Adventures from Central America

Hola from Mexico!

As I have yet to be abducted by a drug baron, I thought I'd take an
opportunity to send you all a note to say hello and an update on the
Central American adventures. I apologise in advance for the group
email and as I haven't done much work on editing the address book,
apologise to those who simply aren't interested.

At the moment I'm writing from Salina Cruz which is about 1200 km
south from where I arrived in Zihuatenajo (Mexico). We had a week of
surfing around Zihuatanejo and I then had an incredible week in the
inland mountain city of Oaxaca where I was able to enjoy some slightly
milder weather (dropping back to the early 30s during the day) and
heal some nasty surfing injuries including a severe case of
water-logged ear. The local contemporary art scene is one of the most
vibrant and imaginative I've seen and the local markets are worth the
trip here alone. I could easily have spent another week bartering
locals out of next-to-nothing for their amazing crafts.

I took a bus back to meet up with my travel partner Nick and black
labrador McKenzie in Puerto Escondido and somehow ended up on one of
the buses normal frequented by villagers moving chickens from one town
to the next. The bus driver masterfully negotiated one hair-pin turn
after another whilst listening to the latest Mexican pop sensation
'Miguel' full-blast, plus chain-smoking and chatting to his friends
for the entire 10 hour drive. At one stage I was sharing my seat with
half of a 10-strong Mexican family. All in all it was quite jolly
until I climbed over Maria the goat to find I had been driven to the
wrong town. Those nasty Mexicans with their non English- speaking ways
had viciously taken advantage of my very poor Spanish and put me on a
bus going only vaguely towards where I needed to be, and then in true
Mexican style, tried to swindle me out of 300 persos ($30 bucks) to do
the 3 hour bus ride to my destination (quite rough, given the original
ticket was only $10). I stomped my foot and yelled a bit which told
them the little 'yellow-haired one' was in charge and got myself back
to Puerto but have concluded the old Spanish needs some serious
polishing.

Anyway we took off southwards again and hit some very famous surf
breaks: Barra de la Cruz being one of them. That night we pulled in
quite late and found the entire place booked out by bloody Australian
surfers! I don't know where they come from given the population of
Australia is only 22 million. Anyway, the place is a protected turtle
preserve so couldn't do our usual beach front park. We found a
building site which was level enough so set up for the night and hit
the hay. At around 2am the first of the Big Storms hit, marking the
start of the wet season. I have never heard thunder so frighteningly
loud in my life; the whole place seemed to have turned into a giant
firework display. McKenzie and I were cowering together through the
night (although she was much more scared than I). We awoke to find the
campervan in the middle of a giant lake and most of our bits either
floating downhill or covered in a thick layer of an intoxicating
mixture of goat shit and Mexican mud. We then found an amazing beach
called 'El Mojon' which translates to 'the turd', where we were able
to dry everything off. We were very glad to meet a lovely English
couple who had an amazing custom-built house overlooking the beach and
being somewhat deprived of civilised company they took in McKenzie the
labrador (and after much whining outside, Nick and I), and and gave us
a shower (bliss!) and even several glasses of wine which, after a diet
of Sol beer and lime, was a true luxury.

We've since headed further south again and will spend 3-4 days surfing
the breaks around Salina Cruz: Punta Conejo, La Bamba etc, until we
head south towards Guatemala. The beaches are absolutely incredible
and certainly give Sydney beaches a run for the money ... I saw a
manta ray just yesterday and the other surfers spotted a bottle-nosed
dolphin. What will really frighten everyone is that I'm waking up at
6am most morning and have even been hitting the hay as early as 9.30pm in the evening.