Surf at Pto Escodido
Pto. Angel
|
After an fruitless search through heaving traffic in Acapulco for a dog-friendly hotel, we chugged over a high ridge to Pie de la Cuesta, about 15 miles (but an hour’s drive) north, and the location of a largely unoccupied KOA campground. The next morning I took Roscoe with me to the warm and spacious pool, tying him to a nearby pole while I swam. Milo was loose and was playing happily with a couple of resident dogs. All went well until he discovered some huge ostriches in a nearby pen, which sent him into a noisy frenzy of excitement. I gave Milo a time out by tying him to the same leash as Roscoe. Roscoe, unhappy with the arrangement, slipped out of his collar and stumbled into the pool. I rushed to his aid, and with the help of a nearby worker, we hoisted him out. As I was getting out to re-secure him, he fell in again. This time he decided to go for a swim and I couldn’t catch him until he reached the other side of the rather wide pool. (I hate to say it, but he swims faster than I do). We got him out again, this time for good. Although the toll road to Acapulco was pricey, about $35 for about four hours of driving, we would have gladly paid that for a good surface on our next stretch, the semi-coastal road to Puerto Escondido. To amuse himself, Bill estimated that between Acapulco and Puerto Escondido, we went over 346 “topes” (speed bumps), which are as ubiquitous as tortillas in Mexico. There are mini-topes, topes grandes, and for a real lift, some topes gigantes. There even are townless-topes (but no tope-less towns). We made it to Puerto Escondido late in the afternoon and quickly decided it was worth the bumpy ride even though on the crowded surfers’ strip (the “Mexican Pipeline”), we counted exactly 12 people over the age of 30. Accommodations were plentiful, and we figured, correctly, that if hotels will rent to twenty-something partying surfers, they would rent to dogs as well. The beaches are miles long, but well used, and visitors were about evenly divided between Europeans, norteamericanos and middle-class Mexican kids. Enough people brought their dogs for Milo to think the beach was really a dog park. He instantly struck up a conversation with a young Doberman from Canada, an expat Labrador, a mutt adopted by a local French surfer, and a 10-month old Boxer from Cuernavaca. His was truly an international crowd. During our second day in Puerto Escondido, we found a very good nearby bay for swimming and snorkeling, and the pooches again took the plunge with us. Upon leaving Puerto Escondido, we continued heading east long the coast. We swam and snorkeled at the beautiful beaches of Puerto Angel, which were uncrowded and located near a couple of relatively poor, but clean villages with a smattering of tourists and some permanent New-Age type residents. On one beach I had an interesting (?) conversation in Spanish with another dog owner, an Italian by birth and resident of southern France, who was in the area coaching soccer at a local soccer academy. He spoke no English, so we conversed in Spanish. After small talk on dogs and the weather, he began speaking more rapidly and I began hearing words like “Saddam,” “Bush,” and “terroristas.” At this point he lost me and I could not tell whether he agreed or disagreed with U.S. policy. So I took the safe route and responded to each very animated assertion with an equally enthusiastic “si, si.” After about 15 minutes, we parted amiably. Our final stop along the coast was Bahias de Huatulco, the government’s latest mega resort. After looking at a map, we realized that the Bahias de Huatulco are as far south as central Guatemala and northern Honduras, and further south than Belize. Mexico is shaped like a big hook, and we were at the bottom of the hook where the coastline actually runs from west to east as we drive. We also were at the easternmost point of our itinerary. Leaving the coast, we traveled for seven or eight hours on a knuckle-whitening road going through mountainous jungle to the city of Oaxaca. We encountered two or three partial road washouts where the outside lane (usually our side), had simply slipped away, leaving yawning crevasses. No signs gave motorists any advance warning of the problem, and it did not appear that anyone was in any hurry to fix the road. Proceeding into Oaxaca, we stopped at a town famous for its splendid black pottery and we found space for a couple of pots in the van. Another town had a lovely cathedral that looked like it was made out of traditional Wedgewood china. It was a colorful market day there, and Milo had an interesting face to face confrontation with a goat.
|
Bill and admirers
Mountain Road Stop
|
|
