Puerto Angel

We're in Zihuatanejo now. I'm sitting in "Rick's Bar" drinking Pacifico and listening to live music. But first I'm going to tell you about Puerto Angel.

Puerto Angel Bay

We arrived in Pochutla at about 5:30 and shared a taxi with an Italian couple, Daniele (website) and Erika (website) and who were on the bus with us to get to Puerto Angel. The four of us had a beer next to the naval station on the bay, then Erika and Alaine went to look at a hotel that was nearby. It was nice but a little pricey. Then Erika and I went to check out another hotel called Puesta del Sol that was a little farther away. It seemed nice and at $15 for a double the price was right. We went back to get our parejas and then checked in. Alaine and I drank beer in the hammocks they had set up on a little deck there and the Italians joined us a little later. We talked about dinner plans and decided to check out a nearby restaurant called Beto's that was recommended in our guide book and also by the people at the hotel. The food was alright but a little overpriced. It was nice that they gave us a lot of vegetables, something you don't see much in Latin America.

When we got back to the hotel the rooms were very hot, even with the ceiling fans. The place was made of concrete with a tile roof and I guess it was absorbing heat all day. Daniele, Erika and I fell asleep in the hammocks for a while, but Alaine went straight to bed. I woke up about 11 when it seemed that every dog in the town was barking and moved to the bedroom. Alaine and I were more accustomed to hot nights, I guess, or maybe we just had more to drink, but we slept OK. In the morning we found out that Erika had hardly slept and she was still perspiring even though it seemed relatively cool to us.

Alaine and I got ready and walked in to the center of town and had breakfast, then headed for a beach called Eustacahuitle. It was a bit of a hike in the hot sun, but when we got there we found cold beer and a beautiful little bay waiting with three little beaches. I didn't bring the camera, sorry. We met a gringo there named Scott, who was snorkeling between drinking Coronas. We had a couple of Coronas ourselves while we watched the bay. A boatload of tourists came in to snorkel and we didn't want to share the space with them so we had more beers while we waited.

While we were waiting we spotted three or four whales about 300 meters out. We watched them for about 5 minutes. It was the first time for either of us to see whales. We rented snorkels for $1 an hour and went in snorkeling after that. The waves were a little high and the water stirred up, but it was still nice. The water temperature was perfect. After we got out and had another beer and were getting ready to leave, Scott offered us a ride back to town which saved us from another blazing hot walk.

We got back to the hotel and hung out there a while. Erika and Daniele left us a note that they had moved on to Zipolite. I typed some of the previous entry but couldn't get online because the owner wasn't there to give me the code. Alaine went looking to see if we could rent bicycles anywhere but that's a service that Puerto Angel doesn't offer. The guy at the bike repair shop said he might rent us his and a friend's the next day.

Sunset on Ziploite Beach

We wandered down to the beach in town and watched some guys playing soccer, then went in to town looking for dinner and finally found a place that had tlayudas, which is kind of like a pizza made on a tortilla then folded in half. We split one of those. After that back to the hotel and played Skip-Bo and then tried to sleep in the hammocks again for a while before going to our room.

The next morning we went to the same place for breakfast. we checked about the bikes but the guy hadn't come through, so we took a taxi to Zipolite after checking out of the hotel. We planned to take the bus to Acapulco at 9 pm. Zipolite was nice. A long, wide beach with big waves. We walked along until we found a place with two-for-one drinks (of course), stopped there and then walked to the end of the beach. We came back to the place with the drinks as that seemed the best spot for swimming. I was able to body surf a little bit, but the waves were very big and I couldn't catch them like I usually do, as they're breaking. I had to try to jump in after they crashed and I'm not practiced at that. Still, it was a lot of fun. We split a pasta dish at the restaurant and had more 2x1 mojitos and people-watched. People watching is interesting on Zipolite because a lot of people go nude. In addition to topless girls it was amusing to watch the guys, especially one guy who walked by three times wearing just a cowboy hat and a big grin. It seemed like he was purposely walking in a way to make his wedding tackle swing like a pendulum.

After watching the sunset, we got another taxi back to town, showered and collected our stuff from the hotel and headed for Pochutla to catch our bus.

Oaxaca

We're in Puerto Angel now but we're leaving tonight. This post is about Oaxaca where we just came from. Always a little behind...

We took a taxi to the bus station and Left San Cristobal at 10:45 pm. We read for a while and then took our zolpidem (Ambien) pills and went to sleep. I woke up about 6 am when we were on a really windy road and I started felling sick. I almost did throw up, but it finally passed. Since then we've bought some ginger and some Dramamine for the motion sickness.

Coming down into Oaxaca was pretty. There are a lot of maguey (agave) farms there and also small factories that make mescal from them. We arrived about 10 am and got a taxi to our first choice of hostels from our guide book. They only had dorms available, but they said we could leave our bags there while we looked around. We did find a few hotels for around $15, but nothing we really liked. We decided to go find our second pick from the book but when we got to where it was supposed to be nothing was there. after walking around and asking people for directions for about an hour I finally went into an internet cafe and looked up the website for the place. They had a map on the site and the book had the location wrong on its map. Another strike against The Rough Guide to Mexico. I am going to have to go on Amazon and trash it thoroughly since I bought it because of its good reviews on Amazon. We found it easily after that and decided to stay there. It's called Hostal Pochon. It was $27 for a double room with breakfast. That's a little more than we'd like to pay but part of what we like in a lodging is a space to hang out with other travelers and exchange stories and advice. We headed back to where our suitcases were but stopped for a beer and a quesadilla on the way, then took a taxi back to the hostel with our stuff. Alaine took a three hour nap while I got online finally and let our fans know we were still alive.

