the super luxurious OCC bus south, down around Salina Cruz and back up to Oaxaca City for $20, an 11-hour overnight ride. Or, you can take an ok bus straight up and over the Sierra Madres directly to Oaxaca City for $11. I decided to go for the $11 Estrella Roja bus. It only left at 11pm, so I figured I'd sleep, and even took some dramamine to help speed up the process. The thing is, although the trip is only 90 miles in distance, it took 8.5 hours to get there because it was switch backs all day everyday. The bus probably never went over 40 mph and stalled twice. Then Sancho Panza plopped down next to me at the last minute and snored in my ear all night, like that guttural phlegmy snore. I spent most of the night banging my head on the window for being such a cheapo.

We finally arrived, and Oaxaca City is definitely a cool town: super old looking, packed with museums, cafes, colonial buildings, and breezy squares lined with shady trees. I stayed at a hotel which was converted from an old colonial mansion. I must have gotten the servant's hole though because it was literally a box with a bed in it. Laying in bed, you could roll over and be out the door. Since sitting in my bed in a box was freaking me out, I spent the morning wandering around the city. I walked through this indoor market and the only word to describe it was pungent. Here they've got everything from statues of little baby Jesus Cristo to dead sheep that they're skinning, discecting, and auctioning off. The smell was so overwhelming I had to cover my face with my sweater. Sides of cow hanging next to whole skinned chickens, legs and feet intact, piles of dead fish, shrimp, the sheep of course, then mounds of chilies, coffee beans, spices, herbs, overripe fruit, cut flowers, cheese, and a mess of people. Every one of my senses was claustrophobic. The there's the ladies trying to get you to buy chili coated crickets because that's the popular snack here. I was still on antibiotics from the E.Coli I contracted at a restaurant in Puerto, so I had to decline. I stepped out to breathe, and there was this old lady with a box of baby chicks in her lap, but the chicks were all different colors, turquoise, hot pink, florescent yellow and orange, and she's selling them and giving them out in brown paper lunch bags. It didn't make sense to me at all. What do you do with this psychedelic bird in a bag? I wanted to take a picture to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, but she screamed at me not to. They're pretty intense about religion here. It's almost like voodoo. Whenever anyone walks by a church or cemetery, they cross themselves over and over again. There's shops selling animals for sacrifices, skeleton figures everywhere, and then they're super sketch when you try to take photos.

I took a tour of Monte Alban and spent all day walking around the ruins of the ancient city. The temples were massive and were all built with just handheld flint tools, no machines, no cranes. These people must have had some intense faith in some higher power to go to all that trouble. I spent the rest of my time in Oaxaca City scanning the museums, sitting around cafes, and watching street performers and shoe shiners at work.

Well, my Mexican adventure stops here. Now I am hopping borders to visit our neighbors to the North in Canada. I will close with: "Aimee's Top 10 Observations About Mexico and It's Inhabitants."

1. I never saw one Mexican over 6 ft. tall.

2. Mexicans put chili on EVERYTHING.

3. I never saw a Mexican holding a machete, and never did a Mexican try to cut off my body parts with one.

4. I was never hassled, cheated, robber, or drugged by a Mexican. In contrast, I was treated very fairly and kindly by everyone I met.

5. I was not abducted or kidnapped for human trafficking or sex slave purposes while in Mexico. 6. There is a serious drug trafficking problem in Mexico no doubt. But unless you go looking for trouble, you will stay out of it.

7. If you drink the water, you will get sick.

8. If you eat raw vegetables and fruits, even in a restaurant, you will probably get sick.

9. You can get any medication to fix your sickness over the counter without a prescription.

10. Margaritas are served blended unless specified otherwise.

*Thanks for coming along for the ride*

Puerto Escondido, mis dias finales

During my last week in Puerto Escondido, I explored many of the nearby beaches. First, I checked out Agua Blanca, about an hour south on the bus and then a twenty minute walk through peanut farms to the beach. This place had a great point break, but had super jagged rocks under water. So if you weren´t paying attention, a big wave could sneak up out of nowhere and mess you up pretty bad on those. While in Mexico, you must always pay attention. I ate a shrimp salad at the little palapa hut on the beach and got a mean bout of stomach disfunction.

