WE're Baaack!

Our trip was great, the weather was phenomenal, as usual and we are back to winter :(

Puerto Angel will not be our destination of choice in the future, however, it was an amazing place! It was interesting to see the real Mexico, which we had thought we had seen before. Real Mexicans making a living in a real town with real stores for them, not for touristas. The beaches to the west/south of town were fantastic, just as good as Puerto Escondido, and close enough to PE for us to return to visit a couple of times.

I'll leave my blog with a few random pictures of random things from our trip.

San Agustinillo beach

Adrian tanning on San Agustinillo

Supper?

Road trip!

Working Burro

San Miguel on our way to SJ del Pacifico

Mujeres Patriota from Pancho Villas time

Fisherman in Puerto Angel

Trying on Pantalons, none fit my mucho grande butt:)

Carrot salad and cucumber lime juice

getting coconuts down 

Zipolite beach

Adrians Dinner shirt

Our favorite restaurant Posada Mexico

Super Mini Christina 

Not the greatest advertisement for a restaurante??

Swimming at Zipolite

Last day swimming at Zipolite 

Scotiabank Pochutla

Shoe store

Oaxacan Food

This article attached came to my attention by way of a facebook page I subscribe to. Adrian and I have been to Oaxaca twice and we have eaten in Oscars restaurant once!

We have tried a few of the foods mentioned in the article, specifically a few of the Mole sauces and the Oaxacan soup.

http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2012/01/01/no-stone-unturned/

Friday the 13th

After a quick look at the flat tire yesterday, Adrian decided it was unfixable:( We can't drive around without a spare here, it just isn't an option. So we called Hertz, with the help our our neighbour who is a Winnipeger but originally from Mexico. Alfonso tried his many charming ways to get Hertz to come out and bring us a new tire, however, Hertz would not be swayed.....We were on our own. Alfonso figured we could get something in town so Adrian and Alfonso ventured into Pochutla for a tire.

We Canadians expect everything to cost a fortune, but not so. They dug up a tire from a local "Vulcunator" for free! The only cost was 50 Pesos ($4.00 CDN) to put it on the rim. Now I wouldn't want to actually DRIVE on it, but it would do on an emergency basis..

Since most of the day was draining away we chose to visit the local beach just below our Casa with our Neighbours Alfonso and Shevon. Playa Mina is not a busy beach, the water is just barely swimable as there is some kind of scum on top, eck! The beach though was covered in rolled glass, my favourite pass time is to beach comb for rolled glass and I had our neighbours in on the action!

There was a Mexican family down there, they were visiting this "blessing site" for good luck. There was a 70 year old Mexican Abuela (Grandma) and she was walking up these rocks, climbing them like a 20 year old!

After the long hike up to our Casa we stopped at the pool to cool off. This is the view of Playa Mina from the pool. Our Casa is even higher up so the views are even better.

Until tomorrow!
Bernetta and Adrian

Flat Tire on the side of the Mexican Highway

Yesterday we headed to Puerto Escondido to spend the day at Playa Carrizalillo. The day was spent lazing in comfy loungers with actual cushions! The food and beer were more costly by far then the beach palapas in Puerto Angel area, but we enjoyed the great swimming in the sheltered bay. When I was laying in the sand I noticed a ring around the sun, anyone seen such a thing??

We had enough so we headed to our favorite shopping area, the Adoquin, and looked around. We stopped at a nice bar, I had a sangria and Adrian had a margarita.

After we had our fill of shopping and bought nothing, we headed to El Nene for supper, it was excellent! I had a very thin cut piece of beef grilled with garlic and butter, while Adrian had the Chipotle Chicken, which he has had before here, he even got the cook to give him the recipe...like Adrian would cook!

Heading home it was dark, so Adrian always drives very cautiously on the highway, but with the rubber on the bottom of this rental car tires, there was nothing he could do, we had a blow out. Lucky for us, the nearest turn off was to a very small and virtually uninhabited bar/restaurant. The young people there were so  helpful! One young fellow was especially helpful, while Adrian was using the jack,  he was unscrewing the nuts, but unfortunately, the spare was flat! Not to be discouraged, they convinced an older gentlemen who arrived to take the tire, Adrian and the good Samaritan to the local "Vulcanator" a shop where they charged 10 pesos to fill it up with air.

