Day 2

Today started at 6am with a massive disruption in my sleep. Someone's alarm was ringing, but they weren't turning it off. I was too groggy to get up and say anything so I drifted in and out of consciousness until the incessant noise finally let up. A few hours later, I actually got up and got ready for my day. 

I didn't have much in mind, but knew I had a few leftover errands to run. I still didn't have sandals and knew very well that acquiring some was a major priority. Walking around last night in my Nikes was a foot sauna, so I was going to make sure that this was my last day of sweaty feet. I also needed to stop at Oxxo to reload my Mexican sim card and buy water. I was parched. 

Perhaps because I was in San Jose del Cabo this December, I wasn't fully prepared for how hot Huatulco is. San Jose actually cools down at night. It cools down so much so, in fact, that you have to put on a fleece jacket every night. Huatulco is not like this. It is significantly warmer during the day and it only becomes tolerably hot at night. Essentially, in Huatulco, you don't catch a break. You just stay toasty all the time. I assume that, for this reason, I am horribly thirsty all the time, but especially was last night. And thirst is a rare thing for me; I like to think of myself as a camel, but no, I desperately needed water. Of course, you can't drink the tap water here, so you have to have some bottled. And last night, I didn't buy any, so I simply prayed I don't shrivel and die of thirst through the night. Anyways, I didn't, but water needed to be bought.

So I made my way to Oxxo and bought some water and reloaded my sim card. I now had data, which meant I could actually get around and have my location tracked by my friends through the Life360 app. I also bought water and some of those Mexican electrolyte drinks to replenish the relentless sweating I was enduring. 

Earlier in the day, I had asked my hostel receptionist where I could buy sandals and she told me about a massive supermarket just up the road. I followed her directions and made it to Soriana, which is like a Walmart. It has everything ever -- medicine, housewares, clothes, food, and more. I love supermarkets like these, but since I grew up in Downtown Vancouver, I rarely got to experience this mega-market vibe. Practically-speaking, though, these markets are the best places to end up on vacation. You can get everything you need in one place. And that's what I did. I got my sandals, and some basic groceries to nibble when I wasn't in the mood for tacos. 

Loaded with the basics, I thought about what my next steps should be. I had walked by some cool places on the way to the grocery store and thought about visiting them, but I now had chicken thighs in my bag, which I wasn't sure would survive a whole day of walking through the 33-degree weather. So I opted to go back to the hostel to leave my groceries in the fridge and change into my sandals. I would decide where to go from there. 

As I walked out of the Supermarket, I found a very authentic taco shack. It was a series of pots and pans placed on the rocky side of the road. They had erected a make-shift roof by placing a tarp on 2 sticks. The spot had a significant line-up of Mexicans, and a clear price board propped against a rock. I decided to wait since the taco prices were very cheap and I had to try them for myself. I ordered 4 tacos for 40 pesos and an agua fresca. (Agua frescas and churros are the reasons I love Mexico.) I took the tacos to go since the plastic chairs by the road were taken. 

When I got back, I put my groceries into the lukewarm refrigerator and opened up my taco box. They were so good. So so so good. It was a shame the shack was a fair walk away because I would have otherwise gone back for more. The only thing that confused me was that my agua fresca was served to me in a plastic bag. I found this out because a girl who had greeted me a few times in the shared bedroom told me so when she saw the confusion on my face. 

She asked me how I was and what I was doing for the rest of the day. She looked Mexican because she was tan and short, and she spoke with an accent that was kind of Spanish. She was very chatty -- chattier than me, which is saying something. As we spoke, she explained to me that she was on her 3rd month of solo-traveling the entirety of Mexico for the second time. She was from Toulouse, France, but had a Mexican boyfriend over there and had done a Mexican exchange program with her university in 2020. She loved the country and had essentially adopted a new family in her university exchange city of Leon. She liked Toulouse, but had a rough time with her schooling there. She studied Engineering Physics and had struggled with bouts of depression during her degree which forced her to extend her time in school. 

During her 2020 trip, the pandemic broke out and her school forced her to return to France, though she didn't want to. When she completed her degree, she decided to take a year off before starting to work. Her plan was to see as much of Mexico as reasonably possible as a solo woman. Through her, I found out a lot about Mexico. Michocan, for example, is a beautiful state, but you can't safely go there, according to her research. 

We talked for a while about why we decided to travel. I told her about my job being draining and how I was here to remind myself that there truly is something bigger and better than the soul-sucking 9-5 grind. She said she was here because she didn't want to wallow in the misery and depression that consumes her in France. She had been travelling since January of this year, but had recently decided that she was extending her trip. Initially, she had planned to return at the beginning of May, but that date was set so that she could make it to her boyfriend's graduation. During her travels, she realized that there was no reason to set her plans around another person, especially if the future is uncertain and they may not be together forever. So, she decided to do what she wanted, which was stay in Mexico for as long as possible, and her boyfriend was either going to accept it or not. (From everything she said, their relationship was rocky anyways).

