Day 36

I have lost track of the days, but I think this is about where we are. We loved San Augustinillo. The beach was great, and both boys adjusted to the waves fortunately. Even Hugo was body surfing by the end and not minding when waves went over his head for a moment. It was a nice beach, though there were small waves near shore, it was very shallow out a long way, with much larger waves very far from shore. The under tow was very mild. The crowd there was nice too, very low key and lots of families. No attitude, and everyone was friendly. There was good food too as there are a lot of European ex-pats living there. It’s a place we would definitely go back to one day.

Although we stopped taking Spanish lessons a while back, we continue to slowly improve, mostly through hearing the same things over and over. Every now and then we have an aha moment when we realize, “oh, that’s what that means!” Or, when we manage to get a fairly complicated thought out of our mouths more or less correctly in Spanish, and understand the response.

While in San Augustinillo we visited Playa Ventanilla lagoon. We took a small guided boat tour through the calm water and mangroves and spotted tons of wildlife: crocodiles, iguana, all kinds of birds—different kinds of egrets, heron. We even saw a boa constrictor. It was very cool. This trip has been great for all of us, but it’s been really neat to see Jasper in his element. He is just beside himself with all the new plants and animals he is seeing, and it’s neat to see that he can identify most things right when he sees them, from all his books about birds, amphibians, reptiles, butterflies, etc. He can spot things we don’t even notice, and constantly lets us know precisely what we’re seeing, a male iguana or a spider crab or a cattle egret. Hugo too has really done well on this trip. He’s been in a fearful phase, but he keeps conquering his fears—of boats, of waves, etc.

One evening we went back to Playa Ventanilla. It is the former site of a turtle slaughterhouse, but now the community is devoted to protecting the turtle population. They help the turtles on shore to lay eggs, then care for the babies before releasing them into the sea. We went one evening watch them be released. We all went to the beach, and a large container full of baby turtles was brought out. Jasper and Hugo were thrilled to learn that they could each hold one, and then let it go so it could find its way to the sea. All the baby turtles made it, and it was incredible to see such tiny little creatures crawl down the beach and swim into the big waves where they will hopefully grow to be very large turtles.

We are now in Puerto Escondido. It is known for surfing and there are huge waves here. It’s been fun to watch the surfers (they are amazing) and the kids are enjoying the hotel pool. Jasper learned to swim under water which is really neat, and Hugo is now trying to keep up and sticking his face in the water and kicking. We saw an enormous bright green lizard today, just walking by the pool area.