Pluma Hidalgo

http://youtu.be/MVHqsO5OxY0 Some pictures from a day trip I made to Pluma Hidalgo with my friend, David.
First scenic stop before the climb.



The sunshine didn't last long.



This lovely waterfall is about halfway on the journey.


We made it.


It's a very clean and environmentally responsible town.


It's such a nice place but after living in Huatulco a few years, I couldn't take that cold refreshing mist for more than one day.









It would have been a crime to have gone all that way without grabbing some of their yummy organic coffee.

On the road again.

My motorcycle gang

A lot of people may think this blog has been abandoned forever. Not true. In fact, I feel the urge to upload peictures even though they're far from current.

These are from a scooter excursion my friend David arranged at school for teachers and students months ago, a nice little day trip to Rio Copalita and back.



It's hard to get everyone in one shot. Someone has to hold the camera.



Half of these pictures are courteous of Omar, the man in the front.


It must have been raining in the hills to make the water so brown. I've passed over that bridge in the background quite often and the water has been crystal clear. Lots of people head down there to cool off and relax without the need to worry about treacherous ocean currents.

Motofest 2010

Some fun things were happening in our town last weekend but some bad directions steered me the wrong way. Worse, I passed on those same directions on to other people. I missed the Motofest rock concert on Friday evening and almost the helmet awareness ride.

It seems to have been a wild Saturday night. One friend had lost the battery to his scooter earlier in the week. Another had the lock stolen to his. When I got ready for the ride early Sunday morning, my speedometer and license plates were missing. They were there. I just couldn´t see them. Somebody had sprayed them with black paint. Worse, the freaks sprayed a neighbor´s shiny truck.



There were no bikes gathered in the square when I arrived. Oh well. I was awake. It was a beautiful fresh morning. I gassed up for a nice ride on my own and that´s how I came across the Helmet Awareness Ride, more or less by accident. Somebody gave me a fresh T-shirt and we were on our way. It was a longer ride than last year. We circled through town twice, making a lot of noise. That´s how my friend found us. Luckily his girlfriend brought her camera along. Mine was broken.



I bought a new one right after the ride. Within minutes I ran into a pack of UMAR students down at Chahue. My first picture with the new Samsung. May it have better luck than all the cameras before it.

Respect for rain and potholes.

We had an impressive rainfall on the last week before vacation. Those of us who hadn’t packed a change of clothes spent a wet afternoon in the office. I hadn’t realized how intense it could be. The walkway from my apartment to the parking lot was deeper than my shoes.

It was beautiful and sunny again by next morning, only two days remaining before vacation. As is too often the case, I left for work at the last possible minute, a bad habit I picked up not long after buying the Italika. It’s always an exciting race against the clock, full speed ahead, maneuvering strategically into the fastest lanes, passing all the sensible drivers; butterflies and other insects pinging and pocking off my visor. Thank God I bought that helmet. I didn’t get far.

The rain had ripped open enormous potholes everywhere. The one that sprang out at the lip of a hill and ended my ride might as well have been an open manhole. I hit it hard at 70 kmh. I wasn’t thrown off the bike but the rear tire went kaboom. Pushing that machine off the road was a struggle. In my head I was still racing the clock. I could grab a taxi and return for it at lunch hour. Reality sank in when I glanced at my watch. I was officially late and a day’s pay was gone. There were no classes. If I had to miss a day, I couldn’t have chosen a more convenient time for me and everyone else.

The scooter had been overdue for a tune-up for at least a month. I kept putting it off because I ride that scooter every day and I never like being without it even for a short while, especially since the same (presumably) thieves who took the front wheel of my bike came back and took the seat. That problem has since been solved by putting a lock on a metal gate but closing the barn door after the fact has left me without backup transport.


Damages to local roads have been so extensive that repairs are still underway and probably will be for quite some time. Remember that when driving around Huatulco and surrounding areas. Keep your eyes open.

Licensed to Drive

Notice anything different?

My scooter has a license plate! There's even a card with my picture on it that says the Mexican government doesn't have any issues about me driving on their roads. I feel so grownup.

Very few people were driving with plates back in 2009 but they've become quite popular since the day the police parked three big trucks on a highway exit and confiscated 50 or more scooters within 2 hours last December. One of our teachers was unfortunate enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and had to pay to get his back. We all took our lesson from him. I couldn't take care of it right away. The license office was a crazy moshpit for 2 weeks and I couldn't navigate through that much of a frenzy with no Spanish on my lunch break. I rode around very cautiously until then, steering far from places that might make strategic road block locations.

I even have a helmet now. Took me a while to find it. The Dynamo shop carries them. I think they're moving quickly. There is a rumour circulating that, after plates and licenses, the next law to be enforced will be helmets. That's "casco" in Spanish.

So far it's a love-hate relationship. It's true they improve visibility because the shield keeps hornets and mosquitos from smashing into my face and tears no longer stream down my face from the wind on the fast lane back and forth to school. I've learned that ducking my head a bit keeps the wind from lifting it off my head.

Hearing is also improved. I suppose that's a plus. It means I can no longer listen to my MP3 player blasting rock 'n' roll in my ear. I was hoping bud ear phones would do the trick but the helmet flattens my ears when I put it on. I have to straighten them out again once it's on. Without a helmet or headphones, all a driver can hear is the roar of the wind in his ears.

The helmet came with an excellent bonus, a motorcycle girlie calendar. I thought that was so classic. The girls are pretty enough in their artificial way although a couple have had enough surgery done to make their original gender questionable and all of them look kind of cheap and high risk for STDs. They're nobody's muse . I just loved the sheer campiness of it. Classic garage. I stuck it up in my office without thinking and it probably would have stayed there if my more politically sensitive room mate hadn't tampered with it while I was in class.


Trust me. She's nothing special. She looks like the sort of girl who favors pot-bellied rednecks or the guy with the most coke in his pocket.

I thought the vandalism was hilarious but he made his point. This is Mexico and people just aren't as uptight about such things as home but this is a university and probably not the best place for it. I took it down. Now I have it pinned to my bathroom door. It's priceless.

And so are our heads. Helmets take getting used to but they're worth it. Everybody should wear one.

Epic Weekend

Everyone at UMAR enjoyed a 3 day weekend at the end of last October. You can pack a lot of fun into three days. Everyone had fun stories to share when they returned. This is mine.
Typically I don't accomplish much on Saturday. I putter around the apartment, drink tons of coffee, add something to this blog, read comics, do laundry and the day just disappears. I might not have stepped out for an adventure if I hadn't blown all the power in my apartment when I hit the bathroom light switch.
I've no idea why this hadn't happened sooner.

I couldn't fix it. The wiring is too scary. The administrator was away for the weekend as well so I left a note in my very best Spanish with illustrations to fill in the gaps of vocabulary and grammar.
That was enough to put me in motion. Sunday morning, given the choice of hanging out with no fan or cold beverages, I hit the road on the Italika to Puerto Escondido, a place I haven't seen since 2003. Great ride under the big sky. The only hairy time I had was when a big transport came barrelling down behind on a a sharp steep curvaceous hill. I didn't have an inch of roadside to pull over and he couldn't have stopped if he'd wanted to so I sped off ahead, taking the turns much faster than I thought possible.

It's about a 3 hour drive total. Once you pass Pochutla, the road straightens out, drivers have more visibility and there is a lot less speeding. As you get closer, you see the construction underway for a double split highway and by the time you hit the beach town, some of it is already complete. It's about a tank of gas one way. I filled up by the airport, drove all the way to the beach town, navigated my way around unfamiliar streets and by the time I filled up again, I still had a 1/4 tank.

The town has certainly grown since I was there last. From a distance, it looks like a metropolis.

I found a good restaurant that I remembered, Cafecitos, ordered my breakfast and a blast from the past stepped off the street. It was Fernando from Miahuatlan, a former UNSIS student, now working with banks on the sunny coast. Fernando had already finished the English programme when I first met him so he was never my student but he was the first student I met in that town as his father runs the Benito Juarez restaurant downtown, where I had my first Miahuatlan coffee and, as the English speaking member of the family, he came out to take my order.


Fernando made my day easy. When I asked if he knew of an affordable hotel, he did. Just down the street a few doors is Papaya Surf. Nice accomodations for 200 pesos. You won't get a deal like that in Huatulco.


Neither of us suffered from plans or commitments so we took a crocodile tour from a town on the outskirts. Laguna del Nar We rode the scooter into town and Fernanado made the arrangement with a guide who took us in a truck. Look up "lagunas" and "crocodiles" on tomzap and there are a few. I suspect this one wasn't mentioned. It just seemed a tad off the beaten track.
Our guides couldn't get the rusty gate lock open so we just crawled under the fence and walked through the coconut garden.

The wharf didn't inspire any confidence but I took a walk on it anyways because I can be stupid. Falling through means more trouble than getting wet. Crocodiles will devour you in big chunks while you scream in pain.




Fernando had taken this tour before and seen plenty of crocs. One had swum right up to the boat and swept underneath. Nothing as dramatic as that happened this time but we saw plenty of them from a safe distance. They could have been swarming under our little boat for all we knew. Everything stays well hidden in that murky water. It makes it so much easier for the crocodiles to sneak up on resting pelicans. Once in a while we'd hear a big commotion from the shoreline trees and birds would take off in a hurry.


Our guides took us to the nearby beach afterwards. The laguna is only separated from the Pacific Ocean by a thin patch of jungle. The water is brown from the water pouring in from the nearby river. Lots of locals use the place for fishing.

I believe turtles were hatching in this protected enclosure.

Great tour. The man to look for is named Adolpho. He's the guy on my right with the hat. I forget his friend's name.

Fernando and I split up after the big adventure. The day was youngish so I went for a splash at Playa Carrizalillo on the opposite end of town from Zicatela. It has been such a long time. It took a while to find it but I knew I was finally on the right track when I saw the Shalom Hostel where I remembered it. The painted surfboard pointing to the parking lot didn't hurt either.

Excellent beach for swimming.

I love the dramatic concrete staircase.


The sun was going down and the swimmers were silhouetted against the waves so I assumed the two happy youngsters waving from the water were directing their attention to somebody else but they stepped into focus and, holy smokes, it was two of my students. Sometimes Oaxaca feels like a small place but it isn't. It's big and wonderful with tons of cool stuff to see.