December 24, 2008
Yesterday we and Dan took a trip to the beach communities south (mostly east) of here: Ventanilla, Mazunte, San Augustinillo, Zipolite, and Puerto Angel. At the first we took a beach walk with Sophie and then a longer beach walk also with Sophie to a boat tour through a mangrove swamp to see crocodiles (3), birds, and the vegitation. A great 1+ hour trip for 35 pesos each. Sophie wasn't allowed on the boat, as crocodile bait, so she had to wait on shore. On our return, I had to unhook her to free the leash so she promptly took off down to drink from the mangrove swamp, causing a bit of a panic as the tour operators worried she was about to become crock chow but we did not see a fourth crocodile.
After that we hung quite a long time on the beach at San Augustinillo, a beautiful beach and an exploding community. Actually all of these places have grown dramatically in the last few years, despite the rugged topography of all of them except Zipolite. Later we went to a good snorkeling beach at the far end of Puerto Angel, had a cerveza in town, and drove the highway back to Puerto Escondido, arriving home before the last light of the unusually lingering sunset faded out.
While I was out Derek had to handle the day's building events, putting up 820 pesos for more plumbing and electric parts, and catching a mistake in the afternoon related to the placement of the driveway. I will learn more about that when we meet Lencho at noon over there. When we went by on the way out of town yesterday morning the crew was framing up the slab pour for what will be the 1st floor terrace. It now looks like the first floor slab won't be poured until Saturday. It makes one wonder just how much will get done before we leave in just a couple more weeks or so.
On Monday we looked into some more lodging options for the week we need to be out of here, from next Monday to the following one. We found several workable options, but the best for us turns out to be the closest -- one of the nearest neighbors here is the Hotel Teranova, and they finally happened to have a door as we passed by. The very genial young son of the proprietor showed us the downstairs room for 1000 pesos per night and the smaller upstairs room for 700, which we now intend to take. The same day we saw a small hotel near the lighthouse with a 500 peso room with a kitchen which seems perfect for Dan (who needs 3 more days than we) so it seems we have all found what we need, just not together.
Monday we got down to Bacocho beach for the late afternoon sun/sunset swim and watch, which allowed Sophie to tag along and get in her first ocean swim of the trip. She needs help catching crabs now, as her head and front half commit to the chase but her hindquarters can't really keep up anymore. She did catch and eat one at Ventanilla with a little help from us and a suicidally foolish crab.
Monday and yesterday were both more enjoyable than the weekend, as Liz was sick Saturday, and with my superior immune system I wasn't sick until Sunday, each of us de-energized in turn with some digestive distress, catching up on our read/sleeping. Being sick here is no fun, but might have been preferable to being in Ontario or Oregon or Minnesota this week as winter hit all enthusiastically in recent days. That has to be fun with Christmas shopping and travel, too. For the record it had been perfectly sunny and warm here every day.
There have been a lot of parties, some loud, most nights, but last night was notably still, as tonight and tomorrow night, and then the weekend, will all be most joyous. It appears that the song "Silent Night" refers to the night of the 23rd.
The other evening, when Liz was sick, there were no sunset cervezas, so I went over to the Casa Den site to see exactly where the sunset view would be from the house. It was a bit of a shock to drive up the the road, approaching from the east, and see the sun setting LEFT of the road. It shouldn't have been a shock, looking at the map, and knowing the sun sets south of west at the solistice, but it was, since I am used to looking at it from Derek's lofty view, where the roads are pretty much 45 degrees off of true N-S-E-W, while they are pretty much 'normal' in my neighborhood. So it looks like we will need to go to at least the second floor for a sunset view, but at least the neighbor's house (where it sits now) won't ever block the winter sunset.
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