Speaking the Language of Friendship: Connecting in Puerto Escondido

Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, México, has been absolutely fantastic, save for a few minor hiccups. I inadvertently stayed through the hottest months of April and May, which was uncomfortable but manageable. Now it’s the rainy season (and hurricane season!), so the weather has both picked up and calmed down. The rains are gorgeous and do wonders against the hot-hot tropical heat. But the best part about Puerto has definitely been the people… and maybe the food.

Intercambio for the win!

I have been trying for years to learn Spanish. And to be fair, I’m a very lazy person so when I say trying, I mean 20 or 30 minutes a day of some Spanish app or maybe a practice with my mum-in-law. That is clearly not enough to learn a new language, even if I had a few Spanish classes during high school. Sigh. I want it to be effortless! Nope. You have to put in the work.

Well, you can’t imagine how excited I was to hear about a meetup with expats and locals at a local café to practice our two languages together (thanks, hiking buddy, for the info!). Welcome to Intercambio! The idea is that native Spanish speakers come to work on their English and us English speakers work on our Spanish (in an “exchange”). It’s free save for whatever food and/or drink you purchase at the café. I do love free!

I was super nervous for the first one because my Spanish needs a lot of work, but also excited for the opportunity to practice. Then I was even more nervous because I got paired up with these kids from a local high school. Teenagers! They are so going to make fun of me! Turns out, we had a mutual love of horror movies and we spent an hour discussing our favorite ones. The kids were wonderful and patient. It was great to just build confidence speaking out loud and building sentences. I’m hooked!

There goes my weekends

Intercambio is every Saturday at a local café just up the street from me (25-minute walk). I’ve met so many wonderful people. People from England, USA, Canada, and all over México. It’s so great to learn about them and hear their stories, all while practicing Spanish. I still have to practice throughout the week, but this gives me motivation to get better and faster. We discuss any number of topics, from weather to politics to favorite meals. Sometimes kids join us, and sometimes it’s just us adults.

A couple organizers work at a local school and suggested I stop by one evening to help students learn English. That would be so much fun! The problems are that evening is tropical hot-hot, I don’t have a car, I don’t like taxis, and the bus stop is really far away. Remember that laziness I told you about. It’s for-real in the evenings. I want to be a good person and volunteer at a local school… but excuses. It happens.

The organizers were nice enough to invite me to their Sunday Intercambio in Zicatela. I decided to walk the first time. Ha! Let me tell you how hot and sweaty and uncomfortable I was after that crazy one-hour hike in the sun! I will definitely take the colectivo next time. The walk was really wonderful for seeing Zicatela, though. It’s a cute town with lots of shops and exciting restaurants that look like they turn into nightclubs after dark. Party central.

What the crap is falling from the sky?

The Sunday Intercambio is at a vegan restaurant with all outdoor seating. Okay, so here is the thing about outdoor seating in the tropics. Things sometimes fall on you. Our group table was directly under this giant gorgeous fruit tree. Every once in a while, one of those fully ripe, tennis ball sized fruits would splatter spectacularly on the table or someone’s head. The fruit is brown with tan insides and I genuinely thought something pooped on us! I got one all over my hat, arm, shirt, face, and I was horrified… then someone grabbed a bit off the table and stuck it in their mouth… um… more horrified!

Fruit! Fairly tasty too. Known as a sapodilla or chico sapote, as there are other types of sapotes. The fruit insides are supposed to be good for making ice cream because you can mix it with coconut milk, toss it in the freezer, and it freezes to a creamy, wonderful consistency. Fun! But when you are sitting under the very ripe danger fruit… not so fun. After the meeting, we spent some time with a mango picker (think small wire basket, that extends on one side to end with hooked “fingers”, mounted on a long stick), trying to get the lower fruits down for consumption.

This is my first time at a vegan café and my first time picking fruit while at a restaurant, so this is all new to me. I would assume that they would want to keep the fruit for a seasonal smoothie or something. I think they were just happy to not have them fall on customers. We all had a great time, to say the least, and am so glad I went. Thanks for the invite new friends!

Learning all the things

Through Intercambio, I have met some really great people. I’ve had lunch parties and coffee meetups. I even talked one lady into going snorkeling with me. We went swimming first down at Playa Manzanillo with a pair of goggles so she could see there was something to look at and it’s not too wavy. We had so much fun swimming and chatting that we both totally got burnt, but it was worth it. After that, she purchased a mask with snorkel so we could see all the fishes and turtles and lagoon rays.

Then one Saturday at Intercambio, my new friend tells me that she was walking home the other night on the beach, and she fell into a section of water where a river had recently connected with the ocean due to the combination of tall waves and high tide. She legit almost died! It took her several tries to get out of the waves washing over her. Plus, this is crocodile territory (see picture of Alberto!)! Luckily she did not die… but her phone did.

Unfortunately, Puerto Escondido is not the best place to find a new or used iPhone. While a phone may be waterproof, very few electronics exist that are salt-water proof and the repair guy had no luck bringing it back to life. Luckily, I happened to have an extra iPhone she can borrow. The battery is crap, but it should get her by until she can find a used phone in Mexico City. We spent some time downloading all her data from the Cloud and it looks like she didn’t lose anything important.

Movie nights!

Right after I arrived in Puerto, the owner of the building I’m staying in mentioned that one of the fancy beach clubs down on Playa Bacocho has movie nights on Wednesdays and I should make sure that I go. It’s by consumption so I should buy something and not bring my own food and drink (they might check bags, btw). Not as fun as the free kind, but I’m still in! The movie is outdoors on the beach so it could end any week depending on when the rainy season starts.

