Venancio and Anabel, our dear old friends of more than twenty years met us at the airport and many hugs and kisses were shared, as well as a few tears. The drive from the airport was typically Mexican: I sat on Chad's lap in the front seat and my head bumped the ceiling with each bounce of the SUV. First stop in La Crucecita? Las Posadas bar for cervezas. Then we got our traveling companions DJ and Amber settled into their room at the hotel Mixteca. This was their very first time in Mexico, and their honeymoon to boot; we couldn't think of a better place for their two-week stay than here to introduce them to Mexican hospitality. Then the search began for a place we would call home for the next five weeks. We spent a few hours waiting around to be shown apartments and homes, but nothing panned out so we checked into hotel Monte Flor in Chahue and decided to resume the search the following day. We gave Venancio and Anabel their gifts from home, one of which was a picture of Olivia from her senior year of high school, to which Anabel cried, hugged it, kissed it, and pointed to her and said she is her daughter, too.
That evening for dinner Anabel chose San Juanito Campestre, a rustic hideaway off the beaten path which is known for its more exotic fare of venison, armadillo, and iguana. I stuck with breaded fish, and Chad's breaded shrimp was the size of my fish fillets! Venancio had roasted venison (not as common here as in Minnesota) and Chad also had seafood soup, which contained a HUGE fish head.
The next day we drove around looking for a place and happened to drive past Condos Pacíficos. We made arrangements to meet Ivan, the manager, and within a few hours we were settled into a furnished two-bedroom apartment with a laundry room, kitchen, AC, and swimming pool just feet from the door. All for $350! Chad had been holding out for a pool (me? I didn't care--isn't there a ginormous one about a mile from here??) but I am so glad that he didn't budge on that issue because the pool has become a regular part of our daily routine.
Venancio and Anabel stayed with us two nights. It was so nice to have Anabel show me the ropes--she took me shopping for essentials and groceries so I would know where to go and how things work (for example, it's important to drop a peso or two into the cup for the little children who bag your groceries)
That day we also met Isaac, the middle child, and his lovely wife Estéfano (Fani for short) and their five-month old Amaia Michelle (named for me!) Isaac is a wonderful man and dedicated husband and father.
After Venancio and Anabel returned to Pochutla, Chad and I walked to Soriana, a mini version of Wal-Mart, and bought cleaning supplies so I could give the apartment a good scrub-down. I also washed all of the bedding from the apartment, and I found decorative treasures in the kitchen cupboards that I brought out to display. The apartment finally felt like home.
We were now able to settle into a daily routine, which includes morning coffee, pool time, breakfast or lunch, shopping for a few groceries for the evening meal, maybe beach time, dinner, and our favorite, the evening stroll through town. Final stop of the day: bakery for morning treats and pan dulce (sweet bread) for the men who guard the gate through the night.
Saturday the 11th we took the bus to Pochutla, about forty-five minutes away, to Venancio and Anabel's house, where we would be the guests of honor at una gran fiesta! This bus ride isn't so bad, I thought to myself. Nice and clean, air-conditioned bus, pretty smooth ride, driver seemed to have a healthy respect for human life...no problemo! I could make this trip weekly to visit Venancio and Anabel, and heck, for 28 pesos, just over $1 US, not too shabby! The return trip, however, would prove to be a completely different story...
Anabel met us at the bus station with her nephew, who was my personal valet. Pochutla is a much larger version of La Crucecita but we didn't have to go far to get to the house. Through a narrow gate, up several flights of concrete steps, duck under the hard rubber water hose suspended between the buildings, up another flight of stairs (no handrails!) and up onto the patio of their home. These housing structures accommodate several families so if you were to wander around up there you may end up in someone else's patio and possibly kitchen pretty easily (the washing machine and oven are usually outside)
Our initial plan was to go straight to Puerto Angel where we would be staying two nights, about twenty minutes away, but since we were greeted at the station, we were obliged to go to the house first and have refreshments. Here I met Juana, the matriarch of the family, Anabel's mother, and mother to eleven other children.