She asked me if I had slept well because she hadn't. Apparently the same culprits whose alarm was ringing for ages in the morning had caused a ruckus around 2:30am. They stumbled drunkenly into the shared dorms and rummaged through their belongings for half an hour, which caused a lot of people to wake up. I told her I wasn't among them, but that I had been pissed off by the 6am alarm.

The French girl told me that she was feeling a little odd. She is a big planner and she had planned the entirety of her trip out ahead of time, but decided to change plans last minute when this other French guy at the hostel, Marc, told her about San Jose del Pacifico. This was a secluded mountain town, without even a grocery store, but it was renowned as a place to find yourself. After Googling it myself, I found out that "finding yourself" meant that it was the magic mushroom capital of Mexico. The French girl said she didn't take drugs, but wanted to experience the hiking. She was so big into hiking that she had walked an average of 25km a day since her trip began. She said she believed she did these long walks to escape her reality, which I also thought, but admired her introspection. 

She didn't want to change her plans, but when a hostel became available, she decided she was off. Coincidentally, she had just ticked every checkbox on her Huatulco to-do list, so she was a little lost as to what she was to do next. She had lots of anxiety and guilt when she didn't have a plan because it made her feel unproductive. However, she was on this trip to escape those negative feelings and go-with-the-flow more, so she was proud of herself for doing this. 

She knew she needed a bus ticket to San Jose, so she asked if I wanted to come with her to ask the prices. I figured this was a great idea because I also needed a bus ticket for a few days from now and thought that going with a Spanish-speaker would be handy.

We started walking and got to a weird shack in one of the streets. This was the bus station, according to my French friend. But I knew this wasn't it. I had seen the bus station on my walk to the supermarket so I asked her about the discrepancy. She laughed and said I must be a millionaire if I was planning on booking the ADO bus from the fancy bus station. We were at something called a "collectivo", a privately-owned van transport. She had travelled the entirety of Mexico in collectivos and explained to me that, though slightly more crammed, they are completely safe and significantly cheaper than ADO. 

She got her ticket to San Jose and found out that my ticket to Oaxaca City would be 300 in the collectivo. ADO bus was 550, so it was nearly half the price. I looked at the vans and they looked fine. I figured an overnight bus would never be comfortable, so it didn't really matter how fancy it was. I wanted to think things through first, so didn't buy my ticket right away. 

My new friend asked if I wanted to go to the nearest beach for a quick dip and I said sure. It was so hot and humid that I was constantly sticky, so some salt water would be perfect.

On our way there, we proceeded to a pastry shop where we got some treats for the beach. As we passed a fruit and vegetable stand, my friend told me to I should buy my vegetables here because they're better and cheaper than the supermarket. Good advice; I'd probably heed it in the future. 

Walking to the beach was about 20 minutes. On the way, we saw an iguana run across our road. An iguana running is the funniest thing I've ever seen. They wobble, but go very fast. I couldn't stop laughing. We also saw a guy selling coconuts from the back of his pickup. Another guy sold agua frescas in large Gatorade coolers. This was very cool. Compared to the rest of the places I had been in Mexico, Huatulco had a more authentic feel. 

I got excited every time I saw a family on a scooter. A rotund mom, dad and toddler would all be on a vespa together. This was amazing to me. But more than that, it looked like joy. Really, if I could think of an iteration of joy, it would be three people smiling as they swerve cobblestone streets on a scooter. 

Anyways, we made it to the beach only to find a massive Princess Cruise ship docked there. The water was kind of dirty -- there was a lot of algae, but that lined up with the word my friend had gotten from Marc at the hostel. He said some current had brought some algae for the day and it had impaired his snorkeling excursion. 

In her swimsuit, I noticed my friend had some burn marks on her upper boob. I asked how she got them. She told me they were, in fact, scars from her cutting herself. I never know how to react to things like that, but I figured now was a good time to ask her name. After all, I knew all of her relationship troubles, her mental struggles and we were sleeping in the same room, but I didn't know her name. Ele, short for Elenore. Cool. 

On the subject of depression, Ele told me she might breakup with her boyfriend because he has been depressed for 3 years. She said she knows what it's like, but doesn't respect that he doesn't do anything to help himself. She had been terribly depressed during an internship in Switzerland. Every weekend, she would hike to escape, but one weekend, she walked 42km into the wilderness and couldn't find her way back. She ended up having to sleep in the middle of the mountains and simply kept walking for another two days until she appeared in a completely different town. After that, she decided she had to do something to pull herself out of her depression, and apparently managed. 

It was time for a swim after that. Despite the algae, it was refreshing and nice. A little Mexican girl swam up to us and made us watch her swim. She was 8 years old and her name was Alicia. She was so communicative and happy to show us her diving skills. She asked Ele if I spoke Spanish and Ele told her a little. The girl told me she knows a little English and told me "my mom is thirsty". For some reason, that was her sentence and she was proud of it. She was adorable.

