Day 3

Today I woke up at 8am. Once again, earlier than expected, but my own fault. I was convinced I was going to burst my bladder. I think this blisteringly hot weather does something to your body. You're dehydrated during the day time, so you drink fluids to keep up. Then, at night, when the temperature drops to something bearable, your body has an excess of fluids it doesn't know what to do with.

At least, this is my theory for why I was so desperate to go pee. 

Though groggy, it was really nice to catch Ele. She was packing for her bus and getting ready to head over to her next spot, San Jose del Pacifico. We had a brief giggle over the grandma in the room who was snoring before she left to make her way to the fruit stand. She needed to buy some groceries before heading on her way since this San Jose was in the middle of the jungle, in the mountains, and didn't have an easily-accessible grocery store. This is also when I noticed Marc meditating in his bed. This was a long ordeal. He was in the same criss-cross position with his eyes closed for a good while. 

I had a breakfast date with my two friends from last night, who, as I would find out during our meal, were named Christina and Sandrina. Christina is the middle-aged lady from Switzerland and Sandrina is the 77-year-old grandma from Murcia. Around 9am, we had some Haferflocken, or oatmeal, and chatted again. Sandrina led the show, as yesterday. I think because Christina's English is so limited, she doesn't really have a choice but to smile and nod. At some point, Ele joined to tell us how cheaply she had bought all of her fruits at the stand. She gave me a few final instructions for where I should go in the town before heading to her Collectivo.

After leaving, she texted me a long list of restaurants, stores, landmarks and whatnot, and let me know to contact her if I need anything. I think this was a demonstration of Ele's high-strungedness. I guess I partly empathize with her because I have been the same way. Imagine going on a trip and thinking about making sure some girl you met at a hostel just yesterday is prepared for her journey. It's maternal. Now, maybe I'm speaking with some North American prejudice, but I don't think it's common to care and offer that kind of help to a stranger. I think Ele's history has just made her a very good caretaker of others, whilst putting herself last.

As she left, we also saw Marc leave. He was off to a gay, nudist colony somewhere down the bay. This finally confirmed his sexual orientation. I knew he was far too nice to be straight. He gave me the directions to the Croatian-owned motorcycle rental shack and told me the Brazilian guy might want to come with me to split the cost. I asked Marc if he happened to know the Brazilian guy's name and he said Francisco. Awesome. 

Marc's backpack seemed bigger than Ele's which is saying something because hers was already a massive 60-litre capacity. Christina discussed how she wished she had brought a backpack since it seemed more practical, but all of the decent ones were terribly expensive. I told her that I had found my 30-litre Gregory backpack for 10$ on marketplace, which she was amazed by. She asked me to bring it down to show her, so I did. She asked how big my other bag was and audibly gasped when I told her there was no other bag. This was it. I had nearly 3 months worth of clothing, toiletries and life in 30-litres.

Meanwhile I realized that I had left the Brazilian guy completely abandoned. He came downstairs to look for me and he was ready to go. He had a significant backpack with him and hiking shoes on. I briefly felt like I was not as prepared as him for what was to be a brief walk to the beach, but, in my rush, didn't second-guess myself. 

Armed with my flipflops and half a litre of water, we set out to this amazing beach called Cacaluta. 

This was a horrendous experience. We trekked over roadside hills for an hour and half in the blistering heat. I thought I was going to faint. Francisco assured me that he had enough water for the both of us, but that didn't change things. He had been cheated by Ele, who called this trek a stroll. 

We had no choice but to continue and we knew that it would get better. Eventually, we'd be in the jungle and that would be shade from the heat. 

Francisco was a fairly dark Brazilian guy, but he was applying SPF 50 sunscreen rather religiously. I made fun of him for it, but he told me the sun  in Latin America is really strong. Then he offered me some sunscreen. Stupid pride I just can't hide forced me to tell him that I had the strongest skin ever and that I couldn't burn. This proved untrue. 

By the time we had gotten to the entrance of the jungle, I was already lobster-red. We started walking along a lagoon filled with crocodiles and eventually made it to this magical, elevated gazebo in the middle of the jungle with a view of greenery on all sides. We sat for a while to rehydrate and continued on our path soon after. We passed signs warning us of anteaters on our path, which Francisco assured me were incredibly docile and friendly creatures. 

