Last full week in Oaxaca!
This last week included some incredible, interesting, educating, but most of all, eye-opening experiences. We spent a week at San Agustinillo, a beach on the Pacific Ocean, and that was super fun. Spending time at the beach made me a lot more excited for all of the other beaches that we are going to visit on this trip in Kenya, Greece, and Spain. During our time in San Agustinillo we ate some delicious food, took a boat ride far out into the Pacific Ocean, and visited a crocodile and turtle preserve. After spending a week there, instead of driving all the way back to Oaxaca City in one day, we stopped half-way and stayed at a nice little cabin in the cloud forest on top of the mountains. It was a super nice place, the food was great, and we were surrounded by beautiful nature (though a bit scary because of the giant spiders in our cabin).
I loved spending an entire week out on the Pacific (but not west) coast of Mexico. The Oaxaca beaches face south! I enjoyed all of the scenic beaches, pounding waves, delicious food, and incredible wildlife. We spent so much time playing in the waves, reading on the beach, and doing schoolwork outside our little cabaña in the 90 degree heat. It was just a magical experience overall, and it really reminded me of how much I love going to the beach.
An experience that I certainly will never forget, and will alway think of when I think of our time in San Agustinillo, is taking a boat out into the Pacific Ocean with the hopes of seeing some marine animals. And marine animals we saw! Within 15 minutes of setting sail, we spotted a whale. We followed it around for a little while, which was an incredible thing to see; the whale spurting big geysers of water and just floating around. We then went a little bit farther out into the ocean, and the captain said we were looking for dolphins, which I was really excited about. I have only seen dolphins in the wild once before in my life, in Hawaii while on a snorkeling trip, so I thought that it would be super neat to see them again. When we eventually found some dolphins, it was incredible! There must have been at least thirty of the small gray mammals in the pod. They were jumping out of the water, doing all sorts of acrobatic spins and flips, and playing with the boat. I was just sitting in the boat watching the dolphins when the captain tossed me a pair of goggles and told me to jump in! I went as quick as I could, so I didn’t miss the dolphins, and hopped right off the boat and into the Pacific Ocean. The first thing I did when I got in the water was look straight down under me, and I couldn’t see anything. I could tell that the bottom of the ocean was far below me, but the thing that I noticed the most when I put my head under was the sound. I was surrounded by all of the squeals and clicks that were coming from the dolphins that were swimming around me. As soon as I heard them, I looked around wildly to find where they were, but that didn’t take long since there were so many, and they were all surrounding me. It was certainly a magical experience to see all of these amazing animals right next to me, out in the wild. Another amazing thing that we saw on this boat ride were turtles. There was one that was near where we were swimming, but the coolest thing was when we saw one on our way back to the shore with a bird riding on its back! They were both just floating there, which was super cool.
One thing that we did this week that helped us learn a lot about the ecosystems in Mexico was visiting a crocodile reserve. What was really interesting about this place was that after the Mexican government refused to provide funding for the protection of this lagoon and its plant and animal life, the people living in the surrounding community, realizing that this was a special place, banded together to make a reserve out of the lagoon and island in the middle. After walking a couple of minutes through a really cool town from the place where you buy your tickets to a dock on the lagoon, we hopped in a boat, which was just a little wooden canoe, with a tour guide and one other family. We spotted a crocodile lurking in the water almost as soon as we pulled out. As we did a lap around the small lagoon we saw many more crocs, some crazy looking and crazy sounding birds, white and red mangrove trees, a lot of turtles, and some iguanas. We then landed on the island in the lagoon and followed the tour guide over to where there was a cage. They kept some of the injured crocodiles in cages, so we got to see some. They also had a bunch of baby goats, so they gave us some vegetables and we got to feed them from our hands! We took the boat back to the shore, where we learned that we would be able to help release baby turtles into the ocean. Of course we took this once in a lifetime opportunity, and walked over to the beach. There was an expert there, and we learned a lot about the turtles. Did you know, once they are 16, turtles will come back to the beach on which they were born to lay their eggs? The way that they find the exact same beach is using their necks, which actually are magnetic to the very specific minerals at this beach. We had to carry the turtles around in half coconuts until the birds in the area all flew away. Eventually, we released them onto the beach and stood back and watched them get taken by the waves. It was hard to believe that they were only one day old. I learned so much about so many different kinds of animals that day.
We are now in Oaxaca, and we are all super glad that we get to spend another week in this beautiful city. We are excited to explore more parts of the city, and learn more new things. We are scheduled to do a walking tour this week, so I think that that will be a super good chance to learn something from an expert on the city of Oaxaca. Sadly, this will be our final week in Oaxaca. We are flying out of Friday to Mexico City to stay there for a couple of days, which will hopefully be pretty cool. Overall, this last week was incredible, and I look forward to all of the upcoming weeks and months on this amazing journey.
