Well, my circuit in the south of Oaxaca is complete. I arrived early this morning to Oaxaca (City), back to the land where internet exists once more, for better or for worse. The past few days have been pretty incredible and I don´t exactly know where to begin recounting it, so I´ll try to pick up where I left off (apx.).
During my second day in Pluma Hidalgo I explored the coffee plantations and visited the nice waterfall and a nearby, deserted coffee processing place (the harvest is in December). In Pluma I started my ritual of consuming a can of tuna daily. The fact is, there really isn´t much else proteinwise at the little tiendas in small towns here. Yep, tuna on bread, tuna on crackers, tuna with apple, tuna with avocado. you name it I´ve had it. It´s cheap, tasty and healthy so I can´t complain. Early wednesday morning I got a ride down to Huatulco with my friend Paco and followed his recommendation to San Agustín. I told him I wanted a pretty undeveloped place where I could camp and maybe find food and water when I needed it. His suggestion was right on the money.
San Agustín is not a small town. Rather it is a strand of Palapas tucked neatly into the western end of a beach that is maybe 2km long (a little over a mile I would say). A short walk from the taxi put me on unoccupied soil and I walked nearly to the end of the beach before dropping my bag and setting up shop beneath a very nice shelter, abandoned for some time. I washed my clothes and myself in the surf as best I could, hung all but myself out to dry in the gloriously warm sunshine and took off walking down the beach.
Most of the establishments in San Agustín are of the restaurant vein, usually with a few gear
rental options to boot. Everything very basic and perfectly tranquil, this being the part of the year directly opposite of tourist season. Overlooking the bay is a little orange shrine with a fellow inside who I can only assume to be Saint Augustine. He has a beautiful view of the bay, but his shriny back is turned to a beautiful place known as sacrifice point. I rambled barefoot and in awe of the place which vaguely reminded me of the west-Ireland coast with it´s perfect, rocky bluffs, green greeness, and wildflowers growing in the sand. I got my water bottles refilled and bought some tuna before returning to my compound. Then came the good part.
It was getting toward evening and I headed back towards the village to look up a friend of Paco´s but got no further than the first guy I met. A permanently drunk Cancun native named Melesio offered me a swig from his coke bottle filled with mezcal (Agave liquor and a Oaxaca speciality) and bought me a beer and we sat by the sea and made the sort of boring conversation that you make with permanently drunk people. But on my budget I couldn´t decline. Beer is free calories. I left as soon as I felt it polite to do so.
Further on down I was hailed once again, this time by a bigger group of folks and invited for a beer. Indio this time, my favorite of the Mexican beers. I told everyone my story and after paying for my second Indio, my benefactors left. I was invited to sit at the table with the two young employees of "Charly"s" Place", Felix and Betrico and we talk well into the evening over another Indio. Later, went to the owner (Charly)´s house to watch the world cup qualifier against Canada. Everybody got a huge kick out of me calling the Canadian goalie "El Pelón" (the bald guy). Mexico won 2-1. So began my process of getting to know the good people of San Agustín.
The next morning I went to the house of Doña Fia, Charly´s 84 year old mom who makes a mean cup of Pluma coffee. I wrote in my journal and she served me breakfast on the house with Charly and Felix. Iguana. Mmm. I had a second breakfast on the way back to my house with a group of fishermen who´d just come in and had prepared a sizable hammerhead shark and a barrel of Coronas for breakfast. One guy cut himself pretty good filleting a second shark and I was able to fix him up with a neosporin/bandaid/duct tape combo which he was still wearing when I left. Maybe he couldn´t get it off.
I spent the day hiking, mending my hammock, and eating fruit. In the evening I attended the birthday party of Felix which was no more than sitting around Charly´s porch listening to Bob Marley and drinking more Indios. Betrico loved the song "La Casa del Sol Naciento" (House of the Rising Sun....not Bob Marley) and had me sing it a capella. At the end he was nearly in tears. He had me sing it again twice before I left. People in San Agustín like repetition. In the street I met the core group of men in the village all sitting and drinking mezcal and strumming a guitar that was horribly out of tune and no one knew how to play. I was happy to remedy both problems and they had me repeating "Wagon Wheel" late into the night.
