Puerto Escondido- holidays

3 weeks in a sleepy coastal town on the West Coast of Mexico. 1 VW van named Fred covered in grafitti and the Australian Flag. 1 shared house with 8 Aussie residents and myself. The well-known Mexican Pipeline, famous for some of the heaviest breaking waves around. Isn`t this paradise?

Yes, it was.

When we first arrived in Puerto Escondido, we already had decided that we would be spending a few weeks there- we wanted to spend Christmas and New Years in a familiar town where we were comfortable with the surroundings and already knew some people. We never expected to leave with a family and such epic memories.

The town is a quiet little beach town with a main beach-avenue and not much else. The waves are intense..only those who are experiences surfers, or those who are thrill-seekers will take on the challenge of the Mexican Pipeline. The riptides are so intense that swimming is dangerous and one needs to exercise precaution at all times not to get pulled away with the currents.

Jess has a friend (Az) who we find our first night. As usual, he introduces us to some new friends that he met in the hostel. Before long, we have a posse of 9 crazy Australians, a random Brit, and myself. 2 of the Aussie boys have driven from Vancouver to Mexico in their VW van which we quickly adopt and take advantage of.

The next 2 weeks consist of loading people into Fred, while others are hanging off the back bumper, others out the door, and driving around the surrounding beaches looking for new activities.

The boys are all dedicated surfers and are intent on finding the RipCurl featured Wave of the year...in Barra de La Cruz, which is a few hours south of Puerto Esc.

We load the surfboards, stuff 6 of us into the van and take off south. We have no map, no directions...actually, we literally have nothing except the DVD of the Ripcurl search which is what we use as our naviagtional tool. 4 hours later we arrive to a tiny town. There is only one restaurant and the people are incredibly accomodating. After eating, they allow Jon to set up his hammock at the restuarant while we park the van next-door...Jess and I sleep atop of the combie and Hedge sleeps inside the Van. Az and Tony opt to rent a room. We wake up at sunrise and drive down to beach where the boys spend 2 glorious days filled of surfing the ^dreamwave^.

When we return back to town, the Christmas crowd has started to arrive and sleepy Puerto Esc has been transformed. We decided to drive around and find a quiet beach for the day. Shortly after we arrive at the isolated strip of sand, a young Mexican couple approach us. They take us to a tent nearby where we find that this is a turtle-hatchery. In front of us is over 100 baby sea-turtles that hatched the night before. They are being released that evening into the ocean. Next to us an old Mexican couple who look like they are in their 80`s have been sleeping in these tents for 5 months gathering turtle eggs and preserving them in a hatchery from poachers. They have over 1000 eggs that are ready to hatch this month. What an incredible thing to stumble upon.

As Christmas approaches we have already settled down in the best find of our trip. We found a split house that 6 of us officially sharing, (although we have 2 additional dwellers who sleep on the hammocks onthe roof) We have a heap of friends who we have met that are living in other houses as well. We decide to put on a massive Christmas lunch. We take Fred into town and assign everyone a duty at the market. We come back with 4 kilos of fresh fish, 2 kilos of fresh shrimp, a ton of fresh veggies, fruit, and other goodies.

We invite everyone and wake up at 10am on Christmas day with secret-santas, a full breakfast of fruit, and mimosas and champage flowing. By 2 in the afternoon we have accumulated over 20 people at the house. We spend the entire day lounging around, playing slip-and-slide, and enjoying the good company. It really doesn`t get much better.

We spend the following week recovering and soon enough New Years arrives which is filled with body-painting and more festivities. 3 weeks manages to fly by and before we know it..it`s time to leave our new friends and move on.

Sad goodbyes and always there is the doubt that you will never meet people that are quite so fabulous, but its time to continue the travels and soon enough, we will find a new group that we love oh so much.