The beaches and more... letting it hang like the locals...

The beaches around Santa Cruz, Huatulco are absolutely amazing... 

they are somewhat rugged with large outcroppings of rock, rock islands and fabulous sand. Closer to the water the sand is hard packed so people jog in that area while further away from the water it is just plain hot!!!
 

Bocana Beach is quite isolated with little to offer besides the beach itself. It has high cliffs with buzzards soaring over the 5+ metre high cactus that cling precariously on the rock faces.





A small river flows into the ocean a ways down the beach where locals were fishing with their throw nets.

Tangolunda Beach is where all the resorts are and where we were lucky to get the free drinks...  We found some great snorkeling around all the large rocks there. Some of the best snorkeling along this coast. There were some jellyfish in the water, though, so we did get zapped a few times but nothing significant.  This is such a beautiful bay... too bad it is taken up by these mega resorts!

We sure liked this Huatulco area and its beaches.  So much to explore...

Zipolite Beach is further up the coast, one hour north by bus from Huatulco. Today in Zipolite, 30+ people were moving along the beach with large bags picking up garbage. We were told that during the off season which is what it is now, they do this cleanup every 2 weeks or so, but during the high season, at least once a week. Great to see!

This is one of the beaches we have constantly heard about as the hippie beach, the funky beach.
The white building is our hotel.

 So, we had to come here, of course!  It is indeed quite the place - beautiful beyond words.  Our taxi driver dropped us off steps from this gorgeous 1.5 km beach after a half hour windy road down a mountain pass. We found a gorgeous place - Hotel Estrella de Mar, the nicest we've stayed in so far. We're right on the beach, on the 2nd floor, with a large balcony, 2 couches in the room and the sound of the surf - all for $48. Fabulous!!!

Shayne is waving from our 2nd floor balcony.


Our balcony...

Half of our room.

At the low end of accomodation, we found a posada renting a 2 person tent for abt $1.25 a nght. We are happy with where we are at the Estrella.  We think there are a total of 4 occupied rooms.

We could have also stayed in these raised,  stilt-like bungalows with only a bed for ????  It sure is nice to travel in the off season!

Shayne tried his hand at surfing on Zip! Tide low, waves high, board short. Shayne survived the pounding.

Being the only acceptable nudist beach in Mexico we, of course, have had to do as the locals do by just letting it hang, so to speak.. but there is only one problem... Just not for long periods of time...we are so white under our normal bathing suit lines that we have not want end to burn in this extreme sun... Its like the old days of Snake Hole in GF!  Several school soccer groups have come down to play soccer on the beach... so cool to do that... but they get very distracted when a nude bather walks or runs by!  Ha!

Perched high on the rocks near our place is an amazing bar\restaurant owned by George, a Canadian. This is where we've viewed the sunset!!





Looking down from the restaurant.


Beside the restaurant is the famed Playa del Amor - great small beach with terrific
snorkelling - even saw a ray!


Looking back down the beach - our hotel is the white building.


The highest bar overlooking Zipolite and the best spot for a great sunset.






This bar/restaurant is also where we met famed Canadian artist Fred Peters. Anyone heard of him? 

More to come in our next message... hope you are enjoying them as much as we are enjoying writing them!

Adios Yvonne y Shayne

It's Taco Time.....how to stuff more people than allowed in a taxi...along the Huatulco coastline...way down south!

Hi again from 35+ C on the south-west Mexican coast.

Transportation in Mexico runs from great tour size long haul buses, old beat up town buses, cabs, pick up trucks (where everyone stands/sits in the back), taxis and collectivos (shared rides in vans - squish 12 bodies in or taxis - squish 6 people in).

We ended up taking a shared taxi to and from several beaches this week. They're cheap - abt 25 pesos ($2) for the 2 of us for 14 km or so.   As we got in the taxi we heard another driver yell, "It's Taco Time!" We didn't really give it much thought until the driver crammed a 3rd person into the 2 bucket seats in front and another alongside the 2 of us in the back. Ah! It was Taco Time. The person in the middle was the 'filler', while the 2 on each side of them (Shayne) was the taco shell.  Poor girl in front was crammed onto the stick shift. 

On our return home, Y bargained the taxi from 70 pesos to 25 pesos. Suddenly, the private taxi we thought we had a great deal for, became a shared taxi. Within a minute,  the tiny 4-seater was filled with 6 people. Shayne got stuck up front crammed between 2 locals, with the stick shift rubbing his leg. He volunteered to shift for the driver. The taxi was so heavy with the 3 hombres in the front, it would bottom out going over the topes or speed bumps. Local woman in back with Y just laughed. Shared taxis offer great value, great fun and you get to meet people up close, sweaty and personal. 

A real taco is a tourist mujer (woman) stuck between 2 local hombres. A meaty taco is one cab ride with 3 hombres all squeezed in together. Ha!

