Oaxaca Shoreline: The ride across the Sierras, Hot and Humid, sweet treats and grilled fish

It has taken me a few days to get back on the blog band wagon. There have been some challenges that set me back on my heels. The 3 hour bus ride from Oaxaca city to Puerto Escondido on the coast was extended by an hour due to some impressive looking construction efforts that hopefully keep the mountain from falling on the highway. As noted in an earlier post, the newly completed highway has cut the time of the journey from 9.5 hours to 3 hours on a good day. Below are a few pictures of the stabilization efforts. The ant-like figures are humans and the tree line allows you to see how much mountain had to be cut away. I am pretty sure the pictures do not do justice to the effort expended, but they are what I got. Good news, the ADO bus from Oaxaca was super roomy and comfortable.

When we arrived in Puerto Escondido we had a room reserved for the night. One bus ride was enough for us that day. Our room was very pretty and comfortable. Unfortunately, we had a dinner that did not quite measure up to the room standard. We did have some great juices the next morning before we completed our journey to Mazunte.

From Puerto Escondido we took another bus to San Antonio pueblo, about a 75 minute ride on a less comfortable bus than the ADO bus from Oaxaca. Compounding the discomfort of the less than cushy seats on the bus was an absurd number of BIG speed bumps, sometimes in the middle of nowhere. The bus lacked any semblance of decent rear shocks and suspension. That made each bump a bone-jarring spine-rattling event. I have had a sore back since the ride. In the U.S. I have read there is a sand shortage, thus a concrete shortage. In Mexico there must be much more access to sand, or less of a conservation movement. In Oaxaca and outskirts and in Puerto Escondido and its outskirts, as well as all the way from San Antonio to and through Mazunte, San Augustinillo and Zipolite the concrete speed bumps continue. We took a 20 minute taxi ride from San Antonio to our lodging in Mazunte.

I had booked our 3 night stay in Mazunte through Booking.com. There is a serious communication breakdown between the owner of our hostal (Mexican for Hotel) and Booking.com. We expected to be in a ground floor room with a private kitchen and pool with “toiletries”. We were shown to room on the second floor, no kitchen, pool or toiletries, not even hot water.  To be fair, it appears that much of Mazunte has no hot water, likely a nod to intense heat and humidity. There was a tepid somewhat dirty pool and an incredibly dirty bug-ridden  communal kitchen.

I politely told the owner about the disparity of facts. His response was to tell me that he couldn’t have promised what I read in the description because his hostal had no such things. He did offer to let me out of the contract. I spent 1-2 hours trying to find another space by walking through town and knocking on doors. All I found was rooms for the two following nights. We spent the night in our subpar room. The next morning we booked another room and returned to the first hostal for our luggage. When I saw the owner he was tremnedously apologetic and appalled. He had looked on the Booking.com website the previous night and saw that the descriptions were nothing like the actuality of his hostal. I paid him the $20 sum he offered for the previous night and we went on a 5 minute walk with our luggage to the new accommodation.

Unfortunately, we had a 3 hour wait for our room to be prepared. We thought we were getting a third floor terrace room and spent the wait on the terrace which was cool and breezy, a respite from the 90 degree heat and 75% humidity. The challenge continued when they insisted we were down a floor in a room that had a small balcony facing the setting sun, not quite as comfortable.  Our room is on top of a gym operated by the hostal manager. People exercise to loud music but he told us the gym closed at 7pm. When we went to bed a bit before ten we found that the closing time is 11 and the music was much louder at night than during the day. We appear to be surrounded by outdoor dogs and as soon as one barked several others joined in for at least 5 minutes. This went on all night. Not a restful night.

I write all of this in the hope that others will somehow avoid similar fates. First lesson, don’t trust Booking.com. From now on I will send queries to lodgings to verify important points. I think I also need to ask to see the room before paying whenever possible. This seems like a no-brainer but I failed that task with our present room. Once again, I am finding that traveling is about learning and getting better at it.

Now for the good news. The preceding sentence, written before we left for an hour to get some lunch tacos, was supposed to be the entry point to begin writing again. When we arrived back to our room it was boiling hot because there was no electricity. My laptop stopped holding a charge about two months ago. That meant no computer and a room that was insufferably hot. I had to go through three people to get to the owner and he offered us a room in another hostal about 100′ down the road. Bottom line was we lost about 3 hours with our move to our third hostal in 3 nights. A supposed vacation to the coast has turned into a carousel of stresses, so after we got moved into our new room we decided to take a short trip down the coast to San Augustinillo.

Mazunte is quite a small town and San Augustinillo is even smaller. A short taxi ride got us to town and we walked main street for about 30 minutes, then decided the proper thing to do was get beers in a cabana overlooking the beach. Just under two hours  later we were back in Mazunte. We got street food for dinner followed by dairy free sugar free frozen desserts. This is part of the good news. We have found two places that allow us to work around Sheila’s dairy and sugar allergies to supply opportunities for sweet treats. One is an ice cream shop, the other is a holistic shop that just happens to have a cold case of vegan and mostly sugar free desserts. Cakes, cheesecakes and other delectables, 75% sugar free see below.

We went to that store for lunch dessert the past two days sampling, carrot cake, dark chocolate cheesecake and macacappucino cheesecake. I think it is a certainty we will be there one more time before we leave town tomorrow. More good food news is last night’s dinner. A short walk from the beach is a family that grills food 6 days a week. You choose between chicken beef or seafood that was brought to him by fisherman that day. We had our choice between mahi mahi, whole huachinango (3 sizes) and shrimp. (I did not see any beef and only one chicken order go out) Everything is slathered with their homemade chimichurri and achiote sauces then grilled over the coals. We got two orders of mahi mahi and everything comes with flavorful rice, a baked potato and a sizeable fresh salad. A picture of my plate after I had already done some damage is below. Post dinner we went to the ice ram store that features 5 sugar free vegan options.

Here are a few beach pics also. The beach ends and either rocks or hills begin. There are a lot of homes built into those jungle hills.

We wanted a vacation from our vacation in Oaxaca city. Somehow, much of it did not go to plan. We expected a lot of free lounging around time that just didn’t manifest. I definitely felt some frustration and have to remind myself to stay present and that every frustration and challenge is preparation for more and better travel. Tomorrow we have the opportunity for a seamless adventure on our way back to our Oaxaca city home base, and one more trip to our guilt free dessert shop!