Eventually, we could smell the ocean. It felt like victory. We exited onto a truly beautiful beach. At the entrance, there was a blonde gringo lady camping in a tent, but other than her, we couldn't see anyone. It made sense that a beach that required so much walking would only have westerners at it. Mexicans aren't crazy enough to make gruelling treks when they have an abundance of beaches. 

There were two banana leaf huts to provide shade, and two rocky islands in the near-distance in the water. We walked to one of the huts to, in fact, discover 3 Mexicans: A guy with some cross tattoos on his face and two girls about our age. They were making ceviche, which made me so envious because I love ceviche and also because I had nearly died on this walk. They had music playing and the vibe felt really great, so we occupied the picnic table beside them in the hut. 

Francisco talked to them a bit in Spanish and they explained to us that Cacaluta was a sacred beach because it was shaped like a heart and because of some local lore. It was really cool. As the guy talked, Francisco applied another layer of sunscreen and told me he was going into the water. The guy stopped him and said he can't go in for at least 15 minutes because he just applied sunscreen and that might be harmful to the turtles on the beach. Apparently there were many and they laid their eggs on this beach. Francisco explained that he had some ocean-safe sunscreen and the Mexican guy reluctantly agreed to let him in. 

It was really peculiar to me that a guy with crosses on his face was concerned about the well-being of turtles, but it made him complex in my character book. We went into the water and had an incredible time refreshing ourselves. The water in Huatulco is always the perfect temperature -- never too cold to get in, but still cool enough to be revitalizing. 

With the sweat washed off, we headed back to the hut. Francisco offered me one of his granola bars which I gladly accepted. He also offered me his sunscreen again which I now did accept because my skin was red, in pain, and had funny tan-lines from my shirt.

I laid in the shade and listened to Francisco tell me about his hatred of London, a boring city that was always grey. I told him I felt the same way about Vancouver, but didn't know what to do about it. He told me it was hard because we both felt like we had no alternatives. Even though he was from Brazil, he said he couldn't live there. Sao Paolo was far too dangerous to actually live in, but the lifestyle suited him more. He was debating going to Australia to live as a rancher for a bit. His family owned a ranch of four thousand cattle in Brazil and he enjoyed his time there so much that he thought it might be his calling to do it somewhere else in the world. 

He was strikingly similar to me. He had also studied a broad Liberal Arts subject at the University of Edinburgh and didn't really know how to use his degree. He also hated Indian food because it was too spicy. 

Around this time, one of the girls in the hut came to offer us each a ceviche tostada. This gesture made the entire walk worth it for me. These tostadas were so tasty that I cannot put it into words. Even better, Francisco had seen the Mexicans add small, orange peppers to the ceviche, which he knew to be super spicy. He passed his tostada onto me without hesitation and I scarfed it down equivalently fast. The peppers definitely weren't mild, but the tostada as a whole was a very tolerable level of heat. 

We spent the next 4 hours sleeping in the shade, enjoying the beach and speaking with the Mexicans. They gave us a bunch of tips and suggestions for where to go and what to do. They also taught me something really cool in terms of the Mexican Spanish. Apparently, the Spanish word for "fart" is "pedo". Somehow, specifically in Mexico, "pedo" has morphed into a word for anything and everything. If you forget a word, you can fill in for it with "pedo". If you think a guy is super cool, you can say he's a "pedo" with a happy tone of voice. If you think a guy sucks, you can say what a "pedo" with a dismissive or annoyed tone. If you are looking for a thing you can't quite remember the word for, you can fill it in with "pedo". Pedo is a one size fits all word. 

We decided to go back before sundown so that the jungle wouldn't get too dark. On our way, we saw the most incredible blue bird. It was sky blue and had a nice blue mohawk to go with its outfit. It sang a beautiful song and three new of its friends appeared shortly after to accompany it as it flew away.

Francisco told me that the Mexican guy from the beach had told him there was a beautiful beach to see the sunrise over a cliff on. He was thinking of going tomorrow and I was invited. I told him I wouldn't be there simply because the sunrise is too early for me to get up, especially after today's trek. He said he didn't blame me. It was during this conversation that I noticed that he was about to step on a scorpion. I squealed about it and tugged at his sleeve. He stopped and moved out of the way just in time. The scorpion was small and black with white legs. 

I took a photo to show my sister who is an animal encyclopedia and she told me that the one we had seen was really not dangerous at all. So much for bragging about a near-death experience. 

