Fallen Angels
Trip Start
Oct 15, 2007
1
30
97
Trip End
Aug 24, 2008
Puerto Ángel,
Mexico
Monday, December 10, 2007
We arrived in Pochutla and found ourselves swamped with taxi drivers who all refused to admit knowledge of where we could get a bus from. It may be being a little picky, but to us, denial of knowledge of the location of local places of interest is not the best way to sell your services as a taxi driver. Eventually, Andrew and Loreen saw a bus with Puerto Escondido written on the front, so hailed it in the middle of the street and jumped on. And then there were two.
We wandered a little bit and found a bus station, which was only for longer distance buses. We got some directions and headed back along the road, found another bus station, which also apparently didn't run buses to Puerto Angel and gave us more directions...back in the other direction again. A small pickup truck stopped and asked where we were going. It turned out, he was going in the opposite direction but would be going in the correct direction in five minutes. We waited on the opposite side of the road and sure enough, the same man turned up five minutes later. We piled in for our first colectivo experience. The colectivo is a small taxi/minibus/pickup truck with or without canopy over the back which transports people from place to place, usually along a predetermined route for a small charge. This one took us both to Puerto Angel for about 50p.
Arriving in Puerto Angel, we found the tourist information office. Unfortunately it was closed, but due to reopen about 30 minutes later. We decided to wait. This being Mexico, 45 minutes later when nothing had happened, we were not too surprised. At around that time, a man came along and asked us our names and where we were from; again a relatively normal thing to happen in Mexico. However, the response when advised that we were from England was to drag over another guy as he was also English. Actually, he was Canadian, but close enough. He recommended a place to stay, so we abandoned the idea of tourist information and headed to 'Gundi y Tomas' as recommended.
The hostel appeared to be exactly the sort of place we imagine heaven to look like. There were hammocks swinging gently in the shade overlooking the beach, the rooms were cool and spaceous and the whole place was decorated with a hippy aesthetic. Oh yes, and here is the fridge full of cold beers.
We didn't do much with the rest of the day really, just relaxed in hammocks, read and generally chilled out. Eventually, we decided it would be a good idea to go and eat, so we walked down to the harbour area and watched the pelicans for a while before finding a restaurant on the sea front. The sort of place where it's acceptable and ultimately expected for you to take off your shoes and wiggle your toes in the sand whilst you are eating. We had prawns and fish and sat watching the fishing boats bobbing on the sea, eating food that had earlier that day been swimming there. Anyone jealous?!
The following day, we both had delicate stomachs (although it lasted long enough that we don't think it was related to the fish) so spent another day being generally lazy and generally not doing anything. Kirsty finished her book but that was about the only point of any great note.
The next day, we decided we should put in a bit more effort and eventually made our way to the beach. We walked round to a beach which was pleasant enough but we were constantly being bothered by people trying to sell us things, so we walked back round to the harbour area, found ourselves a nice shady spot under a palm tree and went for a gentle swim in the sea. At least, that was the idea. The waves had different ideas. We were thrown around, knocked over and generally made to stop our lazy ways.
Breathless, bruised, grazed and with clothes full of gravel, we sat about in the sun until we dried out a bit, then headed back to the hostel. Showered and changed, we went out for a disappointing meal of buttered pasta in tomato soup (they called it sauce) as we thought this would probably be fairly gentle on our still ailing stomachs. We went back to the hostel and spent the evening chatting to a Canadian couple, Jody and Mark, who had just arrived. Mark had flown in from Vancouver and was still feeling somewhat traumatised as his plane had some sort of emergency landing, including the oxygen masks being deployed. A bottle of wine later, he was looking a little more relaxed.
The following day, we took a colectivo into Pochutla to use an ATM, as Puerto Angel doesn't have any. We also found an internet cafe and caught up on some email for a bit, then colectivo-ed back to Puerto Angel and decided we would walk to a different beach marked on the map in reception. Unfortunately, the artistically painted map in reception turned out to have no real bearing on reality and after walking in the sun for at least an hour, we were still nowhere near the beach which had appeared to be just around the corner from Puerto Angel. We eventually admitted defeat, walked back to Puerto Angel and had another round of being knocked over by the waves in the harbour.
That evening, we had intended to eat at the hostel, but were unable to as they had decided to close the restaurant. We went out instead and found a small stall which sold us something called tlayudas, which were large tortillas topped with refried beans, onions, tomatoes, ham, cheese etc in the same way as a pizza would be, folded in half and then grilled over a barbecue. Very tasty.
We headed back to the hostel and to bed. By this time, we were feeling fed up and unhappy in Puerto Angel. The hostel had appeared to be really nice, but the staff and many of the other guests were cliquey and unwelcoming and we didn't feel that comfortable there. We had bought ourselves a loaf of bread at one point ("Bimbo" brand bread, no less. A sort of chemically enriched cotton wool which is utterly ubiquitous in Mexico) and were making peanut butter sandwiches in the communal area of the hostel, when the owner told us we couldn't eat our own food there as it was a hotel restaurant and we'd be giving out the wrong impression to others (in the empty hostel at 11am), but when we tried to eat there during the supposed opening times, we were told we'd have to go out and eat elsewhere as they were closed.
The town itself, with a few exceptions, was unattractive and was overrun with people being really pushy to sell things: trips, meals, places to stay, bracelets etc, or just begging. There was nothing that individually would have been a major problem, but we both felt that the place was not what we wanted and that our relaxing week by the sea was turning out not to be that relaxing at all. The idea had been that we wanted to say in one place for the whole seven days but we were by now considering the idea of moving to nearby Puerto Escondido for our remaining three nights. We weren't sure whether it would be more hassle than it was worth to move and whether the larger, more touristy resort of Puerto Escondido might in fact be worse than Puerto Angel, but in the morning, we decided that we would make the move. We packed, left and got a colectivo to Pochutla, where we immediately found a bus to Puerto Escondido, jumped on to it and headed along the coast.
