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.