The hike down there isn’t too bad, but still takes almost an hour. Down hill, up hill, down again. Crap, that is a very steep and long hill that I’m going to have to hike back up on the way home in the dark. I brought my headlamp though, so I should be fine. That beach club is fancy and I’m really glad they don’t charge to enter. The drinks are very expensive, however, and I definitely got overcharged.

But what a great time! I chatted with the owner of my apartment for so long that I completely missed the sunset. From what I did see, it was gorgeous over the Pacific Ocean. The waves on that beach are massive and not great for swimming. Good to know. The film was a local one with English subtitles and I learned a bit about the area. What a wonderful thing to share with so many people! I even enjoyed the long walk home, as the temp had cooled off considerably. Yes, it is safe to walk home at night here. The most dangerous part is walking on the sidewalks. They are legit dangerous! Headlamp for the win!

If you are in Puerto Escondido during the winter, you must do the movie night on Playa Bacocho! It became my Wednesday routine until it ended in April, and I looked forward to it every week (btw: it restarts in November). I saw some really great movies. One was about a local musician and he was actually there at the showing along with the director of the film… how cool is that?! Another was about a forbidden love and the last of a dying language. But my favorite was Memoir of a Snail. That was a hoot to watch with a bunch of kids and parents thinking it’s a family film. So many gasps and giggles! So good!

Dinner parties!

Like I said before, I have met some truly wonderful humans here. One guy who lives nearby invited me to several lunch and dinner parties. These are so much fun! I brought food for a couple of them, but I mostly just bring wine. We chat about any number of things and occasionally I try to practice my Spanish. I still get embarrassed and flustered, but it’s so good to try. I’ll get there someday.

His parties have motivated me to host one of my own. Parties are scary because I want to invite everyone, but I can’t fit everyone in my condo. But then, what if nobody shows up!?! Whatever, it will be fun. We have been discussing food so much at the Intercambio that it makes sense to host a potluck. That way, I can try all those delicious sounding dishes that people have mentioned. It was also very fun and interesting to learn that “potluck” is just not a thing here and there really isn’t a word for it. I love finding words and concepts that exist in one language that you’d think are universal, and just aren’t.

Turns out it was a blast and the perfect number of people showed up. My vegan dish was a bit too spicy for my wonderful vegan friend, but she was a marvelous sport about it. Sorry, friend! I borrowed extra chairs and setup my entire balcony for a big party. Then it started to rain, and I quickly moved everything back. We all ended up crowding around one table family style, anyway. It was a blast and I’m glad peeps braved the rain to come.

So… the tropics

As I’m writing this, my keyboard is breaking. It’s adding letters, deleting words, lowering the volume and lighting on my tablet so my screen goes dark. It will have to be replaced. Sigh. Living next to the ocean is hell on electronics, but look at that view! So I have to be quick. Puerto Escondido has been amazing. There are so many beaches, each with their own charm. My favorite is the one right next to my condo (Playa Manzanillo) as it’s great for swimming.

The town is filled with hills and secret stairways. I can see the major grocery store from my place, but it is down two massive hills, up a hill, then some stairs, and then another hill. There is basically a mote in between. They need some aerial cable cars around here! The area around my place is filled with geckos and iguanas and crabs and a million birds. There are even chickens in the trees like you see in Hawaii. It’s wild!

My favorite creature is the crocodile who lives in the lagoon by Playa Principal. The locals call him Alberto. He is very shy and I’ve only seen him a few times. It still freaks me out to see local dogs swimming in the lagoon, but Alberto is too small to eat a dog. More likely Alberto should be afraid of the dogs, and he is. Oh, by the way, there are lots of dogs around here too. Most are nice and will stop by for a friendly skritch or two, but some are not. And some are puppies that haven’t learned not to be mouthy and jump up. I lost the edge of a shirt to one of those while he was playing around. I’m not a toy, buddy!

Wrap it up

My condo has been amazing and strange all at the same time. The views are incredible with The Pacific Ocean in back (I saw so many whales over the winter!) and all the mountains in the front. Laundry is a bit of a pain. I load everything into bags and hike downhill and then up again to get to the lavandería. There it’s 50 pesos (US$2.50) for 4 kilograms of clothing in the small self-service washer. Forty minutes later, I hike all my wet clothes downhill and back up again to dry everything on lines strung across my balcony. So… no doing laundry when it’s raining!

In spite of the lack of aerial cable cars, the town is lovely with lots of public transport such as busses and colectivos. It’s very safe here, except for the sidewalks. No joke. Legitimately scary, with holes and rebar and random steps and obstacles for your noggin. No texting and walking around here, that’s for sure. It’s safer to walk in the streets but watch out for motos because they drive in whatever direction they want.

The Pacific Ocean can be very aggressive at times, and several people have drowned or been lost to the rip currents this year. Swimming in the bioluminescence lagoon can also be dangerous because of crocodiles. A lady got attacked recently while on an unlicensed tour with a guide who was unfamiliar with the crocodiles in the mangroves. Oh, yah, don’t go on unlicensed tours, FYI. Instead, go visit Gina in the info booth by Playa Principal. She has all the details for everything and knows everyone!

I’m excited to see all my friends and family in Seattle, but I’m sad to leave all my new friends in Puerto. But mosquito season is ramping up, so I won’t miss that! Luckily, I was able to get a new fancy Dengue vaccine while in Colombia. One fewer tropical disease I have to worry about. Snorkeling has gotten tough with all the hurricanes passing by, stirring up the sand, but I’m still swimming with the fishes for a couple more days. What an adventure!