Next was Roca Blanca, about an hour drive north on the bus and then, you guessed it, a twenty minute walk to the beach. It´s nuts how along the drive south, the terrain is flat and covered with fields of peanuts, watermelon, papaya, limon, and mango trees, and then you go north an hour and you hit a lush green bushy mountainous area full of lagunas and cows. If you´ve ever seen the movie Y Tu Mama Tambien, this beach Roca Blanca was the setting for the beach scenes. Although the point break wasn´t as fun here as Agua Blanca, climbing up the cliffs lining the ocean and feeling the waves booming below balanced things out. I asked the guy in the palapa hut restaurant here if he had any good fish that day, and he went and pulled out a red snapper from the cooler that was still breathing. He fried that whole little guy up for me and served it with some tortillas and limon, and that was probably the best fish I´ve eaten for sure.

At the end of the week, I went to the town of Zipolite, about a two hour bus ride south of Escondido. Along the way, I took a little canoe trip through this swampy laguna in Mezanute, and saw some intense hissing crocodrillos swimming right next to the boats. I also got to see some sweet ant eaters, dear, and little foxes. The laguna let out into the ocean, and on the beach where the laguna opened up was a crashed plane. The guide said that it was a drug running plane from Columbia that had 3000 kgs of coke on board. The Mexican federales had sighted it, so the plane crashed down, and the Columbians got away. Before the federales could get to the plane on land, local people had raided the plane and kept the goods for their own ventures. Drug trafficking is big in this port I hear, and you can tell by the feds patrolling the streets all day and all night with their machine guns mounted on their trucks with belts of amo loaded and ready. Intense much.

So then to Zipolite. Zipolite is a small funky town lining about a two mile stretch of ocean. Zipolite is full of American and Canadian hippies who seemed to have gotten lost there 30 years ago, and are still wandering around. It seems like a good place to be forgotten. The north end of the beach is a nude beach that requires you to be a 300+ lb white man in order to take your clothes off, or at least the requirement that day. I didn´t attempt to surf there because the beach had an intense current with tons of rocks. The name Zipolite actually means Sea of the Dead in a Zapotec language. I saw a girl almost drown while I was chilling on the sand. She got caught in the current and was getting pounded on the rocks repeatedly. Some surfers snatched her up and brought her to shore on their boards. She seemed to be alright. I stayed the night there in a hamock, then it started pouring rain, and once that stopped, I got attacked by mosquitos. I left as soon as the sun came up.

Now, on to my dog story. So I was jogging along Zicatela, the main beach in Puerto, on the sand with my sneaks on. So I was getting tired fast, and decided to take this hard-packed sand alley back, much easier. Well this scraggly dog approaches me with his wirey tail wagging, and I think we´re all cool, but then I guess I didn´t give the password on time because he let´s out this bark and all of a sudden there´s a ragged beach dog gauntlet in front of me. So I take a deep breath and charge it. I´m sticking, piveting right, turning left, throwing fake rocks, yelling out obsurdities, and I get past the mass of fur, thinking all´s good. Then I look forward and see the Don, the gatekeeper, standing waiting for me with his canines gnarling, and he wants blood. This guy isn´t like the mangey, one-eared muts up front. He´s been bread for business, like a pit-bull, boxer all juiced up. I had to charge him, there was no other option. So I take off, fake left, go right, on my toes high kneeing it to the finish line, when I feel the breaks go on. The Don´s got my shoe in his mouth, and he´s shaking my knee out of place. He´s got me on the ground, foot still in mouth, but someone´s looking out for me because there´s a massive rock at my right hand. I give it to him hard, in the face. Then I get up and run like it´s my job. Luckily I was wearing my new Asics GT2120´s with shock absorber inserts...didn´t even break skin.

