Puerto Escondido

Our last two days in Oaxaca were quite enjoyable. As I see in Jason's blog he has already told most of you what happens to my beard when too many cervezas, coupled with his cheering and a really drunk german guy all combine. Mom, the biggest moth in the world found its way into our bathroom...it was probably 7-8 inches from wingtip to wingtip, i cant imagine how much blood it would be able to suck! Spent yesterday morning/afternoon checking out these Mayan ruins that are on a hill overlooking Oaxaca, very cool. We couldnt figure out how people who fit through such tiny doors, would build their staircases with like 2 foot steps...quite baffling. We had some great laughs at the attempts by the locals to sell us these fake tokens and statues. "eehh..amigo, i was walking along the hills and I found theez reeal old statues....you buy? 10 pesos?" Im sure that the original inhabitants would be ecstatic that their descendants have lowered themselves to this! Coming down from the ruins we forgot to secure a method of transportation, so we found ourselves walking along the road until some random bus decided to pick us up!

The plan for the night was to catch the night bus to Puerto Escondido. The trip there is about 7 hours, on a 2nd class bus along an extremely windy, potholed road. Couple that with we've all been having some stomach problems lately, I was not looking forward to it. After popping a gravol, I fell asleep right quick, only to be woken 45 minutes into the trip by an argument between the bus driver and the guy behind me. Sure enough we had to pull over, the driver and his assistant (all bus drivers have an assistant here, its weird) fetched the police, and they had to forcibly remove this guy from the bus in an arm lock. It was really weird, but as we sat there, we watched as machine gun toting police surrounded him and arrested him, fairly certain that it was because he didnt pay the fare, at least thats what I got out of the argument! Fell back asleep until about 4, when both jason and I were suffering from some car sickness..all in all it was a very unpleasant trip. Arrived in Escondido at 6 this morning, walked around completely lost for about an hour, then caught a local bus to the south side of town, except he wouldnt stop at the south side of town despite our pleads. The guy drove us out for like 10 kms, right outside of town, then when he stopped to pick up some more people we hopped out, pretty sure i saw him laughing at us as he drove away. Waited for another bus to come the opposite way for...who knows how long, then finally made it to where we wanted to go! Really cool little town here, best surfing in Mexico so there are a LOT of surf bums. Tons of old beater vans and trucks with Alberta, Ontario, BC, Nevada, California etc plates, with long haired surfer hippies hanging out all around. Plan for now is to probably stay here for a few days, then head inland. Thats all for now folks, adios!

Pictures: top one is pretty much what we've done all day in an effort to recuperate from the bus ride, bottom one is of me and Jas protectin' the ancient ruins!