Oaxaca 2010

Don with cat he befriended at Bocano beach

This year I took my grandson Donovan, who is 14, to Huatulco with me.  I don’t have so many pictures this year as much of where we went was the same as with Kate last year, but there are some new things and views.

We arrived on the Friday – package tour planes only come in on Thursdays and Fridays here – and spent the rest of the afternoon getting the layout of the hotel, unpacking and swimming.

Saturday I took him off to see the small ‘real Mexican’ town of Sta Maria Huatulco, and later on to Puerto Angel.  I love the churches and cemeteries there, so wanted to see those and wanted Don to see a more authentic side of Mexico than what he’d see at the hotel or in La Crucecita.  We hired a taxi and I really struck gold, as the taxi driver lived in Sta Maria and was a mine of interesting information and sites to see, though he didn’t speak too much English, and us not hardly any Spanish, we managed to communicate.  And he was a great driver, which made the day relaxed.  For those interested, his name is Lazaro Ruiz and he can be contacted at 958.107.0355 there.

** All photos are clickable to full size

Church, Sta Maria

Main street, Sta Maria Huatulco

Side street, Sta Maria

The churches in Mexico seem to have some wonderful paintings and generally are decorated in a way that’s well worth taking a look at.  The cemeteries fascinate me since, in this area anyway, they can’t dig down because of rock, so they have to build up.  The crypts are painted bright colours and decorated with flowers, photos, paintings and garlands and seem to announce that those who have passed on are still a part of everyday life here.

Sta Maria, meeting place in the plaza

Sta Maria cemetery

Sta Maria cemetery

This program is really giving me problems this time, so the entries may go much slower than I’d hoped.

On the road between Sta Maria and Puerto Angel, we even saw a Golden Eagle.  Apparently they sit around, having gotten used to the fact that sooner, rather than later, the Mexican drivers will provide them with lunch in the form of roadkill.  It was truly majestic and beautiful, and I so wish I’d been able to get a picture, but there was traffic behind us so we couldn’t stop.

Taken off the fisherman's wharf in Puerto Angel

Little home on a hill above the river

Another home in the countryside near Sta Maria

Puerto Angel is a lovely little fishing village, built into the crags of the area.  There are two sides of town (I guess that most towns have two sides) one for the locals and fishermen, and the other for a small tourist area and beach, with a restaurant, a store run by a woman who does  wonderful hand embroidered clothing, a bar and a dive shop.  I took lots of pictures here last year, so you can find them in the 2009 blog and will only add a few here, plus some video of Don having a ball in the water.

Tourist side of the beach at Puerto Angel

Cemetery at Puerto Angel

Neat piñata in beach palapa resto at Puerto Angel

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4209015/don_in_the_ocean/

So that was Saturday.

Sunday we spent sightseeing and shopping for gifts in La Crucecita – and then I went to a neighbourhood resto/bar that has a blues band composed of over-wintering blues musicians from Italy, Spain, Argentina, Canada and the US.

In town, the military was putting on a show to advertise their new initiative to combat drugs and illegal weapons.  The camo suit was really site-specific, and I’m not sure I see it catching on as a teen fave.

Army camouflage

The church in La Crucecita was open this time, and I marveled at the front door.  Can you just imagine what it would cost to get something like that done today?  And if it was here?  Yikes!!

Church doors, La Crucecita

And I got another part of the ceiling photographed too.

Church ceiling, La Crucecita

There are wonderful legends about this section of Mexico, which say that in 100AD, a white man with a long beard (no one there had ever seen a white man before, or anyone with a beard) came sailing into port at Santa Cruz – which was named Santa Cruz because of this incident.  He evangelised and I couldn’t get straight whether there were miracles at that time, and don’t know what happened to him, but the cross made from the wood of his boat stayed and when future conquerors tried to burn it or break it up, they couldn’t.  Then came the Spanish some hundreds of years later and the wood from the cross was set as relics into some other crosses, one of which is still in Sta Cruz and two more in larger centres where the Spanish took them.

Chowing down on tlayudas at Blue

Next we decided to get our gift shopping done and have some lunch.  We both tried something called a tlayuda (I think) which we both liked.  It was meat and a dry sauce in a tortilla.  Then off to the textile museum since I thought Don might like to get a shawl for his mom, or a blouse for his littlest sister.  They have weavers that use hand looms and make rugs and fabric right on the premises, and they have all the things they use to make the authentic dyes, the mud, rocks, plants and beetles.  Lets just say that Don was less than enthralled by the weaving demonstrations . . .  So we went to a coffee shop and bought some coffee for those who like it.  I don’t drink coffee at all, but apparently the La Pluma from the mountains is really good.  We bought some silver and beads for gifts, and there are two of the downtown silver stores I like best from my two trips there.  One is called The Little Shop and the other is Gabriel the Owl.  Both are on Bugambilias which is the main street across the plaza from the church.

Sunday night I went to see the blues band, and I don’t think they even have a name as a band, as they are from all over and play together there in the winter.  I didn’t get everyone’s names, but I know it was Nelson Lunding on the piano, and Albert Colombo and Enrico Crivellaro on guitar(s).  Alberto will be coming to Toronto this spring it seems, and be playing with David Rotundo, who is a singer and harpist who plays with them in Huatulco some years when he goes down for the winter.   Actually I just checked, and they’ll be playing 3 dates in Toronto on April, 1st, 4th and 5th.  I’ll have to get out to see them, as I was told in Huatulco that Rotundo is something special with a blues harp and that he sings well too.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4241222/tipsy_blowfish_huatulco_oaxaca_mexico/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4257186/blues_at_the_blowfish/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4257437/blues_at_the_blowfish_2/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4266287/blues_at_the_blowfish_3/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4267717/blues_at_the_tipsy_blowfish_4/

Monday we had decided would be a rest day, and we would just kick back.  Swimming, sunning and eating, along with reading were our main activities.

