Puerto Escondido: Why it's my happy place

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Fresh oysters.

Puerto Escondido, Mexico

The ice cold Corona sat there taunting me. I could hear it whispering, "Drink me," (in Spanish of course) as the condensation languidly trailed down its curvaceous exterior.

The moment of truth had come.

Having retired from my illustrious drinking career a year earlier, I rarely thought about that sweet, sweet nectar. But when, after a long journey from Winter in a landlocked country, you find yourself barely with your shoes off before someone puts 12 freshly shucked oysters in front of you, to be washed down with the aforementioned liquid, resolve is not so forthcoming.

"Oh, thank you, I don't drink." I made it sound as light and airy as I possibly could given the circumstances, but the declaration choked me up a little, and as the defeated Corona was being carted away, it lowered its voice and said, "You may have won this time... " (in Spanish).

Mustering resolve is only half the battle: in St Anton I am inevitably required to follow my statement of refrainment with an explanation, for which I have a repertoire, "I know! Very un-Australian to not drink! They took away my passport." "I'm not thirsty. " And so forth.

With the Corona gone, I waited for the deluge, and then it came. "You don't drink." "Nup." "Fair play," and that was it.

That was in my first hour in Puerto Escondido in the state of Oaxaca in Mexico, and that was also the amount of time it took for the first tension to be released from my shoulders. I knew it wouldn't be instantaneous because I am pretty strung out, even by bitter middle-aged women standards, but not being questioned gave me hope that some point in the near future I could say, "Just chillin'," and mean it.

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The view from the common area at Sunset Point.

Why had I chosen Puerto Escondido, you  didn't ask? Well, I had been tampering with the idea as so many people from St Anton go at the end of the ski season, because Sunset Point—best described as a self-contained retirement village for people nowhere near retirement—is owned by Chris Rex (Rexy) who spent 20 years in St Anton. As I was not quite ready to throw myself into the solo travelling thing, I thought that Puerto could be my training ground, as there would be familiar faces, base camp if you will. 

Actually, that is not entirely accurate (such intelligent thought never went into it, just how it turned out). I was so exhausted from the ski season that I simply wanted to wile away my days—without having to be overly polite to people—whilst sitting in a hammock; or, if I was feeling active, go to the beach and perve on hot surfers whilst mango juice trailed down my fat rolls like condensation down that ice cold Corona: lascivious cougar style. During my extensive research, I ascertained that both were possible. "Are there hot surfers?" "Yep." "Sold." And so that is exactly what I did.

For a month.

I stayed there for double the intended time, as in this vortex, time slows down, and it takes pretty much a whole day to do anything, except for a game of darts: that only takes half of the day, and normally you play a couple of games. The longer you stay, the slower time goes: you start preparing to go out for dinner five hours before, even when you are not hungry. You see, by the time you have decided what you are going to eat, where you are going to go, how you are going to get there, then incorporate time for stragglers (invariably as you are just about to walk out the door someone else wants to join but has to have a shower first) it is already getting late. But then you have to acknowledge that it is not just you, it is the Mexican surf community, and everyone is running on the same time. So by the time you get there, sit down, order, and then wait two hours for your food (which takes no time to eat as by then you are very hungry) the day is over. But it didn't bother me: I had come a long way.

After about two weeks, as I lay in a hammock doing absolutely nothing, I lazily speculated that perhaps some time in the near future I should think about maybe thinking about moving on. "No point this week," Rexy said. "That cyclone that was supposed to hit here is heading for Chiapas. You don't wanna get caught up in that." I grunted in agreement before eating another avocado. A week later, the same scenario (possibly in a different hammock). Same speculation. Similar response, except that the cyclone had hit, and the roads were not great for an overnight bus trip. Again I grunted in agreement, then ate a mango. Maybe next week.

By the time I did leave, I was relaxed and happy: just chillin'. Many of the forced St Anton behaviours had washed away, and I felt equipped for my adventure, with an awesome tan to boot.

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"Psst, lady, you want a space cookie?" (Guatemala)

You know that moment we are all seeking as travelers? You know, the one where you arrive somewhere, immediately forget about how much you need to stretch your legs or go to the toilet, and you just look around in awe, take it all in and think: “That, ladies and gentleman, is my next Facebook cover photo”. Well I had one of those when I arrived at Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. It was a sunset after the rain, at the beginning of June, and the myriad of colours were slowly retreating behind two volcanoes whilst we were hustled onto the last boat across the lake. At least I think we were being hustled on, but I couldn’t be sure as I don’t speak a word of Spanish, which makes everything just a bit more exotic. As we were whooshing across the lake to the hostel in Santa Cruz I thought to myself: “The only thing that could make this boat trip better would be weed-laden space cookies!!”