We got to town just as the sun set and decided to go straight to the taco place everyone had praised. Alvelu was a small hole in the wall with a small selection of fish tacos. We had come for the octopus but they were sold out, so we ordered one of each of the fish, shrimp and Oaxaca beef. The tacos were pricier than mine from yesterday which made sense because we were in the city centre. They were big and really tasty. I got my order with agua fresca. The father of the father-son business asked me if "guanabana" was ok for agua fresca. I honestly didn't understand what fruit he was talking about, but it sounded similar to "guava", which I do like, so I said sure. 

What I got tasted like a cross between guava and pineapple. It had some chunks floating around and it was really refreshing. Francisco liked it so much that he got himself one after me. I asked him what fruit it was and he said he didn't know the English name.

I googled it to find that it was a soursop. I hadn't had soursop before this, but it was a really great fruit. Seeing my excitement, the father and son brought out a whole soursop fruit for me to see it in its original state. It was way bigger than it looked on Google and it was spiky and green. I poked it to find that it was mushy. As we went to pay, the guys asked Francisco to ask me if I'd like to try the actual fruit. They were going to cut it up anyways, so if I wanted, I could have a piece. I beamed with joy as I accepted the offer. 

The father walked over and simply pulled a piece off -- the same way that you would break a bun in half. The mushiness of the fruit made it so you didn't have to peel it. It was segmented inside and I would suck up each piece and separate it from the really hard seed in the centre. This was an amazing experience. 

We decided to go and get churros, but couldn't find any on our way back to the hostel. We got there only for a minute to drop our things off since we both needed more water and wanted some beer. So we went to Oxxo and bought our drinks. We were going to drink them in the hammocks at the hostel. 

Back at the hostel, I realized I was red. Completely red. Every part of my body was sore and my face hurt to scrunch. This was a bad burn. I sent my friends photos and they laughed. Francisco said he told me so, but lent me his sunscreen and after sun gel anyways.

We got upstairs to the hammocks where Sandrina was hanging out already. Francisco was still debating if he should go to the sunrise. 3 new people at our hostel, a Dutch guy and 2 German girls, introduced themselves. They were only staying for two days, but I could already sense that we were not going to get along. Something about them emanated Eurotrash vibes. They were non-ironically listening to Techno and had a pack of cigarettes. Sandrina asked them to not smoke and they scoffed. 

They were stereotypical Germans. The kind of Germans that people make fun of trying to get into Berghain. They thrive in negativity. They complained about Huatulco, how boring of a town it was, and how they wish they hadn't come. I couldn't understand why they had booked two nights if they felt so strongly. 

When they asked about what we did, Francisco told them and explained his dilemma of the sunrise. They said he absolutely had to go -- that was a unmissable tick for his checklist, according to them. Francisco set his alarm to 4am and joked about getting 4 hours of sleep.

The Germans went downstairs to smoke their cigarettes and Francisco and I talked to Sandrina. She told us she was widowed. The love of her life, a guy named Luis, died of a stroke at 52. She was 41 when it happened, but she never overcame it. She said she had boyfriends after because "boyfriends are easy to replace, but a best friend is not", but never loved again. What Luis had that swept her off her feet was something she referred to as "oomph". 

When she first met him, she was unimpressed by his lack of muscle and his drooped shoulders, but she perked up when he told her he had a red sports car. At the time in Spain, those were very rare and hard to come by. He asked if she'd like to see it and she said yes. When she got outside, he showed her a red, convertible Citroën deux Chevaux. He had added eyelashes to the headlights and put a canvas roof on it. She was unimpressed, but he was charming and funny with the way he approached it, so she gave him a chance. They were married for 8 years, part of which were long-distance because he was a lawyer in Madrid and she was a sailing instructor in La Manga, before he died. She loved him lots. 

She concluded her story before a tear left her eye and asked us why we walked to the beach instead of taking a scooter. Francisco said he liked walking, but I said I didn't know why we had done the walk. She said I was one of her kind and told me she had rented a scooter for 2 days. She said there was an even better beach beyond Cacaluta that I could hitch a ride to with her if I wanted. I could be her "paqueta", which I think means "package" literally, but refers to your scooter passenger in Spain. I was more than happy to do that. After all, Francisco was going to see the sunrise, which I had no interest in, and my only other option was the Germans. Hard pass. To be fair, the Mormons had invited me to go to a resort with them tomorrow, but that sounded boring. 

Scooter adventure with abuela it is!