Mexico Holiday 2024

Hola, Hola everybody. This holiday seasonal was not exactly a white christmas. Sick of the cold and dark north of canada my family decided to diversify our vacations. Unfortunately the whole team did not reunite. Mi hermano was off jetsetting in europe, checking out european stuff and meeting his girlfriends family and runing around spain with his friends. Mi padre, excitingly spent his time in Steinbach, Manitoba visiting his motherland and family. 

So that just left the dregs of the family, Mi madre, mi hermana, yo, y my sisters boyfriend to explore Oaxaca Mexico. Rather then trudge about, my mom got a sweet place in Puerto Escondito for us to use as a home base. After new years my sister left, and me and my mom went to Huatulca to finish our vacation. 

lets friggin dig in now. 

Very first walk, trying to get our bearings, at a mirador. 

I guess i have been getting grubbier and grubbier as the years go on. Our first night we ended up eating at a lowkey gas station kinda style joint (picked by me). I have learned to highten my standerds of living while travleing with my mom... 

Me and my sister got tyludas which would become one of the classic grub down meals. Interestingly the large corn tortilla things are only made in Oaxaca city, so you can't find an authenic tylunda any where too far from the capital city. 

The next day (I think). We geared up for a market day. Navigating through the stalls we got some fresh, fresh, produce to cook up at base camp. 

Getting that sweet, sweet coconut water

*pro tip, make pina coladas with coconut water juice

Some fruits of our labour. I was excited to finally get back into the OG american diet (pre 1500s) of beans, squash and corn. (I guess I also had some chicken and rice which is post 1500s...)

But this meal really made me feel like i was back in Guatemala. 

Here is us chilling at base camp. The pool was awesome, I barely even had to shower the whole trip!

Left, classic huevos rancheros breaky

Logan and solo chilling in the cocina

One highlight of our residence was it's location. A couple minutes from the beach, beside a great corner store with some rural(?) mezcal, a nice steep hill before the town center, and right beside a little path called el seuno possible. 

This path that was supposedly impossible to build is an awesome walk along the rocky coast to reach one of the public beaches. It was a great place to observe the oscillations of that ocean and some sea creatures. 

The seuno is kind of crumbling witch makes it a more exciting walk!

There was actually some climbing bolts on that rock on the righthand photo

Boats, boats, boats. I love the inefficiencies and fuel guzzling capabilities of boats. I really wonder how people are going to make htese things use a bit less energy. 

But you can't help but love them, being on the water is kinda unbeatable. Throughout our trip we obviously spent time on some boats, we were right on the coast!

A big highlight was a whale tour, many whales where stopping at puerto escondito as they migrated higher up. The whales definitively made this place special. During this early morning tour the sea was plentiful. We saw everything, sea turtles, dolphins (lots of em), whales (plural), sea snakes, and fish and stuff. 

We say two types Two dolphins, pinto and turneao, painter and spinner dolphins respectively. I first I thought it was a joke, but we where able to swim with the dolphins, mega cool experiences seeing all these mammals bolt around you. 

The whales were dope to see, and I felt like I was reliving the good ol' whaling days. Many boats where on the water whether they were fishing, observing, diving and probably other things. And, always in radio communication. Whenever one boat would spot a whale, they would radio the other boats to come see it. And shortly, a whole swarm of boats would be bolting to see the whale. This must be what it felt to hunt whales.  

Dolphin + pelicans 

whale, species, idk

The main activity during this trip was probably beaching. You always needed, a snorkel, towel and book on hand. 

Beaching at unknown beach, snorkeling better then mid  

mom in hammock + sending it

One of the classic-ish spots, el nene.  Be sure to be critical when buying food. The complimentary nacho chimps where bagged  from Chedrahui (basically walmart). This was a fancy er joint btw. 

This also sparked a themed discussing during our trip. Eating sea food. Notoriously the fishing is messing up our oceans. However, does being on the coast make eating fish better (then veg/vegan substitutes) ? Is it local, commercial, detrimental to the ecosystem? Hmmm, idk. gotta be critical. And is sport fishing worth the local income (wild life vs. money [balance?]) for us hippies?

Fish talk was big talk on this trip.

Anyway i ended up getting maki maki twice at this restaurant, it was delicious, and i hope it was local caught n all that good stuff. Interestingly, maki maki was one of those fishes that people went sport fishing for in puerto. 

ok, ok. Another day, another dollar. We rented some scooters, and went down highway 200 to another town known for beautiful beaches and tourists that don't wear shoes, i forgot the name. 

nice coastline, sol and log, slog?