Tuesday we had been booked for a jungle ATV tour.  The young woman who booked the tour for us gave us the wrong meeting place and even though I’d checked back, the same wrong place was given.  According to other people we talked to, her English is practically useless as she really doesn’t understand much except the common questions and answers which she has memorized and has made mistakes before.  The tour company was very good about it and offered us a 3 hour tour that afternoon – we had booked a 6 hour tour – as well as refunding the fee I had paid, so that was about as much a saving grace as we could expect.  Unfortunately, Donovan had changed his mind and didn’t want to go.

I decided to take him for lunch to Bocano beach, to the Finca de los Vaqueros restaurant there that I had been to last year.  They make the best arrachera (flank steak) grilled over an open fire.  It comes with fresh, hot tortillas and a lovely green salad.  I had ordered the white bean soup too, as I had loved it last year, and it was just as good this year.

Bocano beach is a lovely spot – too rough for good swimming, but the best spot in the area for boogie boarding.  Also, if you go for the mud bath, wear something that won’t be damaged, as the mud does stain as it’s a red clay.

Donovan checking out the beach at Bocano

Here you can get the famed mud bath or buy locally made clothing jewellery and bags.

Finca de los Vaqueros

The hub of the Bocano micropolis

Wednesday was a very full day as we had booked the Outback tour, which takes you to the local herbalist to discover his garden, and of course I had to spend time playing with my old friend, his bird Paco, who is too sweet for words.

Paco. Don't know what kind of bird he is, but he's so cute.

Then we went to the fruit market.  Just as we were leaving the herbalist’s, our battery died and we had to wait for a boost to come.  That was better than last year when we got a flat tire on the road to the fruit market.

The road is fascinating – many different kinds of fruit and flowers, plus someone who raises peacocks and another place with ostriches.

Part of the herbalist's garden

The school bus local to the fruit market area.

A moocher watching for dropped fruit

Fruit market

Fruit market 2

Next we went on to the beach at San Augustin.  There is really good snorkeling there for those who want to go out.  I sat on the beach and Donovan swam, getting rolled around by the waves.  The food is reasonably good there, though the prices are high.  All the places the tours tend to take you have higher prices than a smaller local place, but that’s life on the tour bus, I guess.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4270907/donovan_swimming_at_st_augustin_beach/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4271031/don_swimming_at_st_augustin_2/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4271466/sitting_on_the_beach_at_san_augustin/

San Augustin is really a squatter community.  The government had taken over the land as part of the eco-preserve, but people who work in the area continue to live there on suffrance and they fish and make restaurants, but someday they will be made to move.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4271686/leaving_san_augustin/

Next the tour took us to a huge empty beach that has a look off where you can see many raptors and other birds.  The view of the ocean and the beach is spectacular.  The neighbourhood is picturesque and has lots of great photo-ops too.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4275428/at_the_look_off/

Homes near the look-off

View down the coast from the road

Incredible sea view

Interesting birds, but for Thanksgiving, not for birdwatchers

We were pretty tired after our day out hacking around across the countryside, so we had an early evening, watching the jays from the balcony and watching movies on TV.

Jay with the curly feathers on its head screaming goodnight

Thursday came, and we wanted to get our fill of beach, swimming and sun before we had to get on the plane the next day to come back home to the cold.  We found a place on the beach where all colours and sizes of fish would swarm around your legs as soon as you went into the water up to your knees.  They wanted to be fed and would hang around looking for goodies.  They seemed to really favour banana for some reason.  I’ve never heard of fish eating banana before, but there you go – something new to learn every day.

http://www.box.net/shared/static/nbidep6vf7.mpg (This is the video of Don and I feeding the fish.  It will take a while to download as it’s a bigger file)  If that link doesn’t work try copying and pasting this one to download the file:  http://www.box.net/shared/nbidep6vf7

That afternoon one of the other guests had told me about finding a snake in their bathroom the night before, and I was telling Donovan about that as we sat on the balcony just before we got ready for supper that night.  We thought it must have been pretty scary, and felt very sorry for those people.  I went in to get my clean clothes from the closet before I took my shower, and there on the closet floor was a snake, all rolled up in a writhing ball.  Scared the liver out of me!!!  It unrolled and crawled deeper into the closet to get away from the light, I guess.  It was long, but not too fat, so I figured at least it wasn’t going to have a passel of babies in the closet.  We called the front desk and they sent a guy up with a broom and dustpan to remove the snake, but it wasn’t very co-operative about getting in, or staying in, the dust pan.  Finally he got it out, but I didn’t sleep too well that night, kept dreaming about snakes in my bed.  People at Las Brisas had scorpions in their rooms, so I guess I’ll just have to remember to shake out all shoes and clothes just like I did in Africa before getting dressed.

Snake in the closet

Friday dawned bright and sunny, and we took a sad last swim and walk on the beach before leaving for the airport.  We sat on our balcony for a while and took a last look at the view, and waved goodbye to the 7th floor swimming pool.  We really wished we could stay another week, but work and school made that impossible.

A last longing look off the balcony

Given the many types of long line-ups you have to go through at airports these days, Don and I agreed that the worst part of travelling is the actual travelling.  Once you’re there you can have fun until you have to face the aggravation of getting home again.

We had a really nice time though, and got to know each other better.  Fun, sun and lots of swimming made this a vacation to remember.