Death in the Pipeline!

So after a few surprisingly good days in Acapulco we headed for another beach destination, Puerto Escondido. Unlike last time there were no problems getting out of our hotel to go and catch the bus and we were soon on our way. Once again it felt great to be travelling with the locals on public transport and not driving, however, this feeling diminished slightly when 1 hour into our 8 hour journey the air con packed up. No problem, I thought, we were speeding along and although it was 32c we could just open the roof vents and all would be fine. This was not what the driver and his mate decided should be done though. They suddenly became air con repair men and with their professional tool kit (a very large hammer!) they managed to also break the air circulation and simultaneously blow all of the electrics on the bus. We heard one of them shouting fire as we dragged our belongings off the bus and onto the side of the road! We then had to wait for several hours on the roadside in the baking heat until a replacement bus came to pick us up. Luckily though refreshments were on hand in the form of some blokes harvesting mangoes from trees on the side of the road. They took pity on the bus load of people and started throwing fresh mangoes down to us, nice!

The rest of the journey went with out any problems, apart from the fact it ended a lot later then we had planned and we again had nowhere to sleep! We managed to find a beach shack that was on top of a bar that only had 3 solid walls and deciding this would do set out for a night on the town.

The main reason for our visit to Puerto Escondido was for the beach, well actually, it was for what happens at the beach. This place is famous for the MEXICAN PIPELINE (as usual no sound, so I said that in a kind of boxing master of ceremonies voice. You know like.... and in the red corner weighing in at several thousand tonnes of water and over 20ft tall, please show your appreciation for the one, the only....... MEXICAN PIPELINE!!!!!!!!) Sorry, errr, anyway, the Mexican pipeline is what they call the huge breaking waves that crash along the shore in a kind of pipe, which means that you can surf for longer and faster across the wave as it breaks. When I say huge, they regularly get over 20ft high and several days before we got there some guy got killed when his surf board smashed into his face and made a very nasty mess. In addition to this the rip in the water is so strong that you are not allowed to swim in the water, you can only surf and bodyboard (i.e. if you are not attached to something that floats you WILL die!). So with this in mind and the waves only being a meagre 10ft high what else was there to do but hire a surf board and go surfing (I did check my health insurance before entering the water, don´t worry).

What followed was several days of being smashed about, getting chewed up, being half drowned, swallowing more sea water then possible, losing several sets of contact lenses a day and most of all lots of great surfing! Oh.. I did manage to break 2 of my toes in the process, but they seem fine now!

In addition to the great surfing we also found some time to chill out in the beach bars, swing in the hammocks and enjoy lots and lots of very, very cheap cervesa. I think that this need for relaxing may have been because we were so exhausted from our sea based activities during the day (that´s our excuse anyway!).