More of that coastline walk thing. 

Our second outing to el nene, more drinks this time. 

This restaurant did get us hooked on maracuya train aka passion fruit (especially the cocktails) 

Doubling down on pina coladas, maybe daquieries (it's all foggy)

mom and sol

Ok ok, another town, t, Zicatela. Bascially just a lil more party there then puerto. Dope beach as some super crowded surfing. 

Walk along the beach. 

On the coast activities are just so limited (jk). But It we decided to ball a little and go diving. It had been a while for me, pre covid. 

grinding away at paper

In the water. 

The surfing at this smaller beach was fun. But you gotta fight those surf instructors. 

First time surfing, big noob mistake of going shirtless. 

Our definite classic spot in puerto was la lupita. Eventually we figured out that this resturant was locally owned which made it even more baller. But the real kicker was the restaurants happy hour. It provided bomb cocktails at a even more bomb price. Happy hour was two for one, usually ringing in at a cocktail at 100 pesos, 100/12*2, makes out to ~4.25 CAD per rejuvenating cocktail.  

El smth and the pina colada 

double trouble, and the owners of the resurant plus us. 

They even gave us all a shot glass ( I swear we didn't go there that often)

random photo, moms trying to get me to make a tinder profile

Below is some shots at one of my personal favorite beaches, sorry I forgot the name of this one too. 

But the spectactle big af waves and a local turltle helping organization kinda made it the spot, plus the beautiful sunseats, oh wait plus the baby and momma whale siting. 

Mom in front of the sea egg-cubator 2000, climate change makes the sand too hot for sea turtle eggs, so that roofs cools it off, and the chicken wire stops predators from getting a feast.,

very serious sunset photo, and some seagull snacks on the right. 

It was tuff to watch but these turtles get desomated by predators, It is important that they fufill there ecological role of being a tasty snack but some of them gotta grow up too. I think the success rate is around 1/1000 (not sure for egg, or hatchling)

  

The final dinner, or maybe chirstmas diner, or maybe new years. unsure (2023AD)

After new years it was just me and my mom! We cruised around Huatulco a beatiful town and national park. We started with a tour in a big ol boat with lots of people around the famous bays of the park, we even saw some wildlife too! After that it was a strict beach only schedule. We cruised on the scooter by day to explore the beaches and would basically go out to eat at night. Not a bad plan at all. We capped off the Huatulco experience with an amazing cooking class.  

First dinner at el sabador (Flavor) some classy oaxacan food, also an open face tyluda(?), right is boat day. 

left me toasting on the boat, left ripping on the scooter. 

Mom crushing a huge breakfast at nixtamal (balling resturant) which means corn in an Mayan language. then right, we downing a maracuya popsicle

Mom at viewpoint

left, someone let us try their roasted plantain

We got to try this plantain because we trudged throw someones farm to get to this secludish beach. The farm owner was dope af. And their worker, left, anwsered all of my moms questions. 

me and mom in the farm.

Now for the grand finale, the cooking class. 

This class intertwined mexicos history, colonialism, revolution, and immigration with the devolpment of the foods commonly eaten in Oaxaca today. 

I was on the top of my game with the history stuff cause i just finished my book that laid a solid foundation to comprehend human history. 

Left, you can see all of our salsa, boiled and charred, tomatios and tomatoes all with ranged chilis!

Right are we whipping up some taco things. 

Corn is a staple across mexico and we learned how nafta de-nutrientized the mexican diet by replacing artisinal, crossbreading, beautiful corn with cheap, sloppy american corn because of the green revolution. 

Not pictured but we traditionaly cooked tortillas on clay plats with lime stone powder on top (to prevent sticking). The tortilla paste is crushed de-hulled kernels. They are soaked in water with lime Na(OH)2 to shed the husk, and then are ready to be tortialized. This is also what mesaca is (the tortilla flour stuff) and it's all from the states!

 

Hibiscus margs n more cooking. 

Then the final breakfast before the plane ride home. 

Mexico was dope, Oaxaca is considered one of the poorer parts of mexico however, this completed skewes an outlookers view. I saw people (lots of indigineous people! ~90% of pop) living life well and proper during my trip.  

P.S. someone text me if they have an old kobo they want to sell.