A Month Already?

It hardly seems possible that I have been gone from the island for a month already. The time has gone by so rapidly.



I've made some really great friends, experienced new and exciting things and places and have enjoyed the beauty that is Huatulco. I actually hate to be leaving this place.



Alas, all good things must come to an end. So this morning, car overpacked and full, we headed out for the long trip home. We are taking a different route home and I hope to only have to travel through the mountains for four hours or less. It's a long drive anyway.



I still have more to say and to show you from this area but it will have to wait. My internet connection here has gotten so slow that I can't even upload one picture before I lose the connection. Frustrating. I seriously doubt that I will update again this week, what with being on the road most of it and the list of things I know I have to do once I get home.



But check back next Monday and we'll continue the story of my visit to Huatulco and, eventually, get back to island life.

See you then!

Touring The Bays By Boat

We have been playing tourist while here in Huatulco. Big time. We are trying to see everything we can this time around and to get to know the area better.

We recently took one of those 7 hour tours (if they had said 3, we would not have gone!) of the bays and beaches in the area. The tour included stops to snorkel and to eat.

Luckily, the boat was not too crowded. We had an excellent guide who explained everything in Spanish and English. Other than the four of us, the other passengers were all from Monterrey. The guide made many jokes about how cheap the people from Monterrey are. I think more than a few of the passengers were getting annoyed at hearing that all the time!





Pulling out of Santa Cruz bay, which is just down the street from us.




Looking back at the beach area. This is a nice, safe place to swim. If not a little boring.





This boat followed us for quite a ways and then pulled on ahead. I had no idea that he was connected with our tour. I just thought it strange he was following us so closely!




The view from the boat to land was interesting. We passed many beaches I had been to and got to see the islands from a different perspective.

This is one of the many lighthouses that dot the coast here.

Look closely at the following picture. We were to see this repeated over and over. One or two people out on these rocks. No boat or visible means of transportation around. I can't believe they actually swam out to these rocks. And why?

Here's one of the beaches we are making no attempt to get to this time around. Playa Cacaluta. It is where Y tu Mama tambien was filmed. Remember when we there in January?

We had to make our own shade on an old turtle nesting spot. This beach is totally unswimmable but you can snorkel around that island in the distance.

Over on the left you can see the enclosure pictured above.

Another one of the beautiful beaches, accessible only by boat.

I thought the bird poop on this rock was pretty.

Here we are entering Playa San Augustin for a snorkeling stop. We didn't get off the boat since we had just been there the day before!

See the two beach chairs? We were just behind them, where there appears to be a second level palapa.

Luis decided to just go for a quick swim off the back of the boat.

When we got to Playa Maquey, I actually rode on this boat to get to shore for lunch!

Here's the proof! (Luis is on the left. He rode on my boat in case I needed to be rescued or something!)

Again with the mysterious people on the rocks.

I love this next set of pictures. Oh, to be young again. With the captain's permission, while we were anchored, Luis got the opportunity to jump off the much higher front end of the boat. The pictures tell it all!

Not to be left out or behind, his girlfriend, Ashley, took her turn. She was just a bit afraid of hitting the anchor rope though and really made a leap to keep away from it.

I supposed feeling that his Latino Machiso had been challenged, Luis made another attempt. We told him not to since he could hurt himself. He did it anyway.

Turns out that with the angle he hit the water, he only temporarily injured one part of his body. Painful enough to keep him from doing it again though! He got no sympathy.

We ate a restaurant owned by another new friend here, who also owns the restaurant Ay Caray! in downtown La Crucecita. This place had the same name.

View from lunch back out to the water.

The menu.

Today's fresh offering of fish, lobster or stuffed pineapple.

The boat that made it all possible.

Maguey is a lovely little beach and very, very popular. We could not even get near it the first two weeks we were here. Too many tourists buses with 1000's of tourists clogging everything.

I have no idea where the owner of this valuable collection has gone off to!

Everybody finds something to do at the beach when not in the water.

We saw a lot of this too.

No lack of things to buy either.

Back in Santa Cruz harbor. This is a very typical view of condos built into the sides of hills everywhere.

If you ever in this area, I would highly recommend that you take one of these boat tours of the bays. Interesting and fun. At one point they even turn and head out to open water. This is to give the passengers a chance to view turtles and dolphins. We saw both. At one point, a dolphin swam along side our boat. I had never experienced that before and it is was magical.

Gimmicks

The ingenuity of Mexican vendors and salesmen never ceases to amaze me. American culture creeps its' way in and is used to entice buyers.

We've all seen the signs saying "Cheaper than WalMart", "K-Mart Blue Light Special" and have been asked to give shopkeepers a chance to rip us off.

I saw this on a store in downtown La Crucecita. I laughed out loud. If it had not been a shop selling only silver jewelry, I probably would have gone in. Just because of the sign.




Do any of you have have examples from your area of signs or clever sayings the salesmen use to lure you in?