I stayed behind at the bar, I never for one minute felt unsafe. These were just good people trying to help us out. Not one word of english from them, not much spanish from us, yet we were able to get across how much we appreciated their help. Good people exist everywhere.

Now it's time to put some more karma into the karma bank, we used some last night!

Adios Amigos and Amigas!

Fishing ViIlage of Puerto Angel

Today on the way to the beach we stopped in Puerto Angel to explore a little bit. Puerto Angel is still a very traditional Mexican fishing village.

Their livelihood is still fishing, and has nothing to do with the tourists around this area, good thing, there are very few tourists in PA. We were very conspicuous in town, Adrian is basically twice as tall as most women and the men don't come to his shoulder!

We were in town around 10:30 and many of the boats were unloading their catch.

The town also has a Couple of churches, they are sitting one on top of the other but we couldn't find our way up to the top one... The one on the bottom is very modest.

Hilltop church

We stopped at a little store, to look for the enchilada candies I like here, they didn't have any, but the man behind the counter understood and spoke poquito english. He recommended a couple other chile doulce/candies. He then threw in a couple of caramels which were delicious! We'll go back for more before we leave.

Once back on the road we headed down to the beach again, we missed the sun on our road trip yesterday, se we had to make up for it today. There are fishermen on the Mazunte beach as well, this guy started yelling for people to help him push his boat on shore yesterday, so tourists and locals worked together to push it up on beach.

For supper we headed to one of the most recommended restaurants on Zipolite, called El Aquemista. Definitely a more pricy option, less food too, but very delicious. I had the camarones/shrimp with coconut cream curry, Adrian had the camarones/Shrimp el Diablo.

 Adrian had a Margarita, which came blended instead of al la Roca/on the rocks. I had a shot glass of Tequila, it was at least 2 oz! It was a good quality one and I sip it with lime and salt.

Hasta Luego!

Bernetta

CURVA PELIGROSO!! (Dangerous curve)

Yesterday we headed up the Montanas/Mountains. It was 105 kms to our destination of San Jose del Pacifico, it took 3 hours to get that far and was a steering marathon! There are no foothills to speak of and the road was built years ago, so follows the lay of the land, or how Adrian puts it, they were being paid by the kilometer to build it:) Trips take two to three times what you would think because of the curva peligroso (dangerous curves)

There were many villages along the way none were on the map. The first villages had roadside stands selling bananas, the weather here is still very warm, but it cools off very quickly. We purchased 2 short fat bananas for 2 pesos, or less than 2 pennies CDN. I wanted to buy some of the roja bananas, but I wasn't sure they could be eaten without cooking. All bananas are called plantanos here, so I'm unsure which are Plantains and which are bananas.

Along the way we encountered 3 very long and very fast semi trucks coming down the mountain, the pilot car was so far out from them, we didn't know where to be, so we stopped in one of the very infrequent roadside pullouts to wait, glad we did, they needed the entire road to get around the corners and we would have been pushed over the edge.

San Jose del Pacifico is famous for it's cloud forest, views of the ocean (although we could see it) and magic mushrooms. The clouds roll in in the evening and cover the place, supplying a great deal of moisture which in turn grows the mushrooms they are famous for. The vegetation is also very unique, like the pine trees.

Once we got to San Jose del Pacifico, we headed for the hotel/restaurant that the guide book recommends. It is on the North end of the town, basically on the outskirts so was very quiet. We were very hungry by then as it was almost 2:00 and we hadn't eaten since early in the morning. The restaurant is really something, very clean, well built and decorated! This is unusual in small town Mexico, so it was a real treat for us. I ordered the Mushroom Quesedillas and Adrian had ham Tostados, both were very tasty, not much fat used to cook them, also unusual. We bought a few knitted items as they have quite a cold climate and sweaters, toques, gloves and scarves seem to be normal here. They seem to be quite obsessed with Pancho Villa (pictured below), perhaps he was a native son?? 

Cute little senorita at the restaurant

After our meal we asked to see some of the Cabanas/Cabins. Check out the fireplaces, I think they are actually used! They were more than happy to accommodate us, we didn't tell them we weren't staying, but maybe next trip.....

The "flight" back down the mountain/montanas was not as slow as up. We genuinely loved this little town and will make plans in the future to spend a couple of days here so that we can watch the clouds roll in and out in the morning and evening, as we missed it during our short trip.

Off to the Beach again today!

Bernetta and Adrian