Huatulco 2014
Barco a la playa
Judith was the maid that would come in every day to clean our place, do laundry and tidy up, she only spoke Spanish, so Norine had to really step up with her Espanol. It worked out well, and combining the English/Spanish dictionary with the Translate app on the iPad they were able to have great conversations each day, and Judith became a spanish tutor for Norine. That's when Norine found out that Judith's cousin had a tourist boat, and for a really good deal could take us on a tour and snorkeling trip for a day... excelente!
Huatulco is actually an area of Mexico known as Bahías de Huatulco, or Bays of Huatulco. It consists of 9 bays and 36 sandy beaches, Ismael is going to take us from the harbour at Santa Cruz to a series of nice beaches for sightseeing and some snorkeling, or so we thought.
We didn't have quite enough Pesos on us to pay for the boat, so we arranged to meet with Judith's cousin Ismael at the Bank of Azteca so I could use my credit card or ATM card to get Pesos and pay him. As a last resort there was a currency exchange, so I could swap some US money we had for Pesos. The taxi drops us at the bank and Ismael is waiting for us there. It's hard enough to navigate a Spanish ATM machine, but when I try to use my Credit Card to get cash, "Transaccion no valido", I try to use my ATM card... "Transaccion no valido". OK, change the US money... I left it back at the villa. Now I am sweating, but Ismael tells us there is a Scotia Bank at the harbour in Santa Cruz. All that is running through my head is, well, I guess we won't be boating today.
I put on my sunglasses for the walk, and the arm of my sunglasses break off... it's going to be one off those days!!!
We get to the Scotia Bank and I try to use my Credit Card... "Transaccion no valido", are you kidding me, Capital One Travel card!!! You may have provided me travel miles for the flight here, but now you are pissing me off! As a last resort before grabbing a taxi back to our villa to get the US money I forgot, I desperately put in my ATM card, and "Toma un poco de dinero"... the money spewed out. I can relax.
Ismael walks us over to his boat "Leamsi", on the way we passed a tourist sunglass hut, and I bought some sunglasses freshly arrived from the 1970's. When we get there Ismael introduces us to his amigo, we think his name was Tuppy. We get in the boat and head out of the harbour, trouble is we left the english speaking Ismael on the shore, and the non-english speaking captain went with us.
Today would be another Formacion en espanol, if you want to immerse yourself in a culture, this is the way to do it.
The coastline is beautiful, from rocky shorelines with hidden faces to beautiful sandy playas. 2 Mexican passengers joined us, and we expected that we would be spending the day with 3 locals. Turns out we were just dropping them off at the nearest beach, Playa la Entrega. It was a really nice beach with huts and hawkers, but that wasn't Tuppy's plan... we pass one deserted beach, then another.
Our first stop was the quiet Playa la India in Bahía Chachacual. There is a couple girls selling necklaces, and they have some umbrellas setup to sell us cold beers (Cervezas), but there is hardly anyone here. We drop our stuff on the shore, put on the snorkeling gear, and head into the water. Even while we are putting our flippers on at the edge of the sand we are surrounded by fish (pescado).
Every once in a while Tuppy would swim over with something to show us that he plucked off the ocean floor.
When we came out of the water, there was more people there, the beach was more crowded a turtle had pulled up onto the sand, and a large tourist boat was pulling in. It wasn't like this when we went into the water.
Tuppy asked if we wanted to stay on the beach for a while, but we told him we wanted to escape all the people. so he swam out to his boat, came and got us, and we worked our way back along the coast. Next stop was Playa Jicaral.
This little stretch of white sandy beach seemed perfect, the coral reef off the shore was a little more murky, but we were the only ones there, a good place to unload our stuff, snorkel and just hang out for a while.
After snorkeling for a while, we chilled on the sands with a cold drink, and headed out of the bay just as another boat was coming in. We passed a couple more little beaches, and some interesting rocky areas as we headed to our lunch stop.
BAHIA SAN AUGUSTIN
Our final stop would also be one of the most beautiful beaches of the day, sadly it was also the most busy, but nothing like we have seen in Hawaii or other beach destinations. The beach front is like a small village, side-by-side restaurants and shops
One of Tuppy's amigos comes and greets us, then carries our stuff to one of the tables at a restaurant right on the beach. The agreement is, as long as you order some food or drinks, the table is yours for the day, and you can leave your stuff there.
The view was incredible, and the water is that hard to describe aqua blue shades, soft white sand... least we could do is order some cold drinks and eat some of their seafood. I went for the four by four... four different kinds of shrimp, Norine had the breaded-just-caught-a-minute-ago fish. A couple local senoritas came by and sold us some necklaces, and then it was water time... oh, the water!
We took the 12 steps to the shore, put on our snorkeling gear, and were immediately "swimming with the fishes". The water was super clear, and super warm... if you could snorkel in your bathtub, this is what it would be like. The Coral reef was only about 5-10 meters from the shore.
When we were done snorkeling, we just hung out in the water and floated for a while, such a nice beach.
As is tradition wherever we go, somehow we end up adopting a dog, and today would be no different. This sweet little white dog came when we were eating lunch, waited for us to snorkel and hung around with us while we relaxed and dried off.
Sadly, we had to leave the warm blue waters of San Augustin, head past their little church on the hill and start heading back to Santa Cruz.
Another full day of on-the-fly Spanish lessons, and we are back at the Villa after a great day on the water! We chill out on the deck, BBQ up some "pollo, papa y coliflor", and then watch the sky change colour again before the moon rises.
