Zipolite, Mexico

Zipolite is perfect.  It is a small town with a few restaurants and bars and a great beach.  The first day we came, the waves were insane.  They were probably 12-feet high, closed quickly and crashed so hard it sounded like thunder and looked deadly.  It was deadly.  Since, the sea has calmed down tremendously and is swimmable.  

The beach is long enough for walks and while I was on a sunset walk the other day I saw a completely naked woman, laying ass-up in the sand, with no clothes around her, but a lot of local friends.  Immediately following this I witnessed a small dog trying to hump a larger dog, but the small dog was too small.  He would mount the larger dog from behind, and when that did not work, make his way around to the larger dog's head.  It was pretty creative, but once his owner saw what was going on, he was immediately put back on his leash.  When I returned past this scene the second time, the tied up dog was staring at his former playmate, tongue dragging on the sand and panting.  It was pretty funny.

Since we've been here, we've spent a lot of time lying on the beach, we've done a beach tour (by boat) and were going to do a crocodile tour, but I got a small stomach reaction to some local food.  This was not the swine flu, although our trip to Zipolite has also been marked by the swine flu outbreak.  It appears to be centered in Mexico City, so we have not been greatly impacted, but we are being careful and stocking up on antibiotics and masks, just in case.  Veronica had a wedding in Playa del Carmen on May 9th, but their Canadian airline cancelled all flights to Mexico and the wedding has to move to Dominican Republic (in a week and a half, all new plans have to be made).  Given this, we have decided to fly out of Mexico on Saturday so we don't get stuck here.  We will be going to Belize on Sunday.

Puerto Angel

We spent 4-days in Puerto Angel at a great hotel, Buena Vista.  It is a small town on a small bay.  It's hot, beautiful and completely shuts down after 10pm.  We spent our days at the nearby Playa Panteon, a small beach with a restaurant, chairs and umbrellas on the beach.  The first day the water was like a pool, perfect for much needed cooling off periods from the heat.  The second day the bay was raging with waves that would consume the entire restaurant.  It was like a totally different place.  Puerto Angel was very relaxing and we decided to head to Zipolite after for a few days as there is a lot more to do there.

I have found something that surpasses my previously mentioned new favorite Mexican dish, Tlayudas, enchiladas verde in this little comedor in Zipolite.  These are not your traditional enchiladas, they are served open-faced with the cheese and verde sauce cooked into the tortilla and the 'prime' beef, for $0.70 extra, on the side.  Amazing.  I've eaten them the last two nights. 

Eating in Mexico is a whole experience unto itself.  For starters, it is not unusual to sit in a restaurant for 30 to 60 minutes without being approached by anyone other than the ladies selling over-sized white tops with multi-colored knitted bands.  This lack of service is certainly not due to an abundance of customers, as often, there is no one else there.  Once you flag down a waiter, get a menu and get your food, you can forget about seeing the waiter again, unless you happen to be sitting next to another table performing the same routine and can piggy back onto this.  It is necessary to ask for all desired condiments and napkins up front.  To get what is on the menu or what the waiter says is on the plate is a unique pleasure.  For example, the other day I asked what was included with my chicken breast.  The waiter said vegetables, to which I replied, Fantastic!  Instead of vegetables, I got pasta salad, french fries and rice.  In this situation any question as to what happened is responded to with either we did not have it or this is what is comes with, regardless of what is written or has been said.

We have just moved to Zipolite, a small beach town about 1 mile north of Puerto Angel.  We are moving slowly through this part of Mexico.  We've got a great beachfront hotel with an amazing view of the ocean.  And every once in a while, one of 2 naked men who walk back and forth along the beach, will strut by our balcony.  The room also has a great daytime breeze, which is key given that Mexico is about as hot as I imagine hell to be.  It's impossible to walk down the street without enjoying the sweat of an hour-long workout.

Miscellaneous Mexico

I think I perfected the art of adding salt and lime to a cerveza. First, squeeze the lime into the beer then add a dash or two of salt, slowly. This is truly an art form and took ´a few´ times to perfect.

In my haste in writing my last blog, I forgot the most interesting part of Puerto Arista; our room. After hunting around for a while, we found the best room we could and it was a total dump. But, a dump with air conditioning, which was wonderful during in the sweltering heat of the day. The room had large holes in the ceiling and the randomly painted portions of the walls dropped paint chips on a regular basis. I do not believe the room had been cleaned, but if it was, it was definitely cleaned by a non-domestic male. The walls were filled with cobwebs, most well below reachable levels. We had many eight-legged friends living with us. In fact, the first night, I thought I felt something crawling in me. Usually, when this happens, it is my imagination, but this time it was a medium sized daddy long legs spider. I spent the rest of my waking hours chasing his invisible friends off my body. Did I mention the toilet had no seat and the shower spit water?
As previously explained, albeit quickly, the locals of Puerto Arista had no sense of time or direction. As instructed, we arrived at 9am to catch a 3-hour bus to Pachutla, a bus that supposedly left every hour in addition to the trucks that leave every hour. When we arrived we discovered that there are no trucks and only one bus each day, it is 6-hours and it left at 2am. Not wanting to spend a day in the hot box called Tonala, or return to the beach at Puerto Arista, we started moving towards our target bus by bus. After 2 buses, we had a 4-hour wait in Juchitan where we enjoyed a great ceviche lunch and some much needed internet time (there was no internet in Puerto Arista. They have internet in the himalayas, but not there?). Since we were heading out for another 3-hour bus ride, and traveling by bus seems to work up an intense hunger, we searched for dinner to go. We were able to secure an entire chicken, cut into pieces with kitchen shears, bones and all.

