Well, gang, we are still here and still loving it. This entry is by Mike which is rare these days. We are just coming out of our mini summer busy season at the school and the tourists from Mexico City are starting to return to their middle class urban lives. Things have pretty much been the same with me. The weekly jam has slowed but still going, work has been more than expected, not surfing enough, staying off liquor because of Mescal, playing drums here and there outside of the jam with various people, keeping thin and not really eating meat besides seafood, and watching sunsets at our beach bar "Bar Aqui." My friend Jason has returned to Oaxaca for a month of travel. He was here in May and just had to return for a slowing of his daily pace. He brought a couple of friends from Austin with him this time, one being a girl we worked with at Guero's. The couple left after 10 days, they were cool and didn't mind us sucking up their cable tv and a/c. Looks like I will be in Austin for Halloween so get excited y'all. Karlie has travel and study plans in Chiapas, Guatemala, and Mexico City for Oct. and part of Nov.
The big news in Puerto lately is that the Oaxacan Governor, Ruiz, has decided to pump money into this pueblo of 60,000 making it more like Cancun or Acapulco. This isn't the first time that they have laid out big plans here and we'll just have to wait and see where all the $ ends up. They are going to totally renovate the 2 main tourist areas, the Adoquin and Zicatela. The first is the original mexican part and the latter is the last 20 years of sparwl into the main surfing area that now caters to international surfers and backpackers. Close to home, literally right in our driveway, they are widening the highway. As you may expect, if you have been following this blog, there are differences in the way things are done here. The rainy season is the wrong time to do it but they got the 4 million US$ to do it and its on. So they took the curb out, have no drainage plan nor plans for a retaining wall, and the school could have been washed away by all the water coming from the huge hill across the highway. We were out of power for a week (just us and the neighbors), no water for nearly a week. We had water to wash our hands and flush, but not enough pressure to shower. But Ah ha, we had friends here with a room that had hot water. We didn't have to use buckets of water from our cement tank reserve this time, the water was fixed again and it came in on Tues. like usual. Like many things, you just roll with it.
In other news.....we are finished working at the school at the end of the month. It has been a lot of work and really great but we feel the time for a change has come. It's a bit earlier than we thought a few months ago but the slow season is here and the extra time to relax, surf, and travel around the area some will be good. We are still going to be down here for the next 2 months. We scored a really nice place to stay on the other side of town for cheap. It's a total upgrade and walking distance to Playa Carrizalillo, our beginner (that's still us here at the mexican pipeline) surf break and sweet swimming beach. We'll be living where a lot of gringos/foreigners with $ live so it will be different. There are a few restaurants over there we like and the bike shop that I hang at as well. We'll no longer be able to walk to our favorite beach bar over here so an excuse to bike over will work. Well, hope everyone's enjoying all the election coverage. When we figure out where to live and what to do we'll let y'all know. Right now SF and Portland are the places we are considering on the west coast, maybe Seattle still. More later.....
