Zicatela; the Mexican pipeline

Today we spent our first day on Zicatela beach. Zicatela is one of the most famous surfing beaches in the world. On any given day it is given the designation of 3rd or 4th "best" surfing beaches in the world, see the link to Mexican pipeline in my last posting. Zicatela is bohemia. Surfers dudes, dreadlocks, anything that would remind you of the bohemian life style you will find. The food on the boardwalk is pretty good, today Eric had an amazing mixed meat Buritto. Rice, meat, veggies and cheese with great home made salsa...mmm....

The most comfortable chairs in Mexico are on Zicatela, which will keep me coming back! Our asses suffer here in Mexico as most chairs are made of plastico. When NAFTA was signed, Mexico could finally get as much plastic as the rest of the world, and they love the stuff. Down the main streets, there are entire stores dedicated to plastic goods!

Right now, an American/Mexican team of people have set up shop for a skydiving experience, for $250.00 USD, you can tandem over Puerto Escondido and the ocean, and land on Zicatela beach. This has been going on for the entire time we have been here (13 days) but it looks like they were packing up today, so what a great day to finally be there to see them land.

Animals of all kinds roam free in Puerto Escondido, as I'm sure is the norm in all of Mexico, some are owned, others are simply survivors. We have adopted a survivor. "Gato", mexican for Cat, is the new van Sluys family member, she comes and goes completely on her own. Adrian said not to feed her or she'll keep coming back, I say who cares, we'll eventually leave. She can pretty much get into our house at will, we don't have a glass window or solid fitting door at all. Adrian thinks we should take it home for Sarah to take care of:) She's a little wild, she wants a pet, but she bites you if you do :( women!

Today she watched us Barbeque hamburgers on a REAL barbeque. We bought charcoal, or what they call carbon at the market. It was much easier to light than we thought, and it cooks even and hot. Next time we will try Mahi Mahi!

Roca Blanca (Rock White)

Yesterday we headed out of town in the Beetle! Brave huh? The roads are quite narrow, and Mexicans drive with a fury they have for absolutely nothing else. Mexicans are NEVER in a hurry unless they are behind the wheel :) Adrian is getting quite comfortable in driving the car, gearing up and down over the topes, or reductors as the speed bumps all up and down the highways are called. They are usually placed before and after you enter a village or school zone, or somewhere where people are close to the road.

On to our Adventure on the open road, to the town/beach of Playa Roca Blanca (Beach of the white rock). The trip is about 40 kilometers and takes about 45 minutes. We were told that the turn off was at a taxi stand outside of a village, turn right, go 5 blocks, turn right at a sandy road and just keep following it, and we got there easily. As with all the beaches here, there is restaurants that stake their claim on part of the beach and you must purchase beer, food or pay a fee to sit. You can sit there all day with a beer if you want, they don't mind.

The beach was amazing, miles and miles of sand, and only a few people. We had a great lunch, Adrian had Shrimp Tostados, Eric had Garlic Shrimp and I had a whole grilled white fish, eyes, fins, teeth and all. Great food!

The waves here were crazy, Eric and Adrian braved the waves and had a great time trying to body surf. Eric got tossed a few times, and so did Adrian.

Today we went to Manzanillo beach, it was not a beach we would return to. Very crowded with chairs, and people, good food vendors though, had plantains, ice cream and peanuts. Tomorrow we will head to Zicatella, the home of the Mexican Pipeline. I don't think it will be this radical:)

Beaching it in PE

For the last few days we have been entertaining Eric by taking him to the beaches in the area. We have taken him to Playa Carrizalillo and Playa Bocacho Club.

We are told it has been unusually hot here, typically the temperatures for January are around 26 degrees, but we have yet to have a day under 30 degrees.

Since Eric is here, and his legs are much longer than mine, he gets to ride shot gun in the Beetle. Let me tell you, the backseat is MUCH hotter than the front! I am kind of hoping for a day of 26 degrees, but the temps are about to get hotter. By next weekend we are supposed to be getting 33 degree days.

Here are a few pics from our trip:

Our Home for the next 5 weeks

Roof top Palapa ie. Living room:)

Breakfast!

My Yoga on the Beach

Adrians Yoga on the beach

Carrizallilo Beach

Day 1 Eric

Eric at Bocacho Beach

Bus debaucle

Another day another adventure.

With Eric's arriving yesterday, we decided to go to the airport to pick him up. Huatulco is around 2 hours away, but driving seemed.....risky. Our VW is great, just not all that highway worthy. so off to the Bus.

