Day 10 - To Puerto Escondido

After our birding outing yesterday, Bob and I went to the beach at Cerro Largo to see the sunset.  Curiously, because of the lay of the land, standing on the shore one has to look to the left to see the sun over the water and in the morning look right to watch the sun rise also over the water of the Pacific Ocean.  This evening the golden light made the beach, the cliffs and the water magical.  I looked back over the hillside cliff we had walked down and had trouble locating the palm thatched roofs of our cabanas.  Cerro Largo is tucked away so it is one with nature, truly an eco-lodge.  Over the days we were there, I found myself becoming one with Cerro Largo and its beautiful natural setting.  I loved our wall-less cabana with its view out to the ocean.  I loved the delicious vegetarian food, especially the Huevos Rancheros for breakfast.  I came to really enjoy the “shower” with the gourd water scoop and the tepid water that felt so good pouring over my skin and of course, the birds were great.  It was a really unique and lovely place to stay.

The next morning after birding and breakfast, we departed to drive 1 1/2 hours north to Puerto Escondido.  Our hotel was old, very well kept.  With its pink painted walls, two swimming pools and lush palm trees and ferns, it looked to me like something from S. Florida in the 1930’s.  There were lots of geriatric Americans around.  Our room was large with a hammock stretched right across the middle of it and a king size bed too.  After a late lunch and a rest, we departed for a late afternoon visit to Rio Colotepec, a nearby estuary, to see the water birds.  We parked at the end of a long dirt road at the edge of a wide sandy beach and hiked maybe a 1/3 mile through the deep sand to the river bank.  There, we watched all the multitudes of waders, ducks, and terns crowding on to a sand bank in the river coming and going.  I especially liked watching the ruddy egret, a tall gangling bird  flopping around in what seemed to me a dance to some inner music.  It moved back and forth opening and closing its wings and lifting and shuffling its feet to stir up food in the shallow water.  We shared the space with Mexican families swimming and just hanging out.  A flurry of snowy egrets began shuffling their feet and waving their wings, scooping them down to the water herding fish to shore exhibiting communal cooperative behavior with little blue and tricolor herons helping out.  As the sun began to set, we walked back, returning by the ocean where one of our group spotted two kinds of plovers just hanging out on the berms of sand.  Our long shadows amused us so in our happiness and comfort with each other we assumed silly positions to take photos of our extra long shadows.  We trudged back to the van in the golden light of the day’s end.  We watched the birds flit in and out of the scrubby trees near our van on their way to roost in the trees or the nearby cattail marsh.  I loved large scissor tail flycatcher, who long tail feathers crossed sitting at the top of a tree bathed in golden light.  It was a memorable time at the beach

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