How fortuitous, as the very next day a purveyor of these delicious treats found me wandering the streets of one of the many Mayan villages that dapple the shores of the vast lake. I am not sure what she said, but I heard it as: “Psst, hey little lady, yes you!  You look like you reside on the shady side of the street. Would you like to buy a delicious and very special cookie, which will also support the local economy?”  Well, if it was to support the local economy, how could I say no? “Five please.” Which was lucky, as that day a very large flock of predominately middle aged, squawking women travelers had arrived at the hostel, and as there was no escape from the village after dark, these cookies provided an avenue for retreat. Each afternoon after my adventures—such as worshipping Maximon, “The God of Drunkards and Gamblers,” in a village living room—I would take a cup of tea, sit by the dock and eat my cookie, timing it so that I was very, very hungry by dinner time. My only other option for company that was not part of the squawking flock was a docile ginger fellow who grappled daily with the intricacies of a very complex card game called Shithead. And then I met Tracy.

I was in full astronaut mode when I met Tracy (who was there for the diving), so it is understandable that seeing she bared a vague resemblance to one of my best friends from home, I thought that it actually was one of my best friends from home playing a trick on me—for three days—but I was reluctant to broach the subject as she was just so good at Shithead. The day after I met Tracy, we met a guy called Richard who arrived at the hostel with his mother and sister. He had too much facial hair and an idiotic hat, but enough potential to warrant further investigation, so I engineered to sit with him at dinner. His mother was immediately impressed by my eating capabilities and commented how nice it was to see a girl with a healthy appetite. This prompted to me to tell her the story of the little old lady who sold me space cookies, and how “when in Rome…” (I am not actually sure what it is that they do in Rome aside from getting shat on by pigeons whilst paying extortionate prices for coffee.) Next thing you know, I had set up a date for the next day with the object of my desire’s mum, with Tracy as my wingman to hopefully laugh at all my hilarious jokes, with an assumption that Richard would come along, and with the missions of riding a chicken bus and picking up more space cookies (the main form of public transport in Guatemala is disused, souped-up American children’s school buses, where passengers are crowded in like chickens).

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The next morning we all set off, and I was perhaps overly cautious, taking my back-up-throw-away-wallet. But I needn’t have been, as sitting next to me on the chicken bus was a very young woman with her wide-eyed baby. Thinking it was a perfect time to demonstrate my maternal tendencies, I cooed at the baby; but rather than gurgling and giggling, her eyes welled up with tears momentarily before she started screaming: it was like she had seen the cookie monster.  Out of our group, I was the only one that was not slightly amused, and hopefully Tracy was laughing uncontrollably because she thought I had planned it and she was being a good wingman. We then stopped for lunch, where lots of Mayan children were trying to sell us friendship bracelets and hair ties. Richard kindly pointed out to them that I was looking to buy gifts to take home, and I had just taken four hundred dollars out of the ATM. This caused me a world of awkwardness, and I liked it! After lunch we had our final stop of picking up our cookies in San Pedro.

As the boats only go in one direction (clockwise I think) you are unable to take direct routes unless you pay for a private boat, so even though San Pedro was the next village, we had to take the long way around, and I was relieved to see the cookie lady was still where she had been before. She was so happy to see me, and I felt that, even though we did not share a language, we had built a rapport. As we shook hands her gold-toothed smile said: “Nice doing business with you, gringa, I charged you five times too much,” and mine said, “Thank you so much, kind Mayan cookie lady, I know I paid too much, but I probably would have paid five times more.” After we had purchased what remained of her cookies, we scurried for the last boat, took a seat, and before I could say to Richard’s sister and mum, “Careful, they are quite strong, so make sure you only eat half,” they had gobbled up a whole cookie each. Oops.

It was not long into the boat ride when it occurred to me that boats stopped running early during the rainy season as the storms transpire in the afternoon, and on this particular afternoon it went from a light sprinkle to a torrential downpour in no time. The boat was full of both tourists and locals, lightning was striking very close to the boat, and I astutely realized it was not a daily occurrence when a local man grabbed a life jacket after seeing water coming through the floor. I was momentarily afraid, and I think I might have tried to flirt with Richard, something about a big strong man making me feel safe, but he did not hear it over the storm, or he wisely chose not to respond. To say “we” felt relieved to get back to the hostel would be incorrect, as I don’t think Richard’s mum and sister even noticed it had been raining before going into their rooms and disappearing for the night. By dinner time I had managed to embellish on the story, which had gone from being caught in a little rain to a near death experience on a rickety boat in a third world country.

The next day when I came down to breakfast the family was gone. I don’t know if the previous day counted as a date, probably not. Not only was Richard unaware that I had amorous intentions, I had made a baby cry before drugging his mother and sister and taking them on the boat ride from hell. At least I thought he would say, "Adios!" On the flip side, I did have a new partner in crime, as Tracy and I were heading to Antigua together that day, unbeknownst to Tracy, with a pocketful of space cookies, and I had forty likes on my new cover photo.

The Hostile Hostel

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The last you heard from me I was pining over a hairy faced man (not hipster hairy, neglect hairy) who I had attempted to romance by feeding his mother and young sister space cookies, and was then surprised he did not say goodbye. But here is the catch: he did! He left a note, which I never saw as the hostel threw it away, but I knew this because I bumped into him in the street in Antigua, and so I convinced him to put his family on a plane and come and play happily ever after with me for a few weeks, or forever (I was not fussed). So after three days in Antigua we headed to Semuk Champey, which is a natural 300 meter limestone bridge of descending pools with a river passing underneath in the jungle, and Tracy agreed to meet us a few days later.

When Tracy did arrive she had some new friends in tow: a very camp, allegedly heterosexual Australian couple who were backpacking for a year with suitcases mainly filled with beauticians wears for waxing and whatnot. They said it was to make some money, but I think it was primarily to keep his eyebrows shaped, as his appearance was of great concern. So with them, we went to the crystal clear turquoise pools where fish nibbled the dead skin off our feet (which I have paid a lot more than a park entry fee for), and we ate some BBQ chicken at the entrance, where a man in a counterfeit "Van Dame" t-shirt (given away by the misspelling of Van Damme) tried to stop the dogs from fighting for food scraps.

Then our choice of transport back to the hostel was on a tyre down the river. Our guide was no match for Tracy's decolletage, and before you knew it he was touching her feet whilst trying to cop a feel of her buxom bosom as we were floating down the river at a rather brisk pace. Of course I laughed, because I was a good wingman and it was all part of her master plan, as who wouldn't want to have freshly fish-nibbled feet fondled?   

We got back to the hostel as the afternoon storm hit, and it was a cracker. Eardrum-puncturing thunder, epilepsy-inducing lightning, and rain to match, which fondly reminded me of munching space cookies on Lake Atitlan. Mmm space cookies, I wonder if…. well there could be no harm in asking…  So I did.
  "Why hello lovely French hostel employee, you look like living in the Guatemalan jungle you would not be adverse to partaking in the consumption of sugary treats with a special ingredient. By chance have you baked a fresh batch today?"
 "Alas mademoiselle, I have none fresh. Unfortunately I can only offer you a freezer full of special brownies I made last week."
 "10 please."
 "And whilst I am here, may I suggest an alternative to your plans to go to Tikal, where you would see the unforgettable Mayan Ruins at sunrise whilst howler monkeys surprisingly howl?"
 "Certainly."
And that is where things got interesting. You see, if he had said, "I am sending you to an isolated, bug infested hell," I would have most likely said, "Thank you, that sounds wonderful, but I think we will stick to the original plan." But since he packaged hell in such a way that it sounded endearing, the next morning we willingly set off.

A geezerish English man with hideous teeth picked us up from Livingston, and then transported us to his guesthouse called "Greenhouse" on a river which was only accessible by boat. The first thing we saw—actually, that is not fair, the first person we saw was a skinny man in his 30s with long straggly hair and big welts all over his legs: he had clearly been a delicious smorgasbord for all the creepy crawlies in the area. A human tasting plate if you will. The guesthouse was in a state of disrepair, and we suspected the geezer was just too baked the whole time to get around to doing anything aside from disparaging his girlfriend. When I thought about going to the outdoor bathroom I envisioned myself returning looking like a ravaged cavewoman (and not in a good way), so I held off.

By the time that we sat down at dinner, we had determined through some subtle eye contact and gesticulating that we wanted to get the hell out of there, and would do so first thing in the morning, but we had to get through the night. This did not involve barricading ourselves in our room (don't be so dramatic), but an excruciatingly awkward dinner of tamales where we felt that the geezer and his girlfriend were in the middle of a fight (given away by the silence and glaring). The only background sound was the slurping, lip-schmacking and finger-licking of the other guest who was eating with the same enthusiasm it appeared the bugs had eaten him. When we finally did get upstairs, we attempted to sleep straight away so that the morning would arrive sooner, and we were reluctant to talk as someone, anyone, may have been peering through a peep hole (take your pick).

Of course none of this damp, dirty, cobwebby creepiness boded well for a good night's sleep, nor did the tamales we had eaten for dinner. By 2am I knew that I was not going to make it through without regurgitating dinner. I did manage to find the outdoor bathroom—but not the light—and all I could hear when I was not hurling was what could very well have been scampering spiders on the tin roof. I did eventually make it back to bed and lay rigidly awake until the morning. When we told geezer that we wanted to leave he was quite taken aback and would not let us use the internet (something about modem and too hard basket) so we did not know where we had to get to, but we just wanted to leave and asked him to drop us off at the dock to go to Belize. With the cost of the transport, it turned out to be the most expensive night of the whole three month trip, but I considered it the fee for our release and gladly paid it.

You would think that maybe—as I was puking up tamale on the dock amidst petrol fumes as we prepared for our next border crossing—I would have reflected upon the turn of events and concluded that following recommendations from a stoned Frenchman with exceptional brownie-baking skills was a bad idea. But it wasn't a bad idea. Not only was it a travelling 101 demonstration that everyone has a different idea of Utopia, but it also provided a benchmark for rockbottom, meaning from that day forth, when assessing the viability of an option, it would be based on a scale of Greenhouse to 10.