One Month of Travel

Today marks one month of travel. My previous life seems like it’s a million miles away and it’s hard for me to imagine that I ever sat behind a desk staring at a computer screen all day. I’m preparing to leave Puerto Escondido and most likely cross into Guatemala within the next week. I bought my ticket this afternoon for a 12 hour bus ride to San Cristobal de las Casas which is usually the last stop in Mexico if traveling South. I’ve decided to forgo traveling the Yucatan. Traveling there is a trip all to itself and I’m anxious to cross into Guatemala.

It’s been a busy week in Puerto Escondido between surfing, reading, getting sick, starting to study Spanish and Mexico’s Independence Day. I finished my surfing lessons on Thursday and was anxious to hit some waves yesterday. Unfortunately my stomach had other ideas so I did a whole lot of nothing yesterday. There is a storm somewhere off the coast so the waves today are massive. Day 2 of no surfing. I’m not sure how much extra surfing I’ll get in before I leave but there will be other coasts to see in my future.

This past week also marked Mexico’s Indpendence Day celebrating 200 years of independence from Spain. Mexico, true to party form, actually starts celebrating it’s Indpendence Day the night before and this year’s party was especially huge. On September 15 the Zocalo of Puerto Escondido was packed with people. Large stages were set-up for bands. Men were shooting fireworks off from roof tops using large cannons. Also true to the stereo type people were walking around wearing huge sombrero’s and large, fake, black handlebar mustaches. Corona and tequila were being served up everywhere.

Tomorrow I think a group of us will hire a boat to do some deep sea fishing. Hopefully that means there will be fresh caught fish on the menu for dinner tomorrow night.