Acid Toes

For the past two months I've had an annoying problem with cracked and sore skin between my toes. It comes and goes and even almost disappeared for good after a week at Zipolite during Semana Santa so I'm thinking the problem starts from the heat and my choice of footwear. Zipolite has softer sand than any of the beaches here in Huatulco but more importantly, I'm bare foot most of the time there. Here at school, I'm wearing shoes and they get pretty swampy by the end of the day. I'm making it a point to take them off in the classroom now but I usually forget.

I'm fairly zen with the heat down here. It doesn't really bother me that much but I sweat an incredible amount. Lunch hour is from one o'clock to four. I change from the shirt and tie to shorts, short sleeved shirt and sneakers for the ride back and forth on my bike. The ride back in the afternoon is the hottest. Best to avoid carrying anything on the back for that trip. I don't sweat too much until I reach the school and then, as soon as I drink my my first half liter of water, it all gushes out my pores like a cartoon character shot full of bullet holes. Every inch of me is slick. My clothes are saturated. A quick washdown in the bathroom, a change of clothes and I'm ready to go. For all that, I don't think I even smell that horrendous. A minimum of three cold showers a day goes a long way.

Every time I have one of those full body sweats, I think of all the toxins that must be being purged. Here's hoping that will give me an extra edge of protection against this potential pandemic of swine flu.

I first heard about it from Mike last Friday. I was giving exams last Thursday and Friday and I was suddenly more aware of how many of my students were sniffly with colds. This is not unexpected. Lots of students get sick around exam time. They stay up late trying to catch up on everything at the 11th hour. Their immune systems drop and little flus circulate everywhere. But Friday, after hearing the news from Mike, I noticed every little cough, especially how many of them used their exam papers to cover their big fat wet sneezes.

Once all the exams are finished, the pressure is on to get them all marked and the grades passed in to the head office so I took them all home with me on the weekend. And never touched them. I watched movies and went to the beach instead. Which is fine because that will give all the sneezes of death a chance to dry up and die. And the pressure is off as well. Students have been sent home all over the country. UMAR just got the word today. This could be for a long time. I can take my time. I'm just glad the exams are finished and we can all have a fresh start when we get back. Until further word, teachers and support staff will remain on the job but it's a much safer job for everyone now that the crowds of students aren't around. Here's hoping all of our students return safely, happy and healthy.


I finally made it to one of the prime beaches for seclusion last Sunday, Playa Violin. I've heard good things about it from others before and even went looking for it one day but failed. This time my friends were there ahead of me and their scooters marked the trail. It's a well hidden place that not too many people know about.

The trail is a bit steep and slippery with that fine mountain sand that turns into wrestling mud at the first drop of rain. Definitely inaccessible in the rainy season. There is an official park sign on the shore but no indication of anything by the road. It's one of the beaches that gets most of its traffic from charter tour boats and lucky locals such as ourselves.

When I first arrived, there were only my friends there, splashing and tossing a frisbee, like it was our private beach. We had the place to ourselves for hours. I looked around for some obvious reson for the name of the place, like a musical curve to the shore but there wasn't anything like that. A cave on the left, beyond where it would be wise to swim, gets a big wave now and again and spits it back out harder that it went in. Matt thinks it might make a musical note under certain current and wind conditions. We'll see. This won't be our last trip there.



Not much else to say. We did the expected: swam; snorkeled; maintained our intake of fluids and took lots of underwater pictures. That doesn't mean a ton of those pictures turned out. It's hard to even tell if the camera is turned on sometimes. I kept diving to take a video of these manta rays and people were diving to provide a bit of motion but the camera was set to compact mode and everything came out like an old vhs tape printed from an overexposed print.




Alright. Just got the word. We've all been released from work (with pay) until at least the sixth of May. It seems the Mexican government is taking this health situation very seriously. But don't worry about this kid. I lived through SARS in Toronto and I'll be sweating like crazy every time I get on my bike.
Adios. Good health to all

