Near Puerto Escondido

Monday February 23…8:30pm

Glen and Steve had been parked on the next lot over from us, and they came round just before 8am to say goodbye. We do expect to see them again over the next couple of weeks, possibly as soon as tonight because they are headed the same route as we are.

We didn’t hit the road until about 9:30am, and then headed west out of Playa Zipolite trying to get back to Highway 200. The road had a lot of potholes and went through a few little beach towns before heading north. It took us about 40 minutes to do that 9 km’s or so back to the main highway. Then, it was about 65 kms further to Puerto Escondido.

Cows on the road...

It’s sometimes very difficult to envision what a place is like, simply by looking at a very basic map. We had a few ideas of where we could overnight in and around Puerto Escondido, but we had never been there, and we made a simple error that turned out very much in our favor.

We were supposed to turn left before a bridge. We knew we were close to town and had just driven over a fairly big bridge. I had seen a road before the bridge, but we continued over it and pulled to the side at another intersection just after the bridge. There was room to park for a few minutes, so I took off on foot to check out where this road went. I was actually looking for a “trailer park”, but didn’t realize that the intersection I was looking for was actually another few kms on. I found my way to the bottom of the hill through the village, and there was a restaurant by the river. It had a beautiful parking area on the water and so I went in and asked the owner if I could park our “casa roadante” (motorhome) for the night. They were very friendly, and said “no problema”. I said that we would return in 10 minutes.

We drove down to the spot by the river, got ourselves set up, and put the lawn chairs out. As we did this, a girl came around and introduced herself and her 7 month old baby. And she did so speaking very good English! Mary had spent 8 years in the United States, and has returned to Puerto Escondido area. The property we are parked on belongs to her boyfriend's family, and she has told us we are welcome to stay for as long as we wish. In fact, she even invited us to go into town with her, but we were happy to sit and rest for a while because it was only around noon.

We decided to take Whiskey for a walk. It was about 20 minutes each way to the beach. Interesting walk though, because it went through several small fields where they were harvesting a few different plants, and we finally found out it was a herb farm. The beach itself was barren…nobody around except a lone jogger who ran by.

It was hot when we got to the motorhome and we were pretty happy just sitting under the awning. A busload of local tourists had parked by the river and they were in the water cooling off. The water isn’t deep at this time of year, and the people just sit in the water, usually with most of their clothes on. They think nothing of getting in the water in their clothes. It’s definitely different.

Our spot by the river

Mary and her baby Nataly returned, and asked if we would like to go see some of the beaches in the area. She said her boyfriend Alfredo was off work today and they would like to go for a drive. So we did…they took us through the actual town of Puerto Escondido (pop 45,000) and that’s when we realized we hadn’t come far enough to get to the turn off that we had originally wanted. Obviously it didn’t matter at this point because we had found a spot much better than we had hoped for, and met a wonderful local family in the process. They introduced us to Alfredo’s uncle who’s property overlooks Playa Zicatela, a popular surfing beach, and said that we could park there if we want to as well.

Zicatela Beach near Puerto Escondido

Nataly with her Uncle

Then, we went to a beach on the other side of town, one that we never would have gotten down to with the motorhome. A friend of Alfredo’s owns a restaurant there, and we decided to stay for an early supper. We had a seafood “feast” which cost 250 pesos ($22.50 CAN $18.00 US) for the 4 of us. This beach is small, and frequented by the locals so we got a much better taste of what the locals do for a day at the beach.

A little beach where we had supper

Seafood platter for 4

After they drove us back to Sherman, Mary and Alfredo came in to look at some pictures of Canada. Mary has an uncle in Toronto, and she would like to visit him someday soon.

Ruth, Alfredo, Nataly, and Mary with the lobster his uncle gave us

We’re looking forward to tomorrow because we have been invited to Alfredo’s mother’s house for enchiladas!

Total nights sleeping in a motorhome…487

February Fuel $136.00 CAN

February Grocery $175.37 CAN

February Overnight costs $ 119.60 CAN