A new random fact about me: my favorite Mexican name is Lupita. I think it goes back to the early seasons of the Showtime series, Weeds. Lupita was the housekeeper. Here, whenever I see a restaurant called Lupita´s, I want to go, regardless of the general condition of the premises.

We are now in Puerto Angel, it is fantastic. A beautiful bay with the added bonus of beach chairs and umbrellas. It is amazing how these simple items can change a beach experience. It makes it possible to forget about the insane heat and enjoy the day. At this point it is 9:30 at night and I am sitting in an internet cafe completely open to the street and sweating like I just took a 4-mile jog. It´s almost summer in Mexico. I have found the most amazing food down here, Tlayudas. They are large tortillas either stuffed or topped (like a pizza) with cheese and meat and beans and all sorts of great Mexican foods.

San Cristobal and Puerto Arista

The 12-hour trip from Antigua to San Cristobal, Mexico started off rough. I did not sleep the night before we left which turned out to be a blessing when the alarm didn't go off and I was awake at 4:30am to get us on our way. On the first mini-bus leg of the trip, we had the worst seats (those without backs for those of you who have been in a Mexican mini-bus before) and there was no sleeping for those first few hours. When we changed buses in Lago de Atitlan, I was going on 24 hours without sleep and was elated to secure sleepable seats. The next time I opened my eyes was to view the 'Welcome to Mexico' sign. I'm not sure what it is about this country, but that sign brings about a great feeling.
San Cristobal was great. The temperature is cool, the town is lively and full of culture and there is a lot to do. The colonial town is similar to Antigua, but with the added energy of Mexico that compliments the town well. We managed to find the best margaritas, the best live music and a salsa competition. The salsa competition was great to watch and I even managed to dance a bit in between sets. My salsa dancing needs some fine-tuning, but I´ve got the basics down. When the turns start coming, watch out, I lose all sense of rhythm after the second one. I hear that gets better, but patience has never been my strong suit.

After San Cristobal we decided to head to Puerto Arista. If you´ve never heard of it, that is because we were on a quest for a non-touristy location and we found it. The only tourists were from Mexico. Below I have outlined the high and low points of the weekend, which are one in the same. In no particular order:
- I chased my first mirage. Walking down the beach it appeared there was a water inlet or outlet ahead. When the water did not seem to be getting closer, Veronica suggested it was a mirage. Not believing in the deception I was witnessing, I spent a fair amount of the afternoon walking to random points where the water had previously appeared before I agreed it was a mirage.
- The sort-of transsexual. Our first best friend in Puerto Arista was a transsexual who had clearly gone through some medical procedure to change his sex from male to female, however, did not go so far as to shave his legs. Our new best friend sought us out because she saw us as her ticket into the heterosexual male crowd in Puerto Arista. She even made us promise we would attend the non-existent discoteque on Saturday night and dance with her.
- The people were a bit off. It´s hard to put a finger on the source of the social awkwardness in this town, but it was blatant. One of many examples is how our actions spread as news through town. When the locals fabricated a discoteque and karaoke bar at someone´s house, we said we could not attend because we were tired (which really meant not a chance in hell are we going to a random person´s house to dance and sing). The next morning, everyone in town knew we had gone to bed early, even strangers who we had not yet met.
- Pool hopping. They were actually reservoirs, not pools. These semi-below ground, non-filtered tanks lined the bars along the beach and provided a welcome relief from the giant waves of sand in the Pacific. One afternoon, we made our way down the beach from dirty reservoir to dirty reservoir, each time taking a photo as evidence of our bravery. We knew we´d been at it for too long when we actually agreed that we had found the best pool and settled there for a while.
- No one knew how to get anywhere. We took a day trip to Boca del Cielo, a small island about 2o minutes from Puerto Arista. Every time we asked how to get there we got a different response; take a bus, a taxi, a truck, it´s 20 minutes, it´s 30 minutes, etc..... Therefore, it was not surprising when we were told buses leave every hour for our next destination, but actually leave only once a day, at 2am.

Currently, we are in the middle of a multi-stop route and hope to make it to Zipolite tonight.

