Goodbye Laguna Chacuaha

We are sad already to be leaving this place...but after 12 glorious days on the beach, it is time to say GoodBye

Adios, and down the coast we go

Laguna Chacahua

 Its been nothing but beach for about 10 days now. Amar and I are celebrating an island holiday in Laguna Chacauha. We got lucky and found out about this hidden gem of a beach on the Oaxacan coastline. There are very few people, undeveloped beach for miles, hammoks every where and some pretty darn good fresh fish.

This place is so secluded, you have to take a boat ride through a network of water passages to get there.

 

Wildlife everywhere...birds, fishies, crabs... All kinds of stuff to see.

 Our little Cabaña

This is what christmas looks like here in Laguna Chacahua. This morning we laid out on the beach and pretty much just worked on our tans.  

We´ve been happy and healthy, enjoying the heck out of Mexico-

 

View from our place on the beach.

Required mosquito net

 We´ve been making friends all over Mexico, this was our first day on the island

 Island mascot Soncho

 Amar swam in the ocean...

a little arts and crafts on Christmas Eve...

Oh and we hung chritmas lights on our cabaña, it reminds me of those Corana holiday commercials.

Huge chritmas eve feast with the people we´ve made friends with on the island. Amar fire roasted a bunch of delicious vegetables, friends contributed so much good fresh out of the water fish, and mezcal...num num... what a night.

a lot of laying on hammocks and spontanious naps

1 or two of these everyday, the Paloma. We shall never forget you. Its lime, mezcal and Fresca, who know this would be such a delicious combo!

I´m going out for a dip in the ocean... Merry Chritmas everyone from Gil and Amar!

And a happy new year too.

From the Laguna

Eventful Week.

In Oaxaca, fried crickets are a favortite snack food. You can get them anywhere.

 These are probably best suited to a fish food enthusiast. They were limey, fishy.

 A hop, skimp, jump and 50 pesos to get us over to Mezcal Country, east of Oaxaca City. This is the first place we stopped, ate some mole and got a tour of the place. Fine Mezcal.

 They had all these cute animals hanging around. Peacocks, funny little pigs I´ve never seen before, turkeys... 

This little guy was something like a foxcoon..

¨Mezcal Capital¨ They are very proud of this product. Its kinda like tequila, but with a smokey finish.

 Made with the heart of the Agave Plant...

 But woe! It started to look a lot like mexico when we began finding spiders and scorpians feasting on a cockroach.. Amar went into town today to get raid.

Otherwise, things are sailing smoothly. We just got to Laguna Chacahua on the pacific coast and we´re settling in for Christmas. By good fortune, someone recommened this beach, which is something of a well-kept-secret. Just a few beachside cabanas with palm roofs, A few hammocks, and a brilliant blue ocean.

This is our cabaña, and I´m sure there is a scorpian in there.

All for now. 

Except, that I wanted to say that this short blog is in memory of my recently passed grandpa, 

who I will miss very much. -Gil

San Miguel de Allende

we just arrived in Oaxaca after spending some time in San Miguel De Allende. Imagine colorful clay buildings, colonial cobblestone streets, smiling faces and street food on every corner. Deeeelishhhh

The main church, just around the corner from where we stayed, looked better everytime you saw it. Amar drank fresh pressed orange juice outside...

 Oh, and tried (with much success) to make homemade torillas... I know they we´re good because I ate a ton of them and an authentic mexican woman (named Rosa) said they were muy bueno... the tortillas were eaten, the mezcal was drunk... the times were had.

 Fireworks here proceed without caution. Hah, and so does the abundant use of styrofoam - they use styrofoam, along with plastic bags, for most things! this is not San Fran.

We literally had flying burning ambers beings shot directly towards us.

Look closely, its spells AVE MARIA

 I heard there was a karaoke bar nearby, and of course...

 and the people quickly became friends. here we are at La Cucaracha, the bar that was visited in the famous Jack Kerouac novel... tequila tastes good here.

Awe, I already miss these guys. and oh girls, if you´re reading this... You know that piece of paper everyone wrote their emails on so we could keep in contact? yea, we lost it. So email us.. and we´ll solve that little issue.

 I saw this wall and I had to light up a cigarette in front of it. Yea, I smoke cigarettes here because its acceptable. you can smoke in most bars, its pretty great.

The people of San Miguel have a talent for throwing parties and festivals. They also have a talent for finding any reason to throw one.

Superb

The Pyramids of San Juan Teotihuacan

The place where the Gods were born

We paid a visit to what is said to be among the most important ruins in the world. An ancient civilization that was the epicenter of culture and commerce for Mesoamerica. They say the inhabitants mysteriously dissapeared around 700 A.D., but we have our own speculations about what happened...

Here is whats left of a once great civilization. 1.5 square miles of broken stone, steep pryamids and ancient artifacs. Nobody knows for sure what lead to the decline of the population and as we explored the lay of the land today, then answer came to us like a smack in the face:

There had been no cantina here!

In search for a cold, frosty one, they fled...

I seached (hard)...

Amar searched...

We looked high...

but no cocktail servers...ANYWHERE

The only one gettin faded here are the ancient hieroglyphs!

All of these party goers were pretty bummed, with their empty party cups in their hands,

shouting, "Wheres the keg!"

And this raised a valid question, Where is the keg, mayans?

I'da fled too...

Our visit with The Lady of Guadalupe

The Basilica occupies the site where, on December 9, 1531, a poor indian named Juan Diego repeatedly saw a vision of a beautiful lady in a blue mantle.

The local bishop, Zumarraga, was reluctant to confirm that Juan Diego had indeed seen the Virgin Mary, so he asked the peasant for evidence. Juan Diego saw the vision a second time, on December 12, and when he asked the Virgin for proof, she instructed him to collect the roses that began blooming in the rocky soil at her feet. He gathered the flowers in his cloak, the Virgin carefully arranged them, and Juan Diego returned to the bishop.When he unfolded his cloak, the flowers dropped to the ground and the image of the Virgin was miraculously emblazoned on the rough-hewn cloth.

The bishop immediately ordered the building of a church on the spot,

and upon its completion, the cloth with the Virgin's image was hung in  a place of honor, framed in gold. 

Since that time, millions of the devout and the curious have come to view the miraculous image that experts are at a loss to explain.

So heavy was the flow of visitors--many approaching for hundreds of yards on their knees--that the old church, already fragile and insufficient to handle them, was replaced with an audacious new Basilica. 

The miracle cloth now hang behind bulletproof glass above the altar of the new Basilica.