All Laptops Go to Heaven

Life is rather sweet on the south Pacific coast of Mexico but little inconveniences will come up. My old Toshiba is almost dead. It's on life support for now. I can take it to the beach and run it on battery power and not worry too much about little sand storms or opportunistic thieves for that matter. No more real harm can be done. That poor little dinosaur served me well for three years of hard use in five different countries from Canada to Mexico, to Korea, to Thailand, back to Korea, back to Mexico, on to Guatemala and back again to its final resting place in Huatulco. If it could be fixed, I'd take care of it out of sentimentality but it can't be and it's an impractical idea. I now have a shiny new Hewlett Packard with 320 GB and more gadgets than I'll ever find time to master. There's a webcam so I could potentially talk to someone on the screen like the Jetsons. Jet packs must be just around the corner. I spotted this model at Telmex here in Huatulco for 14,399 pesos, one and a half month's pay. I can only withdraw so much in a day here so I waited almost two weeks to buy it. When I got back to the store, the price had mysteriously risen to 17,899. All prices and specs were still posted on the screens just like the first time except for the one I showed interest in. The saleswoman did s lot of typing on the computer and gave me a sheet with the new price. The smell of rat was strong and I walked away. The only thing left to do was to take a trip to Oaxaca City where I found the same model at the price I remembered. It's a 12 hour trip so there went my weekend. I got into town just nicely after dawn. With about 18,000 pesos in my wallet, I considered taking a cab for the short walk to the zocalo but the first cab driver demanded 100 pesos (it should be 20) and I thought getting into a car with anyone that larcenous would defeat the purpose of playing safe so I ended up walking. Mission accomplished, I had a lot of time to kill before the next bus back. There weren't any day buses for some reason. Oaxaca was beautiful as always. I spotted this intriguing building with my university logo on a plaque. It was locked up pretty tight. I wonder what the connection is. Been meaning to ask someone. I read a book in the park until the sun went down and camped out at the bus station. Strange places, bus stations. I could hardly keep my eyes open. Some drunk guy sitting across me walked over and sat right beside me. I'll never know what he was on about. Played with his cellphone a bit, apparently having problems and then muttered at me in Spanish and showed me a list of women's names. I shrugged. "no habla..." That usually gets me off the hook with dubious pesky strangers but not always. He kept pesking and I kept shrugging. Eventually he left. Another sketchy guy outside stuck his hand out for a handshake he didn't get and tried to convince me we'd met in some place I'd never heard of. I gave him no encouragement. I think I've filled my quota for scammy strangers for a while. So now, I have this great new toy with a gimmicky fingerprint scan, saving me an entire two seconds of typing in a code.

Playa Conejos

Life in Huatulco may be ideal but it doesn't always offer interesting blog material. There is a danger that this blog will become a never ending catalogue of pretty beaches. Great for me and probably boring for readers.

Today's beach is Conejos, a favorite for a lot of UMAR people because it still hasn't suffered from any major development. That's all going to change soon enough and there is a need to enjoy it while it remains what can never be improved on, an uncommercialized stretch of sand and ocean.

Above is a view of Tangolunda, home to the mega-inclusive hotels of Huatulco, from a roadside pullover stop. At this point, I have only another 6 high steep hills on my journey.

I started out with two liters of water and almost finished the trip with an empty bottle. My bladder didn't feel a thing. At times, I couldn't see for the sweat pouring into my eyes. Eventually I asked myself the question "Are you trying to get to the beach or be a dead hero?" and hopped off to walk the bike up the final hill.


I was here back in 2001 or 2002 and all there was was a derelict shack serving beer. Now there's a nice shiny shack serving drinks and grilled fish. You might be tempted to think this paradise will last forever. Not so fast. Look up at the hills. The trees have all been cleared. Major hotel development is on the way. We have to enjoy it today.

I haven't worked out the details of whether this is Playa Conejos or Bahia de Conejos. There is another cove, good for snorkeling, just around the bend through a short trail and another smaller cove beyond that. They may each have separate names under the Bahia heading. Details. However it works, any taxi driver will take you there if you say "Conejos" or if you're lucky enough to have a ten-speed or a scooter like my friends, just follow that road past Tangolunda and keep your eye open for a trash can, a park sign and a few cars and scooters pulled over on the roadside. Walk through the trail, listen for the iguanas and salamanders rustling through the dry leaves and get wet.

