It’s a nice and sunny day in San Diego, like it is more or less all the other 364 days of the year. We reach down the Gaslamp quarter to stop for some pancakes and stuffed french toast and some fresh coffee. The downtown area looks very neat and comfortable. Very few cars around, chilled atmosphere as well even if here in California it looks like nobody cares about Easter, so it’s a normal working day.
So we start our walk down to the marina where we pass the statue of the Unconditional Surrender close to the USS Midway museum.
And so we made our way to Oaxaca airport relatively early in the morning, we checked in our backpacks and went for coffee. We fly with Volaris, which has very new and comfortable planes, which was good, in particular when we discovered that the flight was a bit more than 4 hours. Mexico is really HUGE! The change of the landscape is really impressive: starting with the mountains around the Oaxaca Valley, all covered in green vegetation, after about one hour the Northern territories begin, a vast, predominantly mountainous desert on the side of the Sierra Madre, with a cactus here and there, but hardly any other greenery. As we approach Tijuana we fly along Baja California which looks really empty and dry, then some smaller canyons begin, and follow all the way to the biggest and busiest border city between Mexico and the United States. After picking up our luggage we get a bus ticket to San Diego which will bring us across the border in the easiest way. After just 20 min we arrive at the gates and are in line with other buses to be inspected for drugs, so the drivers need to open the bus’ panels, show the engine box and so on. On the side of the many lanes road there is a infinite queue of people: on one side those who can freely transit between the two countries (the fast lane) and those who need to apply for a permit (the slow lane). We are told that if we need a permit we need to get in line there.
After 2 great days in Puerto Angel we decided to move on towards Huatulco, which would put us in a better place to catch a bus back to Oaxaca. So we spend the morning at the beach outside our hotel, having breakfast and some renfresco planning to get to Pochutla after lunch, the closest bus terminal. While we are there we were repeatedly asked where we were going next; well first it sounded like out of curiosity, but after many times hearing “my friend has a taxi, he’ll bring you there”, we figured they were looking to earn some “commission”. One guy even said there are NO buses to Huatulco, so we must take (his friend’s) taxi. We declined again but the taxi driver arrived after a few minutes anyway, and we had to say no to him too. So we got pissed off and decided to not feed this corruption and instead pick a taxi to the bus terminal on our own. That meant only one thing: take our bags in the middle of the day, in 40 degrees, cross the beach to the rocks and climb the hill from Playa de Pantheon to town. So we did.