Today did not begin particularly well. We could not find a remote for our air-conditioning unit in the bedroom yesterday, and by early morning the room was freezing. About four in the morning, with teeth almost chattering, I went out to try to sleep in the living room of our bungalow. The sofas are thin pieces of foam placed atop a cement base. They are designed to be used as additional beds, but I would not recommend them to anybody with a bad back. John came out shortly after I did carrying his pillow and his sheet. Thankfully, we both finally fell asleep again.
In the morning we had a buffet breakfast at the hotel. It was adequate and fairly cheap, but nothing memorable. John wanted to check out the possibility of taking a trip down the coast to Huatulco Bays. We stopped by the office to ask for a “control” and to ask about excursions. The helpful young man introduced us to a charming older lady who arranged tours. Her English was a limited, but my Spanish is apparently adequate for doing things like arranging small trips. We wanted to make this a two day adventure, and she was happy to arrange a driver and a car for tomorrow and the following day. She could not, however, make hotel reservations for us and she warned us that it would be hard to find a place. We agreed on 5000 pesos as a price for the guide and the driver. That seemed quite reasonable for two days.
Back up at our room, John and I went on the usual hotel websites to try to find something for tomorrow night. There was not much at all available on the Oaxacan coast, and most of what was left was pretty unappealing. We finally agreed that the splurge of this otherwise pretty frugal trip would be one night at an expensive resort. I guess this will be our New Year’s celebration a couple days early.
Our big adventure for today was walking down Playa Zicatela, Puerto Escondido’s legendary surf beach. When we first came here in the early 1980s, there was not much on this beach except a few small hotels catering to North American surfers. Today hotels and restaurants line the entire beach. While we found this depressing last night, today as we walked on the beach we noticed that it still seemed fairly uncrowded.
There were a few new interesting things we liked. The rocks in front of the Santa Fe hotel, the formation that separates Playa Marinero from Playa Zicatela, now has a wonderfully Mexican mirador that looks like it was inspired by a trip to Disneyland.
There is also a strange statue of two hands. I tried to make this connect to surfing in some way, but I just could not. But it’s a great place for some posing.
No doubt because the surf is so powerful and the undertow so famously treacherous, there were not all that many people in the water. There are red flags every hundred feet or so warning people not to enter the water.
Everybody ignores them. John and I popped in the water several times as we made our way to the end of this two mile stretch.
At the far end is the small village of Playa Zicatela. This looks a great deal like the Puerto Escondido we remembered. The streets were not paved and dogs were sleeping on what passed for sidewalks. There were about a dozen small shops mostly selling the same stuff they did thirty years ago, a combination of tie die, macrame, and Mexican handicrafts. John and I found a small restaurant on the beach and had lunch there under a small palapa. There was a hammock next to the table, and John napped in it while we waited for the food to arrive. This being Mexico, there was a substantial time lag between ordering the food and having it arrive.
We walked back more quickly along the beach, jumping in once or twice to cool off. When we arrived back in our room, we were initially started to find the door open. Fortunately, we were not being robbed. The hotel staff was there providing us with a remote control for our air-conditioner. We thanked them.
This morning I thought that returning to Puerto Escondido was one of our worst vacation decisions ever. This evening I am softening quite a bit. I wish it was a little more like the town I remember, but what is here is still a little funky and there is still something of the surf culture here. I may come to really like this place again.
