To the Beach - Oaxaca style

No, that isn't a photo of us; it is Yoli and Victor our traveling companions enjoying the beach below our house.

Here we are.
We rented a casa on the Costa Chica of Oaxaca near Huatulco. I had to look it up on a map, too.
If you want to see where it really is, try Google Earth or Google Maps and search Salchi, Mexico. Lots of tiny beaches carved into miles of rocky cliffs. Our community turned out to be about a dozen homes owned and developed by Canadians down 8 km of really rough dirt road.

We have spent the last 5 days exploring the nearby communities of Puerto Angel and Huatulco, eating fresh fish under grass roof palapas on the sand.

One day we drove about 1 1/2 hours to some incredible waterfalls at Llano Grande, a working coffee plantation run out of the original hacienda buildings. I would love to have had Melissa's camera skills to capture the the over 40 waterfalls we could swim under but the light on the water was too much for my point and shoot.

Another day we took a small boat out of Puerto Angel to snorkel and look for whales but only succeeded in seeing beautiful swimming turtles and some ideal nearly deserted snorkel beaches. I wasn't disappointed about the whales because nothing will ever top the experience we had in 2001 in Bahia Magdalena, Baja, out of the tiny town of Puerto Lopez Mateos. We spent over an hour with a mother and calf literally under out boat. The mother lifted her calf to be petted; it was an otherworldly exeprience. I took this photo of the baby at another boat right next to us.
Another day we took an even smaller boat to see crocs. There is a lagoon right behind the behind the beach with dark black water due to the iron in the sand. We cruised in among the mangroves and saw several of these big guys and lots of birds and iguana.
Ultimately, though, it has been a trip about sitting in hammocks. I found this chair hammock in a "hammock factory" overlooking the beach. I liked this one but they didn't actually sell it; it was there for them to enjoy.
This one on our terrace was where we all spent a lot of time, Oaxaca style.