Acclimation

Monday, August 24, 2009

Life in Puerto Escondido makes your heart beat a little slower. A typical day consists of three basic routines: eating, surfing, and napping. Since I don´t have a car, going anywhere takes time. Going to the Super Che, Mexico´s version of Walmart, is at least a half-day journey. Walking is my main mode of transport, but when the heat is really kickin, I hop on the pick-up, which is a truck with a blue tarp covering the bed that has benches built in. You have to get a running start when you literally hop on the pick-up because the driver doesn´t get out of second gear for you. However, for just $.30, you can get to the market and strike up a convo with some local families.

As Super Che is a wonderful place, I have been falling back on my hunter-gatherer skills for food. Spearfishing here is pretty reliable, and you can always catch red snapper and trigger fish at this little rocky beach down the way called Playa Coral. Then the neighborhood is lined with mango, lime, guayanaba, and avocado trees, so I jack fresh fruits and veggies when no one´s around. Something about being in Mexico makes me crave sweet stuff all the time, and these Mexicans, they know this. There is the most amazing assortment of delicious goodies here. They even sell little frosting packets to keep in your pockets. My numero uno is the most excellent Bubu Lubu, which is a marshmellow bar coated in strawberry jam, and then the whole thing is covered in chocolate. I try to have one after every meal.

I´ve got a little farm going back at my apartment. There´s Canella, the light brown puppy who was chilling with me at the beach, and since she was so cool, I lured her back to my apartment with a can of dog chow I bought at the mini-super. I kept her around for a few days, but had to hide her from the cleaning ladies. She ran off though, preferred a life on the streets I guess. Then there´s Don Julio de los Angeles and Maria Jose de Espirito Sancto, the demonic cats that stalk my terrace. I threw some fish to them one night, and now they pace around my front door and give me the death stare through the kitchen window. Maria J.d.E.S actually got in the apartment and tried to hide under my bed. She took a shoe to the head. Lastly, there´s Rocky Balboa, the baseball-sized spider that lives in the bathroom and guards the toilet.

I´ve made a lot of Mexican friends, got a tight little posse now. It started by meeting Julio the surf instructor, a five-foot mayan samarai with full arm sleeves of tatoos, gold-capped cannines, and a serious red vein running through his life eye. Despite his cheery disposition, he was been a great tour guide, showing me tons of sweet point breaks around the area and introducing me to all the beach lifeguards and lots of people around town. I tried Mescal (Mexico´s other national drink besides Tequilla) and it tastes like surgical tape. I don´t know why an entire nation would enjoy drinking something that tastes like a hospital.

I saw a man almost die in a car accident right in front of my face Friday. I ran over to see if he was ok, and saw him stuck inside his crushed VW Beetle, hunched over the dash board with blood streaming down his face. I was with some of my Mexican amigos, so we tried to pull him out. He was unconscious but still breathing. One of the guys knew the man, and said we had to run and tell his family. So we ran to their house, and while we were runnning, everyone was praying hail marys and crossing themselves over and over. I did an our father while everyone was at it. When we got to the house, the family had already found out and was on the way to the hospital. It´s a really small town.

I´m watching myself blend in more and more with the local population each day. My skin has gotten super dark...my teeth have never looked so white. Then I busted my nose on my board wiping out the other day, leaving a mean bump that looks kind of like the Mayan nose. The español is coming along. I enrolled in a Spanish class that meets for a few hours each week. It´s ok, but conjugating verbs outside in the heat of the day pretty much makes me want to scratch my eyes out. This week, I´m going to make some excursions to some of the towns around: Zipolite, Playa Angel, and Roca Blanca. I imagine it´s gonna be more water, more sun, and more afternoon siestas in the hammock.