The next day was much like the first, I took my coffee in the morning, had turtle eggs for breakfast with Felix (Eco-friendly? Maybe not; tasty? Yes.). My friend Jesus lent me some snorkeling gear and I explored the big coral reef right in front of Charly"s" Place (all the signs were originally "Charly Place" but I guess he found out that that was incorrect and added an "s" in quotes above and between the words. Quite endearing really.) Then in the afternoon I went spear fishing in the ocean with Jesus and his friend, Negro, who wasn´t actually black. My job was to keep track of the floating basket into which they threw shellfish and onto which they tied the fish they speared. At first I was a little concerned, holding on to a bunch of bleeding fish in the open bay but I got over it and enjoyed seeing all the different things they brought up from the depths.
We returned to the beach as evening fell and after everyone cleaned up we had an absolute feast with a few other people--four different kinds of fish and three kinds of raw scallops all piled high so that the plastic table was a little wobbly and served with the ever-present tortillas, picante salsa and lime.
I left the next day for Mazunte, but not before my cook friend, Mamo, served me up an incredible plate of beef and turtle stew. It was quite hard to leave this place, this place where the town is really more like a family of 150 people...a family who welcomed me not as a tourist on the beach but as a friend and a brother. I barely spent a dime there (I only paid a lady to have my water bottles refilled), yet my belly was always full. I had never been there before, but wen I left, it took me an hour to walk to the taxi because I knew half the village and they all wanted to say goodby. It got me thinking a lot about community. Its beauty, its eccentricity--a theme I'll be turning over a lot for the next little bit. It's a place to which I´ll return and one that I´ll not forget.
During my second day in Pluma Hidalgo I explored the coffee plantations and visited the nice waterfall and a nearby, deserted coffee processing place (the harvest is in December). In Pluma I started my ritual of consuming a can of tuna daily. The fact is, there really isn´t much else proteinwise at the little tiendas in small towns here. Yep, tuna on bread, tuna on crackers, tuna with apple, tuna with avocado. you name it I´ve had it. It´s cheap, tasty and healthy so I can´t complain. Early wednesday morning I got a ride down to Huatulco with my friend Paco and followed his recommendation to San Agustín. I told him I wanted a pretty undeveloped place where I could camp and maybe find food and water when I needed it. His suggestion was right on the money.
San Agustín is not a small town. Rather it is a strand of Palapas tucked neatly into the western end of a beach that is maybe 2km long (a little over a mile I would say). A short walk from the taxi put me on unoccupied soil and I walked nearly to the end of the beach before dropping my bag and setting up shop beneath a very nice shelter, abandoned for some time. I washed my clothes and myself in the surf as best I could, hung all but myself out to dry in the gloriously warm sunshine and took off walking down the beach.
Most of the establishments in San Agustín are of the restaurant vein, usually with a few gear
rental options to boot. Everything very basic and perfectly tranquil, this being the part of the year directly opposite of tourist season. Overlooking the bay is a little orange shrine with a fellow inside who I can only assume to be Saint Augustine. He has a beautiful view of the bay, but his shriny back is turned to a beautiful place known as sacrifice point. I rambled barefoot and in awe of the place which vaguely reminded me of the west-Ireland coast with it´s perfect, rocky bluffs, green greeness, and wildflowers growing in the sand. I got my water bottles refilled and bought some tuna before returning to my compound. Then came the good part.It was getting toward evening and I headed back towards the village to look up a friend of Paco´s but got no further than the first guy I met. A permanently drunk Cancun native named Melesio offered me a swig from his coke bottle filled with mezcal (Agave liquor and a Oaxaca speciality) and bought me a beer and we sat by the sea and made the sort of boring conversation that you make with permanently drunk people. But on my budget I couldn´t decline. Beer is free calories. I left as soon as I felt it polite to do so.
Further on down I was hailed once again, this time by a bigger group of folks and invited for a beer. Indio this time, my favorite of the Mexican beers. I told everyone my story and after paying for my second Indio, my benefactors left. I was invited to sit at the table with the two young employees of "Charly"s" Place", Felix and Betrico and we talk well into the evening over another Indio. Later, went to the owner (Charly)´s house to watch the world cup qualifier against Canada. Everybody got a huge kick out of me calling the Canadian goalie "El Pelón" (the bald guy). Mexico won 2-1. So began my process of getting to know the good people of San Agustín.
The next morning I went to the house of Doña Fia, Charly´s 84 year old mom who makes a mean cup of Pluma coffee. I wrote in my journal and she served me breakfast on the house with Charly and Felix. Iguana. Mmm. I had a second breakfast on the way back to my house with a group of fishermen who´d just come in and had prepared a sizable hammerhead shark and a barrel of Coronas for breakfast. One guy cut himself pretty good filleting a second shark and I was able to fix him up with a neosporin/bandaid/duct tape combo which he was still wearing when I left. Maybe he couldn´t get it off.
I spent the day hiking, mending my hammock, and eating fruit. In the evening I attended the birthday party of Felix which was no more than sitting around Charly´s porch listening to Bob Marley and drinking more Indios. Betrico loved the song "La Casa del Sol Naciento" (House of the Rising Sun....not Bob Marley) and had me sing it a capella. At the end he was nearly in tears. He had me sing it again twice before I left. People in San Agustín like repetition. In the street I met the core group of men in the village all sitting and drinking mezcal and strumming a guitar that was horribly out of tune and no one knew how to play. I was happy to remedy both problems and they had me repeating "Wagon Wheel" late into the night.
The next day was much like the first, I took my coffee in the morning, had turtle eggs for breakfast with Felix (Eco-friendly? Maybe not; tasty? Yes.). My friend Jesus lent me some snorkeling gear and I explored the big coral reef right in front of Charly"s" Place (all the signs were originally "Charly Place" but I guess he found out that that was incorrect and added an "s" in quotes above and between the words. Quite endearing really.) Then in the afternoon I went spear fishing in the ocean with Jesus and his friend, Negro, who wasn´t actually black. My job was to keep track of the floating basket into which they threw shellfish and onto which they tied the fish they speared. At first I was a little concerned, holding on to a bunch of bleeding fish in the open bay but I got over it and enjoyed seeing all the different things they brought up from the depths.
We returned to the beach as evening fell and after everyone cleaned up we had an absolute feast with a few other people--four different kinds of fish and three kinds of raw scallops all piled high so that the plastic table was a little wobbly and served with the ever-present tortillas, picante salsa and lime.
I left the next day for Mazunte, but not before my cook friend, Mamo, served me up an incredible plate of beef and turtle stew. It was quite hard to leave this place, this place where the town is really more like a family of 150 people...a family who welcomed me not as a tourist on the beach but as a friend and a brother. I barely spent a dime there (I only paid a lady to have my water bottles refilled), yet my belly was always full. I had never been there before, but wen I left, it took me an hour to walk to the taxi because I knew half the village and they all wanted to say goodby. It got me thinking a lot about community. Its beauty, its eccentricity--a theme I'll be turning over a lot for the next little bit. It's a place to which I´ll return and one that I´ll not forget.
I liked it.
2 comments:
great adventure - sounds like a long way from the turtle patrol of OIB _ i'm sure it'll be hard to regroup when you get back to CVA but it sounds like you're following your father's advice well - never let school get in the way of your education _ praying for your pilgrimage _
yes, a little different then the turtle patrol. i actually met two girls in Mexico City who were going to the coast to save the turtles. they broke into uncomfortable smiles when i told them about the turtle eggs i'd eaten. i left right after, sensing that my eating habits stood in the way of any meaningful communication/friendship.
speaking of communication, talk to you sunday.
love,
your fisrtborn
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