Playa Entrega

The Detour: After a solid Saturday of snoozing, I needed to exert myself a bit. Santa Cruz was too close for a good stretch. I rode my bike to Playa Entrega for the maiden trip of my fancy new mask and snorkel kit. It´s hillier than I remembered. William, Jasmine and myself started to hike there last September and waved down a cab after dragging ourselves up the first hill. After that, it wasn´t so bad. I´d forgotten how, from that point on, the trip becomes even steeper. Next time I´ll use the shortcut. The road has been designed to keep traffic moving in a loop. I bypassed the wrong way exit and ended up putting at least another half kilometer on my trip. Not much until you realize it´s almost all straight up hill. The reward for obeying the signs is a panoramic view by a lighthouse, a complete bonus as it´s off the main route on a flattish side road and a welcome rest stop for a cyclist. The Drop: After all that climbing, the last piece of road to the beach is an extreme drop. It´s another good reason to take that detour. The brakes haven´t broken on my bike yet. They will. Everything does. I just started home from school one night and my chain fell apart. That has never happened to me before. Most of the trip is downhill so I coasted most of the way and made a pitstop at the bike shop. The young mechanic from Chiapas had it fixed in two minutes. No one there speaks English but we understood each other and all agreed that the derailleur would probably go next. As I faced down that hill, I wondered about the odds of both brake cables breaking at the same time. The Beach: Entrega may well be the best snorkeling beach of Huatulco. Lots to see. I could have reached out and touched or swum right through a huge school of yellowtail tuna. A channel leads straight around the bend to a smaller isolated beach. There were a lot of us out there in the water, everyone so captivated by the world below there was an inclination to bump into each other once in a while. Some man said "Sorry. Sorry" when his little girl, on this cute little boogie board with a window to peer down through, bumped into me. Naturally, I forgave. I was just as likely the guilty party as anyone. He pointed out the cave I´d heard about and recommended a closer peek but I was feeling the chill and inclined to warm myself again on the sand. That will be good for another weekend. Oh. Here comes another one right now. 30 minutes to go.

Iguana Games

Occasionally, I spend my three hour lunch break at UMAR on campus. Not too many people around. It gets very quiet at these hours. That´s when the wildlife comes out to frolic. Huge iguanas start stamping around the Idiomas office building.

There were two iguanas separated by the divide of trees on the concrete walk between Idiomas and Auto Accesso, one female; the other male. I came up pretty close with my camera and backed right off when the male started stomping toward me.

Later, in my very best Spanish, I asked a lady if these beasts can attack and she assured me they never do. Of course, there might have been a translation problem. According to an English teaching colleague, I might have asked "Can I attack the iguanas?" and was forbidden from doing so.



The male iguana, Iggy, was looking for some tangible affection from his lady, Isabella, but she felt entitled to more wooing than a few demanding summonses. Isabella climbed a tree and disappeared over the roof of Idiomas. Iggy kept calling out for five minutes before he surrendered to her feminine rules and started the slow chase, stopping for breath halfway up the tree and trying his luck with more love calls. Isabella could have been in downtown Crucecita by the time he caught up with her at that rate. I´m still betting he got what he was after before the sun went down, in his slow persistent way.

Whoa! What a Weekend

A three day weekend goes too quickly, even when it's action-packed. It all began with a farewell gathering for Thor at some bar. Best of luck, Thor. Our loss, some other country's gain.
I wasn't feeling action-packed myself so I made an early goodnight.

Good thing too. Mike arrived from Miahuatlan bright and early as promised and before we could organize ourselves for the beach, he landed an excellent apartment just by being at the right place at the right time. My apartment complex manager showed up with a friend in need of a tenant for a very deluxe place behind the bus station; two stories; circular staircase, two bathrooms and a verandah. Talk about synchronicity.
Just look at what Mike got!



Thanks to William and Matthew for making the boat cruise a reality last Sunday. Without them, this great plan would have continued to be just talk.





It all started with a trek through the steep grounds of Hotel ??? down to a small private beach in Santa Cruz.

From there to Playa India, a perfect little tropical cove that sees few crowds as it's inaccessible by land, for swimming and snorkeling in crystal waters.

William and I dangled fishing lines off the back of the boat. I'm sure I caught one but I should have landed it while I could. I let it fight. Before we knew it our lines were tangled, probably from my catch fighting for its life. We lost it.




A park sign warned of dangerous currents but really, some old nanny must have posted it. I did feel myself being dragged a bit into the shallow end of the coral reef but it was no big deal pulling back. Mike didn't get quite as much warning and only by grabbing on to the ledge with both hands managed to save himself from being turned into shark chum. He still didn't get off completely free











The last highlight of the day was a stopover at Playa Calculata, where one of the scenes from "Y Tu Maman Tambien" was filmed. We leaped off the boat for a splash in the deep and a roll in the sand.




While nothing like fine art, there are a couple of Youtube vids to commemorate the experience. You had to be there.

Third beach day in a row was to Playa Conejos or rather the even lesser known bay through a short trail to the east. No pictures. Conejos and Playa No Name have become favorites of the UMAR faculty as the days for these largely untouched beaches are numbered. Landscaping has already begun across the highway and too soon this will be another Tangolunda with sparse access and no refreshments available to visitors without wristbands. It was always inevitable. I remember seeing a billboard offering the land for sale to developers back in 2001. But I believe the sanctity of India and Calculuta will be respected forever.

And then play time was suddenly over. Mike was on his way to catch a bus faster than I could say "Hey, do you have my little white lighter?" That's alright. I know it was an accident.