Typically, when we leave the country, we are rather manic about sightseeing, and for Mexico, we made a conscious effort to slow down the pace a bit. For J and me, that meant starting our vacation with several beach days in Puerto Escondido.
Puerto Escondido is known as a mecca for surfers, and they have a bunch of different beaches with very different vibes. When I was planning our visit (J was super-busy with her internship), I consulted a bunch of different blogs and review sites that were very helpful, including The Hungry Soles, Aliki Travel Blog, and Oaxaca Travel Tips, and I ended up booking an apartment at Las Turquezas, a small apartment complex that was very close to Playa Coral, a quieter beach to the north of most of the action. We also planned to travel from the airport in Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido via a travel van company.
I love when a plane lands and you step outside immediately! The weather was gorgeous in Oaxaca, and the van service worked well: from what I could tell, we were the only people who weren’t from Mexico, and during our ride, we’d periodically pull over on the side of the highway to drop people off or pick people up. But it was air-conditioned and comfortable and even had a movie playing, so we were psyched. Along the way, there was one “comfort stop,” and one of our fellow passengers was very concerned that we didn’t buy anything to eat. J and I were a little hungry, but we’re both prone to motion sickness, and I think we just wanted to arrive and get a real meal rather than road snacks. But the Very Nice Lady absolutely insisted that we needed sustenance, in spite of J’s protests. J speaks Spanish. In fact, she wanted to go to Mexico to improve her Spanish. I, on the other hand, don’t have much more than “No gracias,” “No hablo,” and “Uno, dos, tres.” So I stayed out of it and, in fact, took a picture of J as she followed the Very Nice Lady out of the bus and politely tried to convince her not to buy us sandwiches.
J failed, and next thing you know, someone who probably had much less disposable income than we do had purchased us two sandwiches. She consoled us by saying that we could buy her a coffee later, but that was apparently just a figure of speech, because shortly afterward, she disembarked from the van onto the side of the highway, never to be seen again.
Our apartment complex was lovely, with a small pool and even a resident cat.
J and I agree that we would stay there again. However, we would make two changes. First, this complex has seven apartments. In the picture above, you can see almost see that there are two 3-story building right next to each other, and each floor of each building comprises apartments 1-6 with a nice little outdoor space as well. We arrived and were like, “Where’s our apartment, apartment 7?” It turns out that apartment 7 is the one that I’m guessing that they created out of what probably used to be the caretaker’s home when demand became so great that they realized that they could squeeze just a bit more rental income out of the complex. It was: fine. From what I could see, the other apartments were nicer. But there was air conditioning, a good supply of potable water, and space, so it worked out. And the pool was lovely and peaceful. The other change for next time? We would rent motor scooters. Our location was a bit of a distance from the tourist hot spots, which was something I knew going in. J loves a high-quality beach, and she loves to swim in the ocean for hours, and the most “happening” beach, Zicatela, is really better for surfing than for swimming. So I’d chosen our location deliberately because it would be more quiet, stunning beauty instead of party central, but even with that choice, sometimes you want to go to party central. There was a hotel and a motor scooter rental place right around the corner, so renting would have been convenient, but we didn’t quite process that ’til later in the trip.
We arrived late in the afternoon, and we checked out the closest beach immediately: there’s J in the water on the left.
We strolled a bit, enjoyed the sunset, and each took a little swim. J saw a young woman by herself who was playing music she liked, so J chatted with her for a bit. It was gorgeous. Here’s a panorama I took while I was sitting and J was in the ocean.
When I went into the water, I lost my (favorite, cute) glasses almost immediately. This was tragic. I wasn’t planning to go too far in, but the waves were more than I anticipated. We had to climb some rocks to get where we wanted to go, and J basically had to guide me like I was an old lady, because my eyesight is bad. Luckily, I’d brought a back-up pair of glasses along with a pair of contacts.
We dried off and walked up to Boulevard Benito Juárez, the main strip in the Rinconada neighborhood where we were staying, and stopped at a restaurant, where I had coconut tacos, J had some ceviche, and we shared some guacamole. All tasty!
By the time we’d made it back to our apartment, I was fully exhausted. We’d woken up oh-dark-early to catch a flight from Albany to Dallas, then Dallas to Oaxaca, then went through customs, caught a taxi to a van, took a van to Puerto Escondido, schlepped from the van garage to our apartment, went to the beach, changed and went out to dinner, and walked home again. At 10 pm, we were both snuggled in bed when J’s phone pinged. It was the girl from the beach; she and two other friends were going out; did J want to join? She hopped out of bed, changed into something cute, and was gone. She returned at 3 am.
. . . Does that sound terrifying to you? I understand, but I was also not super-comfortable when she climbed high on the monkey bars or did back handsprings on the balance beam or had to find her way to school in Italy when she didn’t speak any Italian yet. So I’ve had practice. And she is a grown-up now. Mostly, I was just deeply in awe of her youthful energy and gusto.
We had a fantastic time in Puerto Escondido, doing our best to check out every beach and try plenty of food.
J made friends with a surf instructor who taught her for free and took her out to dinner. I lounged on the beach and took myself out to a bar, where I tried a fancy cocktail and a Oaxacan favorite chapulines (grasshoppers) with guacamole.
One of our favorite days was an outing we took with Eco Adventure Tours to explore waterfalls. This was a long drive (3 hours each way!), but it was totally worth it. Before we arrived at the first waterfall, we stopped at a roadside restaurant for brunch, which was all cooked traditionally over an open fire.
Oh! And guess what? In the car ride, my back-up pair of glasses inexplicably broke, so I was wearing glasses perched on my face with only one earpiece for the rest of our time along the coast, until Cute W could bring me my back-up, back-up pair!
The first waterfall was lovely, with a bridge to walk across, plus we got the chance to swim in the pool and duck under the falling water.
The next waterfall was really a series of waterfalls and pools, and our tour guide took tons of photos and videos. Here are a couple of videos that give you an idea of the general scene (and you may see J and me in the water):
It was so much fun. There was a platform to jump from, a spot with a big ol’ rope swing, another spot with a traditional swing, and lots of different little pools and falls to explore. We had a fantastic time. I was just going through the videos (I realized that I hadn’t seen the ones our guide had sent me), and in almost every one, you can hear water rushing and me laughing with delight.
Before heading home, we stopped for some more fantastic food, again surrounded Mexican tourists instead of American tourists.
So, those were a few of the highlights. Throughout our stay in Puerto Escondido, I couldn’t get enough of the gorgeous flowers growing everywhere. . .
and the vibrant murals. . .
and of course the gorgeous beaches.
I also fell completely in love the agua frescas. I often come back from a vacation with a new favorite cocktail, as you know, but this time, we couldn’t get enough of the pineapple and mint agua fresca from El Cafecito. It was the perfect refresher on a hot summer day. J did a great job replicating it as soon as she arrived home.
On our final night, we dined at AlmOraduz for a truly fantastic tasting menu. It was beautiful and delicious, and I took a ton of pictures.
Then I strolled home. Meanwhile J did a quick change at the restaurant as soon as we’d finished dessert: she’d been invited to a barbecue with the surfer as well as club hopping with the girls from her first night. She arrived home the next morning with wet hair from an early morning beach swim and coffee in hand to find me lounging by the pool. It was time to pack up and head to our next city, Oaxaca!