We made it out to 2 great beaches - Bocana and Tongalunda just south of Santa Cruz (Huatulco) where we stayed for a week.


Playa la Bocana - 20 minutes south by taxi from Huatulco.

Bocana looks like the original Planet of Apes movie could have been filmed on the beach.

Can you see the face (s)????

The art of the scarf.... at the All Inclusive resorts that line the Tongalunda Bay.

When we made our way down from the road on the muddy, public pathway, we started looking for a cold beer. Walking along the beach, we noticed no one wore the dreaded wrist band that shouted tourist to the locals every time you left your resort. 

For experienced travelers, this was an opportunity much like a piranha sees when getting into a goldfish bowl.  Ha ha!  We ended up at the far end of the bay, where one resort had a quiet beach side bar, walked up from the beach and Y ordered us 2 cold beer. Heaven! Quickly had 2 more while scouting the beach from the bar stools. Found an empty palapa, nice lounge chairs, discovered where we could get some of those plushy, resort beach towels and soon made ourselves at home. 

Left a tip with the bartender, ordered some rum n cokes/margheritas. The free drinks flowed all afternoon - made me kind of nostalgic for the lazy eat and drink lifestyle. We tipped our servers to ensure they checked in on a regular basis to see if we need more drinks! 

Oh, and the Bahia had great snorkeling!!









More on this area in the next post...

Hola......from the Pacifico,,,black sands, bus it forward and what's that river doing in the the middle of the bay??

En route to the Pacific..

Ah, it's so nice to be warm again after the 6 hour ADO bus journey to Puerto Arista. Back to 30 C and an ocean breeze. Nice. Can't remember the last time we swam  in the Pacific. 


No problem finding a hotel with so few people here at this time of year.

This beach is apparently 32 km long - so, similar to Varadero, Cuba. This sand is nearly black though with very few people on it. It's one of the few undiscovered beaches left here.  Fishermen are about, pelicans and frigate birds are diving and people buzz about up and down the beach on ATV's.



Musicians stroll about trying to find someone to play for.


Main Street of Puerto Arista

Our first dinner was on the street prepared by a family. They prepared the 4 chicken tacos out on the street on an open wood fire. Grandma was making the shells, the daughters were cooking the meat in a pan over an open fire as well as cooking the shells. We ordered a drink of fresh squeezed orange juice that grandpa prepared. It took quite a while to get and when it did, it was a pint and a half!!!!  Way too much but really good and a nice change from beer.  All of this for less than $5!

And look at these sunsets...








Typical street scene here.

On the beach by 9:30, 100 m from our hotel.  We were the only ones here with our own private waiter all day long. How nice is that!  The hammocks are for the choosing... ahhh....



We watched 2 fishermen set their net out from the shore on the incoming tide. Threw an anchor out into their surf and attached the other end of the net to post way up on the sand. Then they left and let the tide bring in the fish.

Trying to leave town meant a 2 a.m. departure by bus. Rather than waiting, we just started hopping up the coast by taking whatever bus was heading north. Always seemed to be a bus going north for us as we jumped from town to town.


Massive amounts of wind farms on this entire journey.

After overnighting in the big, industrial, port city of Salina Cruz, we left on a bus for what was supposed to be a 3 hour  ride up the coast. However, we got stopped for about half an hour in this tiny village due to the revolutionary day celebration - Nov. 20. The schools were having a parade down the highway so, of course, the traffic was stopped to let the parade go by. Students were in uniforms, they performed routines and smiled at the two tourists watching them. Some were even brave enough to say hi. When we replied, we got the biggest smiles!

Now we are in the beautiful beach town of Huatulco - Santa Cruz Bay. 

It's a lovely fishing town with a few restaurants, lots of locals and warm water.   We took a 6 hour boat ride up the coast with some new friends from Saskatchewan.





We toured along the beautiful coast,  snorkeled a few times, had a snack and beers on a beach and thoroughly enjoyed this day!  The snorkeling was some of the best we've had in a while.

At our first stop by an island, Shayne jumped in, but with the rip-roaring current flying by the boat, he quickly grabbed for and held on to the anchor rope. Yvonne jumped in, didn't grab the rope on time and within minutes was several hundred meters away from the boat!!! Ha!

Needless to say, they pulled up anchor and came and got her right away. We of course, went to a calmer spot without such a current for further snorkeling. Was fun!

Stopped by the local fish taco truck. A couple of tacos - shrimp and cactus, finished with ice cream from the corner store. All a few $$. Swimming/snorkeling every day here. Getting some good long swims in. Nice to get the body active.
Huatulco Bay


Huatulco Bay from a nearby viewpoint en route to a different beach. Don't want to stay
in town when the cruise ship is in port.

Tomorrow we're off to a nearby beach for a change of scenery. 

Such tough decisions to make every day. The hardest one is always "where shall we eat tonight?". 

Life is good!

Adios for today!  Take care and drop us a line when you can. Hugs to all of you!

..Shayne/Yvonnea