When some jetski instructors seemed to get too close to our towels and things, me and Ele left the water and packed up. We got back to the hostel where we met a 75-year-old French couple, also from Toulouse. They were really chatty, but they knew no English. I mostly listened to them complain about French politics and costs of living with Ele since I couldn't contribute much. 

At some point, during that convo, a boy came and sat next to me. He said he couldn't speak French, but just didn't want to sit alone. He was Brazilian, but visiting from London, where he had moved when he was 13. He hated London, and came to Latin America every chance he could. He had a similar story to mine - he quit his job, and went to South America. 

He asked if I had plans for tomorrow and I said no. Ele had told him about a beach a short ways away. It required a little walk through the jungle, but it was secluded and beautiful, and I could join him if I wanted to. Of course I did, so we made plans for the next day. He said he was a pretty chill guy, so we could sleep in and go whenever. His energy was almost too Zen. He had the demeanour of a person meditating with their eyes open. This was ok by me -- I had enough spunk for the both of us. 

He asked if I knew any places to grab food after for dinner, which he adamantly clarified would obviously not be a date. I laughed and proposed the place Marc had told me about yesterday. It was a seafood taco place with amazing octopus tacos. We had a plan. 

Marc came down to pack up some of his kitchen items. He had spent the day on a rented motorcycle. He had rented it from a Croatian guy in Huatulco, and encouraged me to do the same as I would probably get a discount for speaking the same language. This Croatian guy told Marc he was looking for a Mexican wife so that he could get papers to stay here. 

As the sunset, I decided to go upstairs to the hammocks on the rooftop to phone my sister and tell her about my day. 

I noticed a message from the Mormons telling me that they were so glad they met me and hope to take me to dinner one more time before I go. I said we could definitely make plans. They agreed and offered to take me snorkeling on Friday and to a resort on Wednesday. I told them I'd take them up on snorkeling, but that resorts weren't my thing. 

The hammocks were occupied. There was a very old grandma in one and a middle-aged woman in the other. They were speaking French so I greeted them. They invited me to speak with them, which I did, but it was a struggle at points because of language barriers. It seemed the middle-aged lady didn't understand English or French very well. From what I could gather, she was from just outside of Bern, Switzerland. She was full of middle-aged lady energy. They have this undeniably stokedness with everything, which I'm sure is related to the hormone fluctuations. She barely understood what I said but she genuinely laughed and smiled at all of it. 

She was in Mexico on a brief detour from Guatemala. She had recently gotten a divorce from her shitty husband and he had sold their family home to split the estate. Instead of staying in Switzerland, she quit her job because she could feel something calling her to Guatemala, a place she had never been. So she booked a flight and left. She only had one daughter who was studying abroad anyways, so she had no reason to stay. She had been in Guatemala for 3 months, and decided to take a look at Mexico since it was close. She liked it, but she was still going back to Guatemala in a few days. She couldn't stop talking about the colors of South America. She loved the colors. Switzerland was grey. 

The grandma was a whole other special case. She was staying in a shared dorm with a bunch of kids because she liked the company. She was from Murcia, Spain, and she was 77 years old. She was in Mexico for 3 months because she didn't believe in travelling for any less than 3 months. She spoke fluent English, German, French, Spanish and Dutch. English and French because she had been in boarding schools in the UK and France as a kid; and German and Dutch because most of her clients were from Germany and Holland. She had worked as a sailing instructor in Murcia for most of her life, but had retired at 55 to live off of her family's trust fund.

Her father had been a Polish Jew who had made a fortune in shady diamond dealings in South Africa, where she was born. The family moved to Murcia, where her mother was from, soon thereafter. Meanwhile, her dad opened up a bunch of textile factories around the UK. She did what she wanted, and changed careers often. At one point, she finished a teaching degree in the UK. At another, she had her dad pay a large sum for her to be admitted to a program of viticulture in Spain. She was the first woman to complete it. She travelled around and sought happiness and eventually opted to open her sailing school. 

What brought her on this trip to Mexico was actually Belize. Her income was her family trust fund, but Spain took 20% off any trust fund income she brought into the country. To avoid this, she had set up a meeting with a lawyer in Belize. It was a tax paradise. Her goal was to move herself to Belize on paper to evade taxes, but continue practically living in Spain. There simply wasn't enough to do in Belize for 4 months, so she opted to go to Mexico. She would make her final stop Belize before returning to Spain. 

The Swiss lady encouraged her to check out Guatemala since it was on the way to Belize. The grandma was sold. She didn't much convincing to visit another country. 

We chatted for a while in what felt like a Mamma Mia movie moment. The Swiss lady mentioned how we were 3 generations brought together by the stars and I could feel it. The grandma proposed we all have breakfast together tomorrow. We agreed. I told them I had oatmeal and yogurt we could share. The Swiss lady didn't know what that was, so the grandma translated it to Haferflocken. The Swiss lady beemed with excitement. She hadn't had Haferflocken since she left Switzerland, but she loved it.

We bid each other good night and made our way to our beds.

It was a really special night under the stars, but it got too late to call my sister. I texted her that I would call her tomorrow and went to bed.