The "intermediate bus" was 40 Pesos (about $3.20) but it takes about 3 hours to get there as it stops where ever people stick out their thumbs. So we chose the "Primera" bus. Premera is a whopping 92 Pesos ($7.20) and takes 2 hours, HOWEVER, we were not aware that it doesn't stop at the airport it goes into La Crucecita! La Crucecita is about 15 minutes past the airport. so we hired a taxi at the bus depot to take us back to the aeroporto. We really thought we would be late and poor Eric would be freaking out, but no, he was the last person to exit the airport.

Now there is a bus that goes back to Puerto but with the day's events, we decided to hire the same taxi from the bus depot to take us to PE. He was happy to do it (600 Pesos, $48.00), but he was forced to park his taxi outside of the airport because he is not officially authorized for the airport. The security guard was not happy with him:)

We finally made it to our house with Eric in tow. He'll take the intermediate bus to the airport next Tuesday, let's hope  he has an easier time of it!

Stay tuned for some pictures, we finally have a card reader and will be downloading when we aren't busy at the beach :)

Hasta la vista!

VW Beetle Juice

Yesterday Adrian picked up a rental car! A 72 (ish) VW Beetle, probably built here in Mexico at the VW plant in Puebla. Here is Adrian's blog of the event:


"Frank picked me up this morning around 9:00 am to go shopping for a rental car. We ended up with an old VW beetle and cost us 2,500 pesos to rent for a week. Not sure if this was a good deal or a wise decision, but whatever, it will make things getting around a little easier. The VW is bit of a bugger to drive with my long legs. The pedals and gear shifter are crammed together and there is very little room for your feet to work the pedals. No power brakes or steering, but for the most part the car seems to run ok. I think it will be a lot of fun to drive around and help us to get around seeing more of PE. Saves us from walking in the hot weather, but now we won’t get our exercise anymore."


Today Eric arrives! We are really interested to get his perceptions of PE, the town itself is a bit dumpy, and the first impression is not all that great. Once you get to the beaches that all changes. The beaches here are from West to East: 
Bococho
Carrizalillo
Angelito
Manzanillo
Marinero
Zicatella
Pointe de Zicatella
We haven't even seen them all yet! With Beetle juice (my new name for the car) we should be able to get to them all quite easily.


Yesterday we finally saw Pointe de Zicatella, this seems to be the young surfer's hang out. I have a feeling Eric will like this one the best, lots of beautiful girls there.


Manana mi Amigos!

Meatless in Puerto

Christmas this year brought me a great book from Bryce. "The Omnivores dilemma" is a book about how food is produced in the US, and likely similarly around the world. With this topic in the back of my mind, and the other challenges associated with food smell, appearance and the availability of key ingredients, eating here is proving to be a test! So far all of my cooking efforts have turned out to be vegetarian. Veggies sauteed in Marinara sauce over spaghetti, refried blackbean and sauteed vegetables in a quesadilla.

Shopping is interesting here, the market is one of my favorite places. I love the fresh fruits and veggies, my favorite so far are the small bananas. The first time we picked them up at the market, we bought them under ripe and they were awful! Very very starchy and not at all sweet, almost like a plantain. But i've had them before and they can be really good, so we tried them again, this time they looked over ripe and brownish, but they were amazing. They taste a little like an apple or pear in a banana texture and taste. mmm.

On the last trip to the market we were able to find some spices for our next pasta dinner, rosemary was in the flowers stalls, and oregano in the spice and dried peppers stalls. My next shopping challenge is to purchase some shrimp, chicken or fish at the market, stay tuned!

I will upload some pictures when Eric brings a card reader. He arrives tomorrow January 4th at the Huatulco airport at around 6 pm. We are excited to show him around PE, can't wait to see his reaction to this place :) should be priceless!!

Feliz Ano Nuevo!

We spent the night with some new friends, Frank and Mary from Rhode Island NY. They had a lovely spot down on the Zicatela Beach that their future son in law arranged for a crowd of themselves and their friends. It was very nice of them to include us Canadians:) The beach was decked out in some arranged tables with beautiful palapas over top.

There was mucho fireworks going on but the best was the fire dancers on the beach. They lit batons, and other types of juggling/spinning instruments PLUS a circle of fire in the sand around them, and entertained the crowd at our spot on the beach! They came collecting donations after the show, which seems customary in Mexico.

At around 1:30 we headed out to look for a hotdog for the guys, which was Franks first in Mexico, and he seemed to really like it. Hot dogs here don't get your regular ketchup, mustard and relish.... try tomatoes, onions, mayonaise and pickled Jalapeno pepper! Sounds weird but tastes pretty good! Mary and I were hankering for a sweet treat so we stopped at a restaurant for Flan, which is Mexican for custard cake.

Happy New Year!