View Cogs watch in a larger map

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Surf's up, in a really big way!


A friend of mine who’d been to Puerto Escondido on Mexico’s Pacific coast had told me that unless I was into surfing, there wasn’t much else to do besides chill out over a Corona on the beach. Sounded good to me. What we soon found out was that if you’re not into surfing, you shouldn’t really be into swimming either, if you want to enjoy Puerto Escondido at this time of year. This is mainly because you’d need flippers and a tail if you want any chance of surviving in surf that size, at least that was how this little city girl felt. On top of the surf situation we had the rain situation, which made sun baking or visiting Puerto’s calmer surrounding beaches a little difficult.

So what did we do in the five days we were there? Well that’s a good question. Let’s see, there were a fair few beers consumed, as predicted, at the ‘Osa Mariposa’ hostel where we got right into the creative vegetarian menu – ever tried carrot and coconut soup? It's good. One afternoon was spent under a threatening sky on the beach, watching the trials for a Quicksilver pro-surfing competition, all the while searching for Kelly Slater, but alas, not finding him (does he even surf anymore?). We did make the most of the surfer infested nightlife one night, and enjoyed the company of a couple of Scandinavians who’d been knocked out in the first round and were intent on spending the rest of their time posing as Ben Affleck’s security guards ("Ben Affleck" being an unfortunate Dutch look-alike). They did manage to score some free shots at the bar for "Ben" and his posse, so perhaps the Dutchman wasn't so unfortunate after all.



So when I look back on Puerto Escondido it was a nice enough place for a non-surfer to relax, but it’s probably a better idea that the non-surfer avoid the rainy season. By day five we’d watched a little too much ‘Sex in the City’ and ‘Dexter’ episodes while cooped up in our hostel room. We were itching to get outdoors in Mexico City where the forecast for the week ahead was sun, sun, sun!

No comments: