Jan 7, 2010 - Button On Sunsets

Warning: what follows is more random observations and can be avoided by anyone who has things to do... Puerto Escondido is many things, but no one can even question its claim of being the sunset heavyweight champion of the world. I have seen many sunsets in different places, at time even chasing them, like a shark pursues a surfer. Until now, I had Santorini as the bench mark that all others would be measured by, but this place has been persistently incredible. Apart from offering a perfect dive by the sun into the distant blue horizon, it...

Jan 5, 2010 - The Philosophy Of Beach Life

I’d like to just take a few moments to pontificate on some of the more troubling aspects of beach life, so for those of you who just want to know where we are and what we’re up to, you can probably just get back to work now, becomes this is just me thinking aloud or, as Georgie might say, talking sh*t. Puerto Escondido is an interesting place. It is filled mainly with surfers, dope heads, Mexicans (obviously), and European hippie types, who are probably on gap years and will spend that time smoking dope in a hut on a beach, and will then no...

Jan 3, 2010 - Puerto Escondido – The Director’s Cut

Georgie has fairly accurately described our day to day antics, just a cycle of sun, sea, sand, surf, sleep and all the other S words. There is just a few small titbit’s I’d like to add; the music at the bar outside our hut on the beach plays BFBS which for all the non-military types, that is the British Forces Broadcasting Station, which is played for troops stationed overseas and subsequently is one of the easiest to pick up international radio stations in the world. I can’t help but notice the irony of having escaped the army and gone to...

Jan 3, 2010 - Beach Life

So we are about day 3 or 4 of beach life, although it is difficult to say how long we have been here as each day just rolls into the next and it was only today when I checked my watch that we realised what day it actually is – Monday 4th Jan, which means most of you poor souls are back at work! We are living in a hut, directly on the beach at the far end of somewhere called Puerto Escondido on the pacific coast of Mexico where in season it is meant to have one of the best surf breaks. As we are out of season, the surf isn’t quite 20 ft but...

Jan 1, 2010 - A Journey For Mad Dogs

We’d been told that the bus ride to Puerto Encondito would be about ten hours but naturally it was considerably more. The bus was the worst yet. It was cramped, noisy and immensely smelly. The toilet at the back had somehow burst its banks and had unleashed smells that would be considered to be in very bad taste even in hell’s sewer. And all the time they were playing movies in Spanish at a ridiculously loud volume so even when you tried to ignore it you found yourself caught in its invisible grip, like flies towards a light bulb....

Dec 16, 2009 - Getting and taking advice.

I was very lucky, early on to have had some good advice coming from two sources in particular. The first was from my friend Jim and then shortly after I was lucky enough (through David) to find a book called “The Peoples Guide to Mexico”. When Jim began to notice that I was really enjoying myself from both a hedonistic and a cultural perspective he cautioned me to not hold back on exploring Mexico and meeting Mexican people. He told me that the vast majority of people who visit Mexico have a sort of Mexican Disneyland experience. The ‘E’...

Dec 15, 2009 - Puerto Vallarta

My 21st birthday weekend, had a wonderful time with Lulu and Phil in Puerto Vallarta. I arrived at the hostel early Saturday morning in the pitch black and waited for the others to arrive. I was so tired after the long journey and was befriended by an old Irish woman after she heard my name and was eager to know all my family history. After losing Fiona I had to replace the irishness somehow! The hostel was really nice and just down the road from the beach, so I was very excited to get sunbathing, a first for me on my birthday in December!...

Dec 11, 2009 - Schools Out!

Well this morning I wrote my exam and to my surprise, passed with an 83% score. I felt “mi maestro” was very generous with her marking of the test but I won’t be appealing the results. Clearly I was ready for a break. It was an enormous amount of information to absorb in such a short time but I do have plenty of notes and text books to go back to. I do feel that I gained the basic foundation needed to start learning the language in earnest although it could take me years to achieve any level of fluency. Time and practice will tell the...

Dec 11, 2009 - The virgin

Back in 2002 when I arrived it was on December 5. I can’t remember the date of something that I did last week let alone seven years ago but this was a very special date. We didn’t know it but we had arrived right in the middle of the largest traditional celebration in Puerto Vallarta. I have mentioned tortillas and Mexican music as things ooo… so Mexican, but there is nothing as Mexican as the virgin Guadalupe. Each year from December 1-12 in celebration of her ‘birthday’ what seems to be every person in the area enters the cathedral in...

Dec 10, 2009 - Reflections of Puerto Vallarta

I rarely spend enough time in one place to observe daily life as I have here. I have been confined to a relatively small area of Puerto Vallarta so can by no means offer an overall impression but I can provide some insight into Old Puerto Vallarta where I have spent the past two weeks. First of all, the weather has been marvellous, even though it has rained a few days, which is highly unusual this time of year I am told. The temperature has hovered between 26 deg C and 30 deg C for the past two weeks and it cools to perhaps 18-20 at night....

Dec 8, 2009 - The Ever Evolving Plan Forward

Over the past two days I have been planning and making arrangements to try to fly home for Christmas. With persistent searching I found a reasonably priced flight from Mazatlan to Calgary. (December 21, US Airways $172.50 CDN one way) I have also confirmed secure parking for the motorcycle in Mazatlan while I am in Canada. So, the next phase of the plan has evolved and looks like this: I will finish my classes in Puerto Vallarta on December 11. The next day, December 12, I plan to depart for a loop through the west-central highlands of...

Dec 6, 2009 - Beach Rain Delay

Yesterday was beautiful all day but it did begin to cloud over as the sun went down. Sometime during the night it started raining hard and did not really stop all day. I had actually planned to take a break and perhaps head to the beach for the first time. No such luck with this weather. I did have a fair amount of homework so got at it and then spent the rest of the day just chilling out. My host at this B & B, Rosa, asked if I would join them for a spaghetti dinner. Of course a home cooked meal sounded great. About 4:00 PM their friend...