When Alaine got up we went downstairs and played Skip-Bo and drank beer and just had snacks for dinner because we were too tired to go out.

Chiles in the mercado

The next morning we had breakfast and then went walking around the city. We stopped at a little restaurant called El Muelle on Calle Mina and had a couple beers that came with little snacks, but we also ordered something which I forget the name of that was being made with fresh tortillas in the doorway of the restaurant. Great stuff. After that we stopped at the Mayordomo chololate store (these are all over Oaxaca). They sell raw chocolate beans and also refined chocolate. They gave us samples of chocolate milk when we walked in the door aand later samples of the freshly ground chocolate. We ended up buying just some small chocolate candies for $1. We wandered from there to the big Saturday market and bought a few things. From there we went tot the second class bus station and bought ticket for Pochutla, near Puerto Angel, for the next morning.

Oaxacan food--the chapulines are in the little piece of foil

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the Mercado de Artesanías and spent some more money. We think we got a good deal on two wool table runners 18" x 72" for about $36 each. Back at the hotel we had some more beer and Skip-Bo and then went out for dinner at María bonita, a place that servers traditional Oaxacan food, including chapulines (fried grasshoppers. We got a sampler plate that included these and Alaine tried them but I didn't care to.

"Second class" bus

The next morning after breakfast we took a taxi to the bus station and I went and bought a SIM chip for our cell phone just to make life easier for us finding hotels and such. Our bus was late and was really crummy. When we bought the tickets and chose our seats the diagram showed a toilet on the bus, but there was not one. this was not a second class bus, more like fifth class. After sulking about that for a while we enjoyed the ride. Beautiful views going through twisting mountain roads; we took Dramamine this time.

Worst bus ride ever

Someone commented to me that it's confusing that the date at the top of the post doesn't match the dates I'm writing about in the post. I could change the post dates to match if that makes more sense to people. Let me know what you think. I'm about two days behind as of this current post. I wrote all this at the same time as the last one but I thought I'd break it up a little instead of one long one.

Bus stop in Chimaltenango

On Tuesday the 26th we got up at 5:30 and caught a bus around 6:45 for Chimaltenango, where we transferred to another bus to the Mexican border. This was nicer than the chicken bus, but there wasn't room for both our suitcases underneath so I had to carry one on. I brought it to the back and ended up sitting next to it on the long bench seat in the very back. It was extremely uncomfortable and the suitcase kept falling into me. The road was under construction and very bumpy. I finally realized that the seat was loose and was moving slightly forward with each bump so that I was losing all my leg room. When the bus stopped for a few minutes I was able to move the seat back some. After that I was careful to keep it in place when we went over bumps. When we got to Huehuetenango they said the bus wasn't going to continue to the border (they had been adding water to the radiator the whole way). We had to get on a chicken bus from there and it was by far the most uncomfortable ride we've had. We sat in the seat over the wheel well and those buses are already too cramped for gringo legs. Alaine got the window seat with no leg room at all and I sat next to her with a little bit of room if I put one leg into the aisle. Once the bus started filling up, though, I had someone sitting next to me (at least he was skinny) so I had to sit with my knees kind of spread apart and pushed into the seat in front of me with my the lower part of my left leg angled toward the center of the bus because of the wheel-well. Of course my leg started cramping after about an hour of this. Alaine at one point put her backpack underneath her butt and sort of sat on it without putting much weight on it. The scenery was beautiful though.

We finally got to the border, had some lunch and checked out of Guatemala. It was hot. We took a colectivo taxi for about $1 per person to go the 4km to the Mexican immigration point Cuauhtémoc. From there we took a 15 passenger van to Comitán ($3/person) and another colectivo ($3/person) to San Cristóbal de las Casas. There is a direct bus from Cuauhtémoc to San Cristóbal, but we would have had to wait 3 hours for it.

We found a clean, if dark, hotel room for $15 and then went out for a good Mexican dinner for about $3.50 per person.

The next morning (Wednesday 27th) It was very cold and rainy. We had a great breakfast at an indigenous coffee co-op, then wandered around and looked at other hotels and finally settled on one that was not as nice as our first one, but at least had a window to the outside on a big 3rd floor terrace. After checking in we got a little lost looking for the artesanía market behind a church where bought some nice stuff last year. We finally did find it and bought a few things.

Cold Alaine

After the market we had a disappointing but cheap dinner and then went to a bar that we had seen earlier that had 2 for 1 drinks and hung out there for a while. It was very cold inside the bar and we had to ask them to close the doors. After that we went back to the hotel and got under the covers and...




watched "Lost" and "A Daily Show" on my computer.

The next day (Thursday 28th) we had a disappointing breakfast near the hotel, bought bus tickets first class to Oaxaca ($35/person) for 10:45 PM, and then went and packed up and checked out out of the hotel. We shopped at a Zapatista store and then had some nice ice cream and now I'm sitting here typing this in the Bar Revolución drinking 2 for 1 Caipirinhas made with tequila. I haven't been able to connect to wireless anywhere in town. I think Ubuntu is to blame but since I can get online it is hard to find out anything.

Sorry, no expenses this time. It takes a lot of time and the numbers are all screwed up anyway. I'm going to have to go revising again when there's time.