After beverages we took a cab to Puerto Angel and checked into Hotel Cordelia, a lovely inn with balconies looking out onto the bay.
The area including Puerto Angel, San Agustinillo, and Zipolite Beach are considered the Riviera Oaxaqueña (the Oaxacan Riviera), and rightly so.
Later we went back to Pochutla, picked up a dozen roses each for Juana and Anabel, and returned to the house where the cooking was in full swing. On the menu were tiritas made with sail fish, salsa de chicharrón (pig skin in red sauce), tamales Oaxaqueños, guacamole, goat cheese, tostadas, refried beans, cerveza, crema de mezcal, and homemade flan, which was to die for!
Here we once again after too many years saw the lovely Kathia and met her husband Neftali and their son Joao, Abraham and his wife Melissa and their daughter Melina Marley (he's a Bob Marley fan). We brought the kids and their children gifts of new shoes, clothes, stuffed animals, porcelain dolls, and good old American greenbacks.
True to Mexican hospitality, the four of us were not only served first, but served on the only "real" plates in the house, and after we sampled each dish and gave our approvals, the others joined in.
Venancio had acquired a speaker through which he played the music that Chad had put together for him onto several CDs from his own music collection. Another example of deferring to the guests of honor. There was lots of dancing, and all the women and girls wanted their pictures taken with Chad.
We made it back to Puerto Angel after midnight to a locked gate at the hotel, but I had forgotten than most hotels are open to the beach so all we had to do was walk to the back and right up the stairs. For a minute there I envisioned myself sleeping on the beach, but sleeping in my bed wasn't much different, as the sound of the waves were right outside our balcony door.
The next day we went to Zipolite Beach (clothing optional) and had breakfast at The Best Place on the Beach restaurant. Venancio was called away for a pick up in Huatulco so knowing he would be gone for quite a while, Chad and I lounged on the beach, listened to the waves crashing to shore (here is a true Hawaii Five-O pipeline), and I tried not to make it look like I was peeking while I was peeking at the nudies. Chad stripped down to his birthday suit while I stayed in my bathing suit. I learned you don't have to be a perfect 10 to flaunt what you got.
We met Venancio while walking back toward town and from there the three of us went to Pina Palmera, a rehabilitation center settled amongst a huge grove of palm trees. There are four residents there, one with Epilepsy, one with severe Autism, one with schizophrenia, and one parapalegic. Therapists provide care for the four residents but due to lack of funding, they are not able to accommodate more. They also provide training to families who can perform therapy for a disabled family member. Our plan for visiting the center was to learn whether Chad would be able to offer his volunteer services as a massage therapist, but it seems that their greater need is in financial support. The facility has several shops where disabled people create items to sell to tourists, such as wooden bookmarks and fish mobiles and beautiful colorful flying birds, and books made from paper that they recycle on site.
From there we headed back to Pochutla straight to the bus station, where we met up with DJ and Amber and took the bus back to Huatulco. I had to use the potty before boarding, which required the following: 5 pesos to the gentleman guarding the door, and in turn he handed over a very chintzy length of toilet paper, no toilet seat, of course (smaller folks: careful not to fall in, children have to hold on with both hands on the sides), and Lord only knew how to flush the thing so I figured I'd let the guy earn his 5 pesos and do it for me. Next Amber had to go, so I showed her how it was done and the guard was quick to scold me for not paying the required 5 pesos for my use of the toilet. Didn't he know I just went? What if I just wanted to check my teeth in the mirror? 5 pesos just for going in? I wondered if I would have had to pay more for more toilet paper had I needed it...
Speaking of toilets in Mexico, take a piece of advice: always carry tissues with you because not all bathrooms have paper. Since you can't carry a toilet seat with you (which reminds me of the bathroom pass in seventh grade; a key attached to a real live toilet seat) you'll have to make due without.
