I ended up going to Puerto Escondido because I was mixed up about how to get to a mountain village Stephan recommended, San Jose del Pacifico. I much preferred little Mazunte and Playa Zipolite, but I met tourists who preferred the larger city.
Carla and I shared the first leg of her trip to Lagunas de Chacahua. She was loaded up with food since she’d learned there might not be any stores or restaurants there.I stopped for tacos and hibiscus flower tea. The vendor said she didn’t move her bicycle stand any longer, which was a relief as Puerto Escondido is a very hilly town!It was Saturday and the beach was packed! Can you see all the folks in the water?I walked to a “mirador,” one of many places to look out over the ocean. A young man arrived with a harpoon and swam between the rocks on the left. I didn’t see what he caught, as I left before he came back up, but found myself regretting not swimming from the rocks in Rabat in Morocco when I had the chance, where Suzanne Sunshine encouraged me to join the young fellows off the rocks there…Lots of birds, including this black vulture. Impossible to get good photos of bunches of swallows, but Merlin said they were violet-green swallows, which made me wish I had a better vantage point (they looked dark gray from the cliff).Inca dove. Wish I’d captured its cooing, but folks walked up and it flew…A city park near my hotel—nearly all the benches are full.A cafe with gorgeous portraits and the whole front side completely open. Hope it fills up more than that night!Lovely garden oasis at my hotel, but the restaurant next door hosted an all night rapper who was a relative (so all the family came to celebrate his success), then at 4:30a, after the rapping ended, the party moved to outside my door. Not my best night…and I was relieved to head out early that morning. Playa Zicatela is one of the best surfing spots in Mexico, in Puerto Escondido. Most of the Pacific beaches I visited, unless sheltered in a cove, had red flags indicating dangerous undertows (and I now realize dangerous waves). At Playa Zipolite, the nudist beach near Mazunte, there was no flag. I love to body surf and though I saw waves picking up a lot of sand, decided to try catching a wave. I rode one beautiful wave that gently dropped me close to the beach after a lovely ride, then nearly broke my neck with the next. The Afe restaurant gave me ice for my tattered nose and face, and it took about a week for the scabs to disappear. My shoulders still ache a bit sometimes. So maybe I was a bit grumpy by the time I reached Puerto Escondido.
Wild Bee Plantings 