Aug 9 - Puerto Escondido

We ate a quick and small breakfast and quickly headed to the beach at 7am to meet Jesus whos would take us to sea to see turtles, dophins, and possibly do some fishing. Waving off several fisherman, we talked to one who told us that he knew Jesus and that he was sick. As we had already given Jesus a 100 peso deposit, this smelled a bit like a scam. However, this guy said he would get the deposit from Jesus later and he knew the price we had originally been quoted, so we took his offer and boarded a motorboat with two other people. One was a professor at Puebla who had spent some time in the U.S. and spoke some English.

The sea was rough. We spotted some (huge) turtles some 15-20 mins out. Ten minutes later, a group of 5 dolphins appeared by our side. Before long though, I started to feel a bit sick. Soon my fingers and lips started to tingle, and I began to feel faint. I suppose the stress of trying hard not to vomit, my always low blood pressure, and my tiny breakfast combined to strike a triple whammy against me. I lay down on the floor and put my legs up. Lauren asked the guy how long we would be out and my heart sank as he replied "four hours." I was soon feeling a better but found I had to stay down to avoid getting sick again, as there was less motion on the floor of the boat.

Some 1.5 grueling hours later, there was some commotion in rapid Spanish. Once Lauren joined in the excitement, I pushed myself up and laid my eyes upon the biggest damn fish I had ever seen; at least 5 feet long. The guys held its mouth shut and beat it in the head a few times with a stick. When it had mostly stopped moving, they set it down in the middle of the boat. I returned to my"bed" and covered my face from the ever rising sun. Two hours later, we finally reached the shore, as I swore never to take to the ocean in a small boat again. We paid the captain 500 pesos, took pictures as a crowd gathered around to gaze upon the monstrous fish, and went to our room to recover.

Once I regained some strength (but no dignity) we made quesadillas in the kitchen. We hung out in the room until 3 when we went to the fresh seafood place on the beach to eat some of the huge swordfish they had caught, for which they only charged us the preparation cost. We thus had a huge and incredibly delicious fish meal for 30 pesos each. Satisfied, we waded into the water a couple of times and took some afternoon sun; not a doggie in sight. Back in the room, we showered and, once again seeing the craziness in the kitchen, went to a seafood joint on Adequin and ate delicious shrimp tacos.