*Update: A stream of pacific ocean came running out of my nose while I was sleeping, flushing out the massive bug and soaking my pillow. Yay to that.

My First Days...mis primeros dias

Aug.16, 2009

Getting to Mexico was somewhat of an old fashioned journey, although I was traveling in a modern day jet. The problem was I had to switch planes in Cancun and then in Mexico City, get on the Mexicana Click to Puerto Escondido, the city I am staying at which is on the southwest coast of Mexico, about a five hour drive south of Acapulco. Usually switching planes in most airports isn't a problem since they move your luggage for you, and all you have to do is show up at the next terminal. There is usually even a two to three hour layover, so you have time to grab an overpriced airport snack and relieve yourself. Well, in Mexico you must do things manually. In both Cancun and Mexico City, they made me go through immigration, which now includes a swine flu check, which was the most accurate doctor's evaluation I've ever had. First, you fill out a form that asks if you're experiencing high fever, body aches, weak limbs, etc. Then after you check the boxes, you hand the form over to a man wearing a white coat and a stethescope. The man reads over your sheet then takes a look at you, noting your complexion and the crust in the corner of your eyes, and then gives you a nod to continue on. But just when you think you've passed the cool test, you have to go over and press a button to see if you get the green light, meaning proceed, or the red light, meaning you're screwed. Well, I got the green light so I must have been smelling good that day. So after that, they make you grab your luggage, leave the airport, re-enter the airport, check in at the airline desk, go through security (which I realized doesn't require you to take off your shoes as I stood there barefoot getting strange looks), and then sprint to the terminal because you have about 30 seconds before the gate doors close. I had multiple anxiety attacks that day.

From the plane leaving Mexico City, I got a good view of the monstrous place. The city is so big, it doesn't make sense. No city should be that big. It made my stomach turn thinking about going back there and taking a look around. For now, I won't think about it. Here in Puerto Escondido you don't have to think about much. You have to remember some necessary daily routines like reapplying sunblock every couple hours, taking your multivitamin, and drinking bottled water, although the free water from the tap looks so tempting. Then there's deciding what to eat for breakfast, which area to surf at, if these are clean underwear or the one's I was wearing yesterday, etc. Surfing here is difficult for me so far. The waves break fast and powerfully, and there is only about four feet of water under you. Wiping out here is like getting punched in the gut, except you can't let out that gasp of air because you are going to be underwater for at least 30 seconds. So you just have to suck it in. I did manage to get a good ride last evening, amidst a thunderstorm. It felt like the sky was yelling at you, and the water was yelling at you, yet it felt so peaceful feeling the warm water beneath me and the cold rain hitting my face.

Everyone I come across seems to speak as much English as I speak Spanish, so I've been getting by with some hardcore Spanglishing. It has been kind of hard to meet people here, since I am staying in an apartment and not a hopping hostel. I think because of my dark skin, non-natives think I'm a local and are scared I might bight. The Mexicans are very friendly with me however. One Mexican guy of Guatamalan decent named David pulled up to me on his moped and told me he was working, but maybe after work I might like to take a ride with him on his high performance street bike. He even gave me his professional card from JOX Tortas Gigantes so I could give him a call, riiiiiight. I surfed at the local's end of the beach yesterday, but no one said anything to me or told me to leave. They were funny with their use of random English words. Example: Buena ola Meng! tu eres un CAVEMAN...or a guy gets a nice ride and everyone screams...VOLCANO!...CAVEMAN! yaaaaaaa.

Hypothetical Question: So say I was running through some tall grass, and a very big bug flies up my right nostril with such force that it was able to lodge itself in that little canal from your nose to your throat. Now will it eventually die and decompose and slowly trickle down my throat? which is ok I guess, protein and all, as long as it doesn't start to reek while it's decomposing in my nose.
Observation: Although a baby donkey approaches you in a friendly sort of way, it will still try to eat your hand when you go to pet it.