In Puerto Escondido we found a new home. Well, to be exact, in the little southern cove of La Punta, we found a new home. Puerto Escondido and its main beach Zicatela is a major tourist haven and has earned the reputation of the Mexican Pipeline, with the waves sometimes getting so big that the shops on the beachfront have suffered severe damage. The promenade is lined with fairly pricey shops and cafes, but one does not have to look far to find little pieces of local Mexico. We had been communicating with a lady named Jess via the website workaway.info. It is a database full of people all over the world who open up their homes to people like us in return for a little bit of work. Jess owns a guesthouse next door to her own lovely home and needed some work done on the bungalow in the back yard. We drove over to take a look. The work would be quite different to anything that Hayden was used to. Lifting a tin roof in order to create a useable space underneath would be no small feat, and designing and creating a mosaic bench would be pushing my already lacking creative side. Nevertheless, we took an instant liking to Jess so agreed to get to work. We gathered our things from the campsite, stopping by the beach for a swim – it is the only respite from the wicked heat.
We set up home in one of the guesthouse rooms and tried our best to get used to the humidity. We would begin work by 8am and be sweating by 8:05. Our usual routine was to work until around noon, head to the beach which was basically like a big bath because it was so warm and then visit the Super Chedraui. This is a large Walmart-like supermarket that we affectionately named ‘The Cheddy’. We didn’t just visit it for supplies, in fact we got most of those from the cheap little local markets in La Punta, we visited The Cheddy for one reason only. It has air conditioning. I get the feeling we are not the only tourists who do this. We would wander the aisles for a good 30 minutes and purchase a bottle of bug spray or, if we were feeling extravagant, a block of Brie cheese and some olives and be on our way back to Jess’ to watch the sky darken in the expectation of rain. For days it did not come. It was some consolation that the locals were even complaining. It was rainy season after all, and the thought of an afternoon thunderstorm was almost enough to cool us down. Almost. The days turned into weeks and Hayden was getting real good at using sign language with the Mexican plumber/electrician, Manuel. Jess and Luis took us out for an amazing Oaxacan-style lunch and cooked us bbq fish. I tried to practise my Spanish with their three year old daughter, Gaia, but that mostly consisted of watching Frozen songs in Spanish.
We were soon joined by a lovely British couple, Will and Beth. Will is a painter decorator by trade, so he and Hayden got on swimmingly with the workload. Beth and I became really good at lying in the hammocks, providing the boys with cold drinks and food as necessary. We swam at the divine Carizalillo beach where the waves were a little more appealing to swimmers and enjoyed many fish tacos and sunshine reads. Will and Hayden went fishing, Beth gave me a manicure and we all enjoyed each other’s company. They made me realise how much I was missing a bit of banter…there are far more similarities between Aussies and Brits than there are between Aussies and Americans! Not to even mention our lack of banter with Spanish speakers!
One day the rains finally came. It certainly cooled things down, although the puddles that formed in our room due to the sideways rain were a little unexpected. It was nothing that a few towels and a mop couldn’t fix, so it was business as usual.
Finally, with the bungalow roof lifted, the wooden floor lacquered, the walls painted, the window frames inserted, the kitchen and bathroom tiled and mosaic benches complete we felt we needed to be on the move again. We have certainly had a little slice of paradise and thoroughly enjoyed ‘our home’, but it was time to head for the hills and cool down a little.
