Puerto Escondido, June 21st - 27th, 2010

Monday finds Tom up at 7am. For everyone who knows Tom, no, there was not a nuclear explosion that launched him from the bed! It is surf day. Jim knocks on the door and off they go as I snuggle back down for another half hour or so. By the time they get back, Winston and I have had a walk and I my morning coffee. The waves were great. Both men are excited and talking of their experiences - Tom on a boogie board and Jim, surfing. Also, they had ran into Pat (of Rick and Pat fame) so they will drop be later. We puttered around the rest of the day, met Pat & Rick and arranged to have dinner on Thursday night. The days are spent lazily. Tom with Jim get up and surf, we take care of chores and..oh, there is a hurricane out in the gulf. Darby! Due to make landfall in Salina Cruz, about 80 mile south from here. Every night the winds are ferocious, the thunder blastingly loud, the lightening brilliant and crackling and the rain torrential. We can't decide if it's the incoming storm or whether this is just the normal weather pattern. As our time here progresses, we decide it's the latter. The rains and stormy weather are nightly. Sometimes at dusk for only a couple of hours and at others all night long. But the days are sunny and bright and humid. Tom has some good days on the water and some turbulent high surf days. As he says "Some days you're the bug and some days the windshield!" There are a couple of mornings he has come back beaten up and can only nap for a few hours. On Thursday, Jeanne is in possesion of our new Ereader. We arrange to have it shipped to Huatulco as w found out, the DHL in Puerto closed about 3 months ago. Our plan had been to move down the coast to Zipolite Beach and Puerto Angel. On Saturday, Jim with his girl friend Jeannette drove us to Zipolite to check out the beach and camp grounds. We didn't like it! The beach town is like a dirty, leftover hippy beach and neither Tom nor I thought it was worth a visit. We decide that we will stay in Puerto until the DHL package arrives. Coming back to town, Jim and Jeannette take us to a favourite beach spot of theirs. Really secluded with some pretty, rocky coves that are nice to laze in the water and swim. Winston loved it. He ran through the water and played and then retired to a shady spot by a rock to watch us in the water. Sunday, we met Rick, Pat and some friends at the Hotel Jardin Real and a restaurant/bar called Split Coconuts. We had a blast. Tom even got to play harmonica on stage with the resident musician. We did not leave until 1am. This has been our latest night out yet, but so much fun.