Some beach time in Puerto Escondido

We felt like we both needed some time to relax and chill out after the busy day of the dead celebrations, so we headed to Puerto Escondido - a pacific coast town in the Oaxaca state. 

We decided to stay in La Punta part of town, which is where the backpackers and surfers tend to stay. Apparently La Punta has changed a lot in the past year - it used to be relaxed, laid back and cheap, but now is filled with hipster bars and restaurants. We enjoyed wandering around, but found it to be a bit pretentious and pricey!

We didn’t do so much in Puerto Escondido as we really wanted to rest, catch up on some sleep, and enjoy some down time! We found the beach here was nice, and we enjoyed the west coast sunsets.

We also enjoyed the fresh seafood, especially the fish and shrimp tacos! 

 

Ash enjoyed a visit to the local market to buy some food to cook in our hostel. We got to watch our tortillas being made and cooked, and bought some veggies and hand-made Oaxaca cheese (which is a bit like mozerella) to make our own style tacos/fajitas.

We took a collectivo (a shared car ride) to Carrizalillo beach one day - we had to climb down quite a few steps to get there, but it was worth it. We found the waves here were leas fierce so it was nicer for swimming, having said that I did lose my sunglasses to a particularly fierce wave!

The best part of our trip here for me was our visit to Vivemar - a tortuga (turtle) conservation project. Five different species of turtles have been travelling to the beach here to lay eggs for centuries. The volunteers patrol the beach at night when the turtles lay their eggs and dig them up to protect them from poachers (people eat turtle eggs here), predators, and climate change. They re-bury the eggs in a protected hatchery, sheltered from the sun, and when they hatch they release the turtles into the sea. We enjoyed learning about turtles and the work of the project, and releasing a hatched turtle into the sea. 

We named our turtles Timmy and Moochie-T and watched them make their way into the sea. The walk the turtles do from the beach to the sea is really important because this is when they imprint in their minds the location so that they can come back to lay eggs on the same beach they were born.

Overall, this was a really great experience which we both enjoyed. We did feel sad to hear about some of the problems facing turtles worldwide, including climate change and pollution. We also felt heartened by the passion and dedication of the volunteers at Vivemar in their work not only to protect turtles, but also in education in local schools.

We both enjoyed our few days at the beach to rest and relax before the next part of our trip in Mexico, but for us there wasn’t enough in Puerto Escondido to keep us any longer than a few days. 

Next place on our trip: San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas (via a 17 hr bus ride!)