Puerto Escondido

 November 4-7

The days at Puerto Escondido run together in sun, sand,  and crashing waves.

The plane is small and our group has the entire plane!  There are 14 seats plus the pilot.

The flight is about 25 minutes long.  We fly pretty low so can see the mountains, valleys, very few roads.  The mountain ranges have steep sides and a narrow ridge running along the top.  

The VRBO host had recommended a particular taxi driver who knows how to get to the place.  He was there waiting for us and took us to our paradise for the next 3 days.  

Everyone quickly settled into the relaxed ambiance.

We swam in the pool, walked on the beach, read books. 

 Lupe helped organize things, went to the market with our grocery list and Gloria did the cooking and her cooking was glorious.  The best chiliquiles, enfrijoloadas, omletes.  Then there was pescado a la talla, a slow smoked fish with a tomato sauce, shrimp with butter and garlic, stuffed squash, shrimp shishkabobs, ceviche, guacamole, peanuts, fresh juices.  Oh, the life! All of Gloria's cooking was served with such joy. 

 We switched off of who had the ocean view during the meals.  We would sit around the table after eating enjoying sobre mesa,  the Spanish word for after dinner conversation around the table.  We don't even have a word for that in English because we don't do it enough.  

Life around the house

There were beautiful flowers around the house too.

One day, several people went in to town to take a boat ride to see some turtles.  A few others wanted to do a little last minute shopping.  Everyone got what they came for.

When he sees a turtle, he dives into the water with a rope tied around his hand to attach himself to the boat.  He catches the turtle, brings it close to the boat where we can see her up close and personal.  This is a dolphina turtle.  There are about 5 different kinds that live in the water around Puerto Escondido.  As soon as the boat man let go of the turtle, she swam and disappeared into the depths.  Thank you for the encounter.  

Kids are getting surfing lessons in this bay.

This rock outcrop looks like a big turtle from the right angle.

Lots of pelicans 

He's sporting quite the sun hat.

No pictures of the night that we took a boat out to swim in a lagoon with bioluminescent plankton.  I don't have a camera that would be able to capture it.  So, it is captured in our memories.  With big movements, it is a swirl of blueish light.  With smaller movements, it is more individual little lights.  We made bioluminscent angles like one would do in the snow.  The night was dark as it was a new moon.  The stars looked like an extention of the bioluminescence. We stayed playing in the water for about 30 minutes, continuing to revel in the beauty and uniqueness of the experience.   Another boat with a young group came up along side us and joined us.  I was just remarking on the stars being an extention of the biolumensce.  There response was, "oh, you're on mushrooms too?"   When we got back in the boat, for about a minute, if you patted your swimsuit, it would sparkle like little bits of electricty.  

We also played in the surf.  The waves were big enough to be fun but not so big that they were really scary or dangerous.  No one ever went out in the surf bythemselves though.  It was the bigest surf that I've been in for awile.  

The sandy beach went on for miles with very few people.  Early morning and evening walks were a beautiful way to start and end a day.