Page 11: - No Return Ticket - Just a Ride Report /w Pics - From the beginning
Puerto Escondido:
Today we are pointing for Puerto Escondido. I know nothing about this place but I think it’s a big surfer destination. Along the way we see a nice looking church as we roll through a small town. Here we stop for some nuts and juice. It’s so easy to just keep riding through all these small towns and villages but we recognize the need to stay nourished and hydrated for staying alert and safe. We have fun practicing speaking Spanish with the people here. Getting close to Puerto Escondido. Nice……. We check out a few hotels in Puerto Escondido before finding one in our price range that had good parking. When we pull into the chosen hotel we see a BMW road bike fully loaded for cruising. Here we meet Dan and Bonnie from Canada. Of course, they are on their way to Panama and are spending the entire winter cruising through Central America. (I can’t believe this!) This is Dan’s 3 rd ride to Panama and he is bubbling over the top with information, anything and everything about biking and destinations. They are both retired and have attended several HorizionsUnlimited travelers meetings and really enjoy being on the road. Bonnie and Dan. I gave Dan crap the first day while he was polishing his bike saying he is as bad as some Harley riders who spend so much time washing their bike. Dan pretended like he didn’t hear me but Bonnie got a good chuckle from it. We all enjoyed several long talks together and look forward to hopefully seeing each other again on the road in Central America. A few pics of Puerto Escondido: 8:00 AM, a fishing boat arrives with its catch. One happy customer. This just seems like a place where beer commercials should be filmed or something. Puerto Escondido is divided into two beaches and what seems like two separate towns. One beach (photo) is more protected and is where all the fishing boats are and is where more Mexican families go. The other beach is exposed to the open Pacific Ocean and is where all the surfers hang out. It’s so distinct, the only thing that separates the two is this small outcropping of rocks in the middle. Our last day in Puerto Escondido Heidi and I went to the surfer side for breakfast. The Pacific swell was big that day. The waves were building up to over ten feet high and all the surfers were a buzz about the event. People were practically racing to the beach with long lens cameras and surf boards. After breakfast Heidi and I walked down to the beach where all the activity was. Surfboards, big dog cameras, ocean jet-skis, babes in itsy bitsy bikinis, people standing around with there thumb and pinky sticking up in the air. It was so cool. The swell was not coming in at a very good angle so the waves would build and break fast, almost all at once. This made it very difficult to catch and ride a wave without getting hammered almost immediately. That’s what the jet-skis were for. This is serious business. The jet-skis would tow a surfer at high speeds into the lip of the chosen wave. The surfer would let go at just the right moment and ride down a huge wave, duck down low while the wave curled into a tube and a second later get smashed when the wave collapsed onto them. Heidi and I were standing on the beach right in front of all the action with our mouths hanging open. It was like watching Wide World of Sports but a hundred times more dramatic. After the surfer would get smashed by the huge wave, out of nowhere the jet-ski would appear running at high speeds straight at the downed surfer. The surfer would grab onto the handholds of a flat raft being towed by the jet-ski. The jet-ski would then gun it’s engine and peel off, towing the surfer away from the next breaking wave that would have crashed right on top of him. This was almost as dramatic as the surfing itself. We couldn’t believe the skill and timing of the jet-ski driver. It was all done with split second timing and if the driver was off by a second or two, both the jet-ski and the surfer would have gotten smashed. I have never seen this before but the surfer wore a life vest and didn’t have a tether line attached to his ankle and the surfboard. The surfboard would eventually just wash its way up on shore. Way Cool……. I wish we had our camera along. Local dwellings less then a block from the tourist area. Puerto Escondido was a lot of fun but Heidi and I are anxious to push on. We are so close to getting out of Mexico we can almost taste it. All the adventure bikers we have met in Mexico have gotten us fired up for what’s ahead. Continued: ---> Page 12 <----
Next we are shooting for the city of Oaxaca, a culture rich and beautiful Mexican city. Sounds like a good way to say goodbye to Mexico.