Full House

Two days ago, everyone who was staying here had went off to their homes, and I spent a day in Puerto in seclusion, feeling almost as if I had my own house. As someone who has never lived alone, this was an exciting feeling, because it felt like a taste of what I may have to look forward to sometime in my future. Making food, with my speaker bumping, I sang along to whatever song came on, anywhere from Journey to Destroy Lonely. Moving on to spend my time working on various projects on my laptop, I waited for the intensity of the sun to diminish. Once the sun was far enough along on its path, I visited one of my favorite beaches here which is Playa Coral, and spent the evening here. It had been almost a week since I had been in the ocean, and the moment I entered the water I remembered why I came to spend 3 months in a beach town. Something about being surrounded by water, and being able to move your body so freely in the water is truly something that I don’t ever see myself getting tired of. I happened to strike up conversation with someone on my walk home, who is visiting from another part of Mexico, near Mexico City. More and more, it feels like I am starting to get to know a good amount of people here, and am settling in, with more connections. Here and there I walk by someone who I now recognize and we wave, and go on with our days. Or on the beach, I see a familiar vendor, who brings muffins and croissants that are super tasty, and we catch up with each other, and sometimes I’ll buy a muffin from him.

Today, the house is once again full, now with a couple from other areas of Mexico, and then a lady as well from England who is traveling, and teaching English remotely. Meeting all of the new guests, it makes me realize I have been in Mexico for a decent amount of time now, and the rest of the trip will be over before I know it, encouraging me to make the most out of each day I’m here. I thought that this was everyone staying at the house, but then the owners who live in the city of Oaxaca arrived and I got to meet them and thank them for having this place available for me to rent. All of these guests are staying for the next week, which means I will spend the rest of my time in this location with this group, and they are all very kind and friendly. As I was setting out for the beach today, the daughter of the owners who comes and goes and makes sure the house is attended to, invited me to eat dinner with her, her husband, and her parents. I of course accepted, and was excited to return to a traditional meal in Oaxaca, tlayudas which are somewhat similar to a pizza, but with different ingredients, and a deep history that I had previously been educated on by the other daughter of the owners when she visited. I had already tried tlayudas from restaurants, but never homemade.

Taking the colectivo over to Zicatela, I then walked over to La Punta, which is on the far side of Zicatela, and has good waves for beginner surfing. These waves are sometimes a bit odd, and I found myself sitting and waiting for the right wave for a lot of my rental time. I am beginning to see that a large part of surfing is just sitting out there on a surfboard, but this is actually quite nice. When I first started surfing, I would try to catch every single wave, and tire myself out very quickly, while also missing a good amount of the waves. This was either because they were not waves worth going after, or many times because I was not positioning myself well to ride them and didn’t know what I was doing. Now however, I am learning to be more patient, and sit there until a wave comes that I am more confident will be a good one, and then I can use that energy that I preserved to give it my full effort. Surfing like this, I find myself having a much higher success rate, catching most of the waves that I try for, and getting more enjoyment out of the overall experience. I also got the opportunity to meet some people while in the water, from Europe who were fairly beginner surfers similar to me. It is a very nice place to meet people, and we were rooting each other on to catch each wave, and ride it out as far as we were able. The waves at this time were crashing pretty close to the shore, so toward the end you just have to bail off the back of the wave. I think that if you are staying a long time in a surf town, I would recommend renting or buying both a moped as well as a surfboard long-term, because renting day to day is quite expensive if you plan on surfing often.

After eating tlayudas with my host family of sorts, I was very pleased to say the least. I was also able to watch some of the process throughout the day, and see that this is not a quick meal to prepare. A good part of the day, my hosts spent blending the black beans, till they had the consistency of a thick liquid like a nectar or a smoothie, and then heating them later. They pulled apart the stringy Oaxacan cheese, which is known as quesillo, which is apparently entirely different than just Oaxacan cheese. This is because it is unpasteurized. The “tortilla” of the tlayuda, which is actually itself called a tlayuda, is essentially a large tortilla made in a special way, so that it is firm, but also not too crispy, and it acts somewhat like a pizza crust. This is its own unique process, and so with all of this in mind, I was very thankful to be invited to dinner and get to share this experience with these lovely people. Unlike back home, practically all of the salsas they use are homemade, and they craft so many of the recipes right there in front of you the day of use. I would like to implement some of these habits into my personal life. Speaking with the owners, who don’t speak hardly any English, I was forced to practice my Spanish with them. They thankfully were very patient, and helped explain certain things, and slowed down their speech to help me better understand more of what they were saying. I must say though I was relying heavily on their daughter to graciously translate anything which I wasn’t understanding. They then offered me a “postre” or dessert, after the meal, which I am having trouble remembering what the name of the dessert was. This was a delicious mix of rice, milk, cinnamon, garbanzo beans, and a few other ingredients I believe, homemade as well. It was something like a rice pudding, with candied garbanzo beans mixed in afterward. Very tasty!

Once again, I feel that I am experiencing such a great opportunity, and am so thankful to be able to meet all of these new people, and feel so welcomed by them all. There are times when I am out in public, and I believe people have made jokes about me in one way or another, and had a laugh right in front of me about something I didn’t understand, but this has only happened a few times. It is also very possible that I have misread these situations. After all, I didn’t understand what they said, and I may have just assumed that was going on. Regardless of this, for the vast majority of my experiences here in Mexico, I feel that I have had many people be very welcoming, and very friendly to me, and I am beyond thankful for that matter. I believe there are many life lessons to return home with, with one of the very most important ones being to be kind and welcoming to everyone you are able to. Thank you all for reading. :)