My birthday in Puerto Escondido
Trip Start
Jan 04, 2008
1
13
27
Trip End
Apr 01, 2008
Puerto Escondido,
Mexico
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Wednesday, January 30, 2008, my birthday. We went to Zicatela beach where Terry had made friends with some people at the La Siesta restaurant. They have the chairs, lounges and umbrellas for free if you buy something, etc. We had a big mixed fruit salad and a couple of cold drinks for a cheap lunch.
Lots of vendors walk back and forth along the beach with a variety of goods...clothes, baskets, jewelry, ice cream and more. Most of which, we weren't interested and just waved them on with a 'No Garcias'. However, Terry had bought a nice nylon hammock the day before and then I bought another, even nicer cotton hammock and also a cotton hammock chair for pretty cheap from another beach vendor....as we were bargaining the price, I mentioned that they'd be my B-day present and he lowered the price even more.
Terry had a sort of 'not so good experience' in the water that afternoon. He got caught in a sideways riptide that took him dangerously close to some big rocks. Our waiter saw him first and Rolando (the restaurant owner actually called the lifeguards who came running down the beach from their station). Meanwhile, the riptide stopped and Terry started in towards shore about the same time that the lifeguards got there.
He had a couple of scrapes around his knees, but otherwise was fine. I hadn't been very worried, because he's a great swimmer, but it was a little disconcerting to see the lifeguards taking it so seriously. Terry also said that he wasn't worried and that if the riptide had continued, he would have swam with it farther out around the rocks to the next beach and then gone ashore and walked back. In fact, he had done just that a couple of days before...but not with the 'help' of a riptide.
That evening we returned to the La Siesta for a lovely sunset dinner. As we were enjoying our Margaritas and chatting with another couple from BC, all of a sudden, an airplane (about a 10 passenger, twin engine, high wing type) came swooping down right along the beach! I thought he was trying to make an emergency landing but apparently he was only joy-riding!!
After that excitement and a lovely sunset, I had a great Shrimp Diablo and Terry had a steak for dinner. The beef down here isn't all that great, in fact, since it really doesn't have hardly any fat content, it's cut extremely thin and requires a lot of seasoning. We even tried filet mignon and it wasn't that great. In general, I prefer seafood or chicken anyway, so I don't have a problem.