Another piece of advice: under NO circumstances, NEVER get on a bus if the driver is behind schedule unless you are overly excited to meet your maker. What should have been at least a forty-five minute drive was accomplished in half an hour, and it was the scariest half hour of my life. I likened it to the old roller coaster at Valley Fair, which absolutely terrifies me, except that at least on the roller coaster I know there is a reasonable chance that the ride will end safely. Not so on this bus. The centrifugal force of his speeding around the curves through the mountains caused loose objects to roll around the floor at Mach speed. I am still astonished that my body isn't a crumpled heap among a pile of smoldering rubble at the bottom of a cliff along the southern coast of Mexico. I had every intention of giving that life-hating mongrel driver a piece of my mind once we came to a screeching halt at the station in La Crucecita, but Chad warned me that that would have put me into the negative on the "cool" scale. I'm so close to hovering just at 0 so I better not take any chances. Once I'm in the negative, it's hard to recover.
DJ and Amber leave Saturday after their two weeks here in Huatulco. Venancio and Anabel will take them to the airport, and afterwards Chad will have procured a massage table from a resident here at the condos and give Anabel the best and only massage of her life. She suffers from sever back pain from sleeping on a hard floor every night. Sunday will be Venancio's turn if he behaves. Then we will head back to Pochutla and from there go on to Puerto Escondido, where we will visit a Spanish language school called Puerto School. They diversify and also give surfing lessons! Chad is hoping to study there next year and live for a while with a host family.
La Crucecita is a somewhat difficult city to describe because I have nothing to compare it to. It is so atypical of what I am used to. The closest I can come to describing it is a miniature version of an ethnic burrow of New York City, but nestled at the base of the Sierra Madres. Offerings of anything and everything you could possibly need or want, mostly food. The competition has to be stiff; the restaurants outnumber any other store front, and some are so small they can accommodate only three small tables. Artisan goods, fruit and vegetable stands and stores, chicken sold out of a store front no bigger than a coat closet, seafood sold out of coolers on the sidewalks, lemonade sold out of big vats and scooped into plastic bags with a straw sticking out, silver jewelry, indigenous clothing, mini grocery stores, and cell-phone accessory stores. The town wasn't built with tall people like Chad in mind--Chad may just go home with a permanent bend in his neck from being told to constantly duck his head under the endless awnings over the store fronts. Plus the sidewalks are perilously narrow and not level, so in some ways its a lot like hiking the Superior Hiking Trail. The town is busy during the day, but really comes alive at night when people escape the heat of their homes for the cooler (not by much) temperatures of the evening. Vendors also come out in droves to sell everything from candy and popcorn to purses and marionettes. Oftentimes there is impromptu music on bongos or guitars, or both. The church is lit up at night with red, white, and green (Mexico's flag colors) and some evenings you can hear mass across the square. Not only is the town charming in every sense of the word, but it is also safe. The people are courteous, warm, helpful, and inviting. Naturally, they rely on the boost to their economy that tourism provides, but they are genuinely nice and welcoming.
It is an ideal location for a tourist, being so close to so many beautiful bays along the coast while still offering a truly Mexican experience for the traveler.
I am always struck, however, by the extreme poverty here. While it's isn't ever apparent in town, once you get just outside of downtown you really see how destitute and isolated so many people are. These are the people who get rides into town each day to sell the little bit of food they are able to put together to try to sell or grow from their mango trees. No plumbing, and their one-room homes are lean-tos made of corrugated tin and sticks. Children roam barefoot looking for something to eat or to be entertained by, and the stray dogs, often with mange, look absolutely miserable. These are the sights that hit me hard; they remind me how crazy lucky I am to have been born into the greatest country on earth. So many of these people merely exist. Hope? Hope for what? There is no thought of working a decent job until they are of retiring age then settling down to enjoy the rest of their days in a peaceful, comfortable way, maybe do some traveling, expand their minds, learn a new craft. That concept would not even enter the minds of these people. So the next time you yearn for something you wish you had, please instead be grateful for what you do.
Until next time, with love, Chad and Michelle.
Thanks Shelly I really enjoyed reading your blog!
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DeleteThanks, Jodi! We would love to host you and Paul down here! Starting next year we will be down here at least three months a year.
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