Antigua

Antigua is even better the second time around.  The streetscape of the colonial town is magnificent; the vibrantly colored colonial buildings and old churches (most destroyed in the 1776 earthquake which triggered Guatemala to move the country's capital from Antigua to Guatemala City) line the street with a single facade offering magnificent streetscapes throughout the city.  The town is filled with beautiful buildings, a variety of ethnic cuisines and, my favorite, vanilla lattes.  In fact, I would venture to say they might have the best vanilla lattes in the world here.  Nights are filled with salsa dancing.  I have been taking lessons and I really enjoy it.  My dancing might be a bit better than my Spanish, but that isn't saying much.  The hostel we are staying is in a great location and after they moved us from the tiny box room with a window that opened to the neighbors sewage drain trap, the experience got even better.

Semana Santa in Antigua is the largest celebration of Semana Santa in the Western hemisphere and second largest in the world. The cobblestone streets are decorated with elaborate carpets created from fresh flowers and/or dyed sawdust.  

The carpets are an amazing display of artistic creativity and are placed along procession routes and serve as a welcome mat for the many processions celebrating a variety of religious symbols, including the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.  Thursday night was the biggest night for the creation of carpets.  Starting at midnight and going until the wee hours of the morning hundreds of people worked diligently to create beautiful carpets for Friday's crucifixion procession.

The processions include floats carried by large groups of people bearing the weight of the floats on their shoulders while walking and swaying in unison.  The main float in the procession walks over the newly created carpets and the remains are removed by a dump truck immediately following.  The floats were amazing.  There are no words to accurately describe the setting;maybe it is best represented in photos and video.  The link should be up shortly.

Tomorrow we are heading to Mexico.  We should be back at the beach in a few days.

 

Playa del Tunco and Barra de Santiago

Our week in Playa del Tunco ended with a daylong surf contest, show casing some of the best surfers in El Salvador.  Given that Playa del Tunco is home to a world-class break, the competition was fierce.  The contest was scheduled to start at noon, which meant 2 in Salvadorian time.  It finished by the light of spotlights about 10 at night.  The surfing was amazing; I will post videos as soon as I have time. After the surf contest there was a chica reef contest (reef girl contest).  The much-anticipated chica reefs turned out to be a group of  16 year olds parading down the stage in the bar.  It seems so illegal?

From Playa del Tunco, we took 3 chicken buses to a pick up truck to the center of Barra de Santiago (aka The Barra) where we asked locals where the gringa lived.  This was how we found our friend Meredith who is living in the Barra as a peace corps volunteer. 

 The Barra is amazing.  Not only are there pupusas every day of the week (pupusas are Salvador's gift to food, a thick tortilla stuffed with any combination of beans, cheese, chicken, meat and shrimp.  They cost between 15 and 35 cents each and 3 is a full meal), but there are miles and miles of unspoiled, sandy, coconut palm lines beaches and no tourists.  Lonely planet has not yet caught on to this amazing location, easily my favorite of the trip so far. Barra de Santiago is a sand bar on the Pacific Ocean.  It is no more than a quarter of a mile wide with one side being the Pacific Ocean and the other being a protected estuary with mangroves.  

The estuary acts as a lake and is full of Salvadorians doing water sports, some on equipment dating back to the original days of water sports.  We spent a couple of days on the estuary with some of the locals.  We took out an inflatable rescue boat loaned to one of our hosts by the fire department.  The weight of 7 people and a leak in the boat could not stop the fun.  We had wooden water skis, nearly an inch thick, a surfboard, for surfboard-skiing as pictured here, and an original hydroslide.  I was reluctant to believe that this 20 horsepower motor would pull up anyone, but once we evacuated most of the people from the boat, it was able to inch out the power needed to struggle up.  It was great.  The locals who took us out are friends of Merediths and are a great indicator of the generousity of the people who live in the Barra.   On our last night, there was an impromptu Peace Corps party at Merediths one bedroom house.  We strung up 10-hammocks throughout the patio, and it was clear the party was going to go well into the night.  Veronica and I were leaving early the next morning for Antigua, and wanted to get some sleep before we left.  We were invited to sleep on a second story patio at a local's house.  They were kind enough to give us small mattresses and blankets.  We could see the ocean and fell asleep to the sound of the waves, nature and the distant bass coming from the reggae-ton being played at the discoteque at the circus.  It was amazing.

 I would definitely recommend visiting Barra de Santiago if given the opportunity.  Speaking Spanish is a must for this location, but quality of people and unspoiled beaches make it well worth the effort.

Playa del Tunco, El Salvador

The beach here is amazing.  And the surf too.  Tomorrow is the beginning of Semana Santa, a week of holiday in Central America leading up to the ultimate celebration on Easter weekend.  Playa del Tunco is kicking the week off with a surfing contest.  From the surfing I've seen so far, it should be amazing to watch.  

Mi blog en Espanol (sort of)

Hoy yo tuve un autobus de pollo a la supermercado y vi un perro comiendo de la diaper.

In English:  Today I took a bus to the supermarket and saw a dog eating out of a diaper.  

Does anymore need to be said?  

A local has adopted Veronica and me and is teaching us to surf.  It is great.  Surfing is so much more fun when someone is there to tell you when to go, where the waves are and to give you that much needed push when the wave comes.  Playa de Tunco continues to be amazing.  I will post photos soon.