Off To The Side

While driving along the road to the beach I talked about yesterday, we spotted this little pull off area. It appeared to lead straight up a sand dune. I wisely parked at the base of it.




We decided to stop and investigate what was over that hill. This is what we saw.




This beach just went on and on.





One of the advertising gimmicks for this area is that they have 32 beaches. I believe it. What they do not say is that they are not all swimmable and that some of them will kill you if you enter the water. This is one of the latter ones.




These pictures are deceiving. The waves do not crash and glide up onto the beach like normal waves do. These crash and disappear. Why? Because there is probably a steep and treacherous drop off right at the edge. The waves crash, go directly to the bottom of the ocean and are carried out again to do it all over.

It was an area of beach beautiful to look at and awe inspiring with the power of those waves. But no way would I even step foot on it!

Playa San Augustin

I read about a beach that is 25 km (15.5 miles) outside of La Crucecita, just past the airport, that is supposed to be good for swimming and snorkeling. Finally, maybe someplace that the waves wouldn't knock me down or suck me out to sea to become shark bait! So we grabbed our new friends and off we headed for another day at the beach!

To get to this beach, you have to leave the main, paved road and travel 13 km (8 miles) down a dirt road. A very bad dirt road! Oh, it starts out deceivingly simple, but don't you believe it!




We soon discovered that it has many hills with washouts and gullies and a lot of turns. I had to pick my way very carefully along to avoid bottoming out or slipping off the road or sliding into one of the deep gullies in the road. Taxis traverse this road to take people to and from the beach. They must have great shocks or something because they just come whizzing past you. Get out of the way or get run over!





The scenery, or what I could see of it when I dared take my eyes off the road for a second, was really interesting. There were actually houses of sorts along this road. I could not imagine living on and depending upon a road like this to always be passable. I heard later that they also just got electricity back here a few months ago.

One of the little local stores we passed along the way. Wouldn't want to depend upon this place to meet my grocery needs!

Occasionally there were open spaces with large coconut trees in the distance.

I knew this was coming somewhere up ahead and I was dreading it. I had no idea how swift or deep it was going to be. With my dislike of bridge crossings, you can imagine the zeal I had anticipating an actual river crossing!

It was only about 6" deep and was covered in cement where we had to cross. I just kept telling myself during the crossing to look straight ahead, look straight ahead! The right side was like a little delta. Full of sand and mud ready to suck you down if you drove off. The left side was who knows what. It was brown and murky and looked to be deep. Gulp. I was plagued all day in the back of my mind that I was going to have to repeat this crossing.

We passed a few little farms along the way. We saw cows, horses, pigs, chickens, turkeys and peacocks. The latter kind of surprised us. I don't think (but have no way of knowing) that they were being raised for meat. It seems unlikely though that a family would waste valuable money on a bird solely for adornment to the farm.

Corn and coconuts. An unlikely combination but here's the proof that they can co-exist!

And what would a trip down any road be without the obligatory church?

Once in awhile we would crest a hill and see the lush, verdant and green landscape around us. Breathtakingly beautiful.

We finally arrived at the beach. It had taken an hour to drive those 8 miles! There was a long line of comedores (sea side eateries) in both direction. We were surrounded by vendors trying to get us to park our car with them. We chose the closest one, pulled the car in under a protected palapa roof and headed for the water.

The beach is another one located in a protected cove and stretches for 1.5 km (.9 miles) from end to end.

I later learned that the large island you see in the picture below is called "Sacrificial Island". I never did understand what the guide said was sacrificed here. Hopefully not people!

Right next door to Playa San Augustin is another, smaller beach. You can only reach it by boat, even though it is so close. There are dangerous and large rocks jutting out into the bay that prevent you from swimming or walking to it.

The water is fairly calm. No waves to speak of, just swells. The dark bit that you see in the picture below is the coral. It starts very close to shore and is in water only about 10' deep. I actually put on a mask and looked at it! I can't actually say that I snorkeled since I had the equipment on for such a very short time. Baby steps!

This the view we had from a shaded table in front of the restaurant where we parked the car. It is very typical of how beaches are run around here. Line after line of restaurants, all vying for your business. To say that it is a cramped space is to put it mildly.

Here's a view from the top showing how close everybody is.

Every inch of space is used for something. Even the life jackets you can rent.

Or the t-shirts you can buy for ridiculously jacked up prices.

The construction of the palapa roofs is not what I am used to seeing on the Caribbean. There they use the entire palm frond from, mostly, coconut trees. Here they use the entire frond from a different kind of palm tree. It makes for a more interesting pattern.

We spent a most enjoyable day. Playing in the water, snorkeling, drinking, eating and walking along the beach. And some great conversation along the way too! But, finally, we had to pack up our stuff and head back to the main road and home.

I was not looking forward to that stressful drive and especially the river crossing! But the drive out, for some reason, was easier than the one in. I actually cut that one hour down to 45 minutes!

Tomorrow I am going to show you what we saw on the drive out to the main road.