The drive down to Puerto Escondido started out well enough - ie. the bit that ed got to drive, which was nice and straight and although a bit slow and frustrating, not bad at all. We swapped at a small town along the way and about 5 minutes later the road turned into a tiny windy mountain road and stayed like that all the way to Puerto Escondido. It was boring and slow and took all my concentrationa dn i absolutely hated the automatic car! I was tired and grumpy by the time we hit highway 200 - the coastal road and made ed change with me for the last part of the journey. It was very very hot down there but when we finally saw the sea we were excited!
We drove into Puerto Escondido which was a lot smaller than we imagined and missed the turn-off for the hotel completely and had to turn back. But we found it eventually and how lucky we were... it was absolutely beautiful. We had a room with an outdoor living room/balcony overlooking the perfect sandy beach and blue sea. It was quiet and the most chilled out place i've ever been! After the long drive it really felt like it was worth it!
We headed out for a walk along the gorgeous beach and up to the tiny tiny town. Ed was desperate to see our first beach sunset and it was totally worth it. Watching the sun plop into the sea you could almost hear the water sizzling! It was really beautiful and the first of many fantastic sunsets on this trip. We also had the first of many many cocktails on the trip before searching out a place to have dinner. We found a great little restaurant called Mango, which was cheap with good food (including loads of vegetarian options) and just back from the beach - they also had 2 for 1 cocktails on until 11pm so we had another cocktail after dinner! We were pretty knackered from the long drive and had an early-ish night after sitting out on our living-room balcony for a while and enjoying the truly romantic setting.
The next day was Christmas Eve and what better way to spend it than on the beach? We got ourselves ready for a day of relaxation, after a quick morning swim in the pool, and headed along Playa Zitacuaro (the beach we were staying on, but also a surfing beach and not great for swimming - too dangerous) to the main beach which was fairly quiet, a few palapa restaurants and sunbeds for rent but certainly not a packed in town beach. We found a sunbed and Ed went off in search of something to drink and brought us back two coconuts! We spent pretty much the whole day relaxing, reading, having the odd dip in the sea and Ed worked on his tan (which was pretty dark even by this stage in the holiday!) We watched the sun set on the beach and then went home for a shower and to get changed. It was very humid in Puerto Escondido and deodorant was no use at all, even after dark it was a sweaty sweaty place!
We had a nice, but expensive dinner at a pizza place and then went on to a bar that we'd heard about the day before where they had live music and stuff. They had great mojitos and we got a table right in front of the stage. We also found they had board games and i taught Ed how to play backgammon. It was a fun evening and a nice way to see in Christmas 2008.
On Christmas day we got up, opened our presents and got ready for another day on the beach. We had breakfast at a palapa on the beach and then went to the internet cafe to talk to our families. We finally got to the beach and found a sunbed and there were loads of people trying to sell dolphin and turtle watching trips. I really wanted to go but as we'd only just arrived at the beach and paid for the sunbeds it seemed like a bad idea. Finally Ed aranged with one of them that we'd go early in the morning the next day. Ed disappeared off for ages to get us lunch, even though the baguette place we'd seen was only a 5 minute walk away, he mangaed to get lost and we had a very very late lunch!
Our Christmas sunset was seen from a bar on the beach sipping on yet more cocktails and was lovely and relaxing. In the evening we had a nice meal in an Italian restaurant, which was a real treat and then strolled back stopping for a cocktail or two in a hammock.
We had to pack up our stuff in the evening as we had to move rooms on Boxing Day, which meant leaving our stuff downstairs at reception before heading out early to our dolphin and turtle watching trip. Of course being a little bit merry we left quite a lot of it for the morning...
Boxing Day was an early start, but we managed to have breakfast at Mango (where you got eggs or other things like chilaquiles, juice and coffee for $29 - that's £1.50!!!)and get to the beach much earlier than the boat guy, wo then set about finding other people to go on the trip too and we didn't get on the boat until much later than planned. It was a two hour trip and i have to say the first hour was disappointing - we saw a couple of turtles - one of which the driver lifted out of the water for us to see and touch, but otherwise we drove aboutand didn't see much.
It was looking to be a waste of money and suddenly we saw a whole group f dolphins jumping out of the water. After that we just kept seeing more and more and more until the boatman realised we'd been out for over our two hours and said he'd have to take us back. It all turned out to be worthwhile and i was so happy to finally see dolphins!
We went back to the hotel afterwards to move rooms. The new room was not a patch on the old one. It was small and dark, no view and no hot water. it did have a private bathroom (which the one before didn't) but this was no consolation really.
We decided to try another beach and got in the car and headed out of the town. We got to a beach that was listed in the guide book but it was absolutely packed. We took one look at each other and got back in the car and headed back to the hotel with a stop at the supermarket to buy some lunch supplies and food for the next day's journey. It was the most horrible supermarket ever.
When we got back to the hotel we made some lunch and were planning to go to the beach, but then i realised my phone was missing. We searched for it, rang it, but it was gone forever along with all my phone numbers and my contact with the outside world. I was grumpy and so we stayed at the hotel and went in the pool instead of going to the beach - it was quite late by this point anyway and i couldn't be bothered sitting in the heat and having to pay for a sunbed we'd only use for an hour or so.
In the evening we went to a bar with a terrace to watch the sunset and then did a bit of shopping, and i bought Eddie a christmas present. Later we went to a restaurant on the beach (and we literally sat with our feet in the sand) and there were candles and it was lovely and romantic for our last night in Puerto Escondido (my now favourite place in Mexico!) However i did have an exceptionally hot curry and almost cried and snotted everywhere!!! We washed dinner down with a couple of cocktails and a few games of jenga before having our last evening stroll along the beach and back to our crappy little hotel room. We sat up on the roof terrace for a while (as we no longer had the living room/balcony).
In the morning we go packed up and headed off early, stopping for a breakfast of chilaquiles at Mango and planned to head for the lagoons just outside Puerto Escondido...
