Our Weekend Getaway to Puerto Escondido: July 12th-14th

     The weekend of the 12th-14th was our free weekend. Groups in the past had made their free weekend into a beach weekend so we decided to wanted to do the same. The week before we worked to plan out everything like transportation and where we were going to stay at the beach. We went to a town on the Pacific coast called Puerto Escondido, the most famous surfing spot in Mexico. With the actual distance that the coast is from the city, it would look to only take about 2 hours to get there. However you have to go all through the mountains so instead it took 6 and a half hours to get there and 8 and a half hours when we came home on Sunday.
     We left Friday afternoon after our class with Dr. G. We rented a van that picked us up right outside of SURCO. We all took dramamine before the ride because we were warned by everyone that it was going to be a rough ride and it sure was, constantly making sharp turns back and forth on very windy roads with no guard rails and you would be right on the edge at times. It seemed normal for them and that's really how everyone was driving. Thankfully when we came home on Sunday night our driver went very slow because it was dark and raining.
     It was wonderful to be able to see water, being such a beach girl at home I was starting to miss the ocean and the sand. We stayed at a beautiful hotel for very cheap where we got 2 suites that we split up and stayed in. All of us students went so it was really fun.

The beautiful pool at our hotel.

     Our hotel was right near the beach. We woke up Saturday morning and went and watched a local surf competition. The water was so blue and warm but not to safe. The currents and pull are very strong there and the waves are huge so in most places there are signs not to swim. Then towards the center of town there are smaller beaches which are safer to swim at. We just relaxed on the beach all day and enjoyed our nice pool since we couldn't really swim in the ocean.

Gorgeous beaches.

One of the surfers in the competition.

Enjoying some fresh coconut water on the beach.

   

Some of us all dressed up to go explore the nightlife.

    We spent the whole day at the beach and the pool just hanging out. It was nice to get some sun and go swimming. It was crazy to think how far away we were from the city yet we were still in the same state of Oaxaca. Sunday we woke up and it was a little rainy so we just hung out around the hotel for a little and then went into town and got some brunch. After that about 7 of us decided to take a boat tour. Our captain took us out and we saw dolphins and were able to jump in and swim in the middle of the Pacific, with life jackets of course. One part of the ride we didn't like was the turtles. They told us we would see turtles but we did not know how. All of this boats work together to help find these large turtles. Once one captain finds one he will keep it up on his boat until he sees another boat and passes it along. These poor turtles were being passed from boat to boat. We said what was going on would definitely be illegal in the US. The turtle our captain was passes and brought on our boat was bleeding and had a hernia on its fin. Most of us were disgusted and didn't like it at all so we told the captain to put it back in the water and that we didn't want to see it. He then took us on a tour and showed us the shoreline and where all of the tourists, mainly Americans go and build million dollar homes.

     After our tour some people went into town to do some shopping and some of us girls stayed on the beach for a little bit and went on a banana boat ride. We then headed back to our hotel to go back in the pool and get ready to head home. Our van picked us up at our hotel around 6 and we got home around 1:30 in the morning. We were all exhausted but the fun weekend in the sun was all worth it.

 - Lindsay