On to Puerto Escondido!

We reluctantly said goodbye to Oaxaca city and that great patio, and left on our way to Puerto Escondido, on the Oaxacan coast. We took a tiny plane. You can see my view of the pilot there. Notice the co-pilot seat is empty, finally proving all the bumper stickers true. Did we survive? Find out after the jump

 It's a 35 minute ride, over beautiful mountains. I tried to capture how the rivers would flash silver for a second as we passed over at a certain angle. You can drive to Puerto Escondido, but I guess it take like 7 hours. I read that you pass through a mountain village that is known for magic mushrooms, so perhaps it could be worth it.

 Here's the Playa Caranzalillo. This is the best swimming beach in PE, and our hotel was on top of the cliff overlooking it.

 The hotel has a highly decent restaurant called Espadin. We ate and drank there a lot because the hotel was a little set apart from the town. Here's smiller looking handsome. You can tell they didn't have a good beer selection because he is drinking wine.

Here's the view from our room. I splurged on this room. But it still only cost as much as a mediocre or crappy place in say, Maine or the California coast.

Here's a selfie that proves I take off my sunglasses sometimes but then have sunglass marks on my nose when I do and also I love coconuts. There are various restaurants and palapas on the beach here, and I didn't really eat at any of them so I can't recommend anything especially. We just got snacks and drinks. Ok I did get grilled fish at one and it took at least an hour to come and was super dry..

 After the coconut, comes the after-the-coconut-party. In the form of chili and lime. This is like the lord's own snack

 Puerto Escondido is most famous for the giant rip curl on this one beach (Playa Zicatela) and the surfing thereon. We walked the main surf beach on a really hot day. I regret we did not have enough time to plan to get up early and watch the surfing. I get up early most days in my regular life, so on vacation I really try to avoid it. The surf is known for 20 foot waves on the regular and also for cracking boards in half, sometimes stabbing the boards into the surfer's flesh. It goes without saying that there are beautiful flowers everywhere in Mexico but here are some.

I think PE is a great place to visit for beach lounging. There are a lot of surf burnouts there to add some interest. We also went swimming in a lagoon at night to see the bioluminescence, which I will never forget. You can't capture it on film, though.

 This chicken mole, from the hotel restaurant, changed my view of mole. Mind you I have been to both Puebla and Oaxaca this year, and I was still like "dang, maybe mole is overrated, I don't get it". It's often covering a dry cut of meat and is just ok. This mole was spicier than most and had a depth of flavor that was blowing my dome. Those are plantains on the left, and the sauce was covering several pieces of chicken on the bone, dark and white meat. I FINALLY GET IT.