Mexico. Part 2: How it all started

 We had big plans. A week in Zipolite, by the beach then renting a motorbike and going up the mountains all the way to Oaxaca City. 

So we spent two days in Mexico City and then flew to Huatulco, from where we took a cab (privado - you don't save that much on the colectivo and it's more comfortable) to Zipolite. 

Our first encounter with CAMP. As slightly mentioned in "Part 1", CAMP is this magical, quite unique lodging. You don't go there for the luxury. You go for the high chance of meeting wonderful people. If you look it up on Airbnb, you'll notice it has many "terms&conditions" in place. They're quite strict about them and once you meet Anthony, the owner, and he explains the concept, then it all seems like common sense: you're only respecting the nature. 

We were lucky, on our first stay there, to have met an incredible group of guests: an American from Austin, a Belgian lady who gave yoga lessons, an Australian living in Amsterdam, a Polish chick later on and the glue of this party, Anthony, the New Yorker owner (as my companion said, "don't hold this against him, he's very chill"). There were others, of course, but the smoking corner became like the "welcome committee" to all the others.

After a couple of days of doing nothing but going to the beach, eating tacos, doing yoga and having a very, very long morning coffee with the others, we decided to extend our stay by 2 days. Then by a week. The others, who had been staying there for months, were not surprised and actually warned us that it will happen.

 There went our motorbike trip and bye bye Oaxaca City. Nice to meet you peacefulness, spirituality, yoga, cacao ritual, extatic dancing and big whale in the ocean!! And the most beautiful, exciting and sought after moment of the day: the sunset. Seeing that magical ball of fire swiftly sinking into the ocean was out of this world! 

The village is not big and still has an original Mexican vibe to it. Little shops everywhere on the main street and plenty of restaurants for all tastes. It's quaint. People are super friendly and they take your "telenovela Spanish" for granted. I can say for a fact that my Spanish is a hundred times better than my German after 6 years in Austria 🤭 

There's (some foreign) investment and luckily, they all do their best to preserve the nature and stick to the local architectural design. Otherwise they would be kicked out by the community. 

Dusty roads take you to the sea or to the centre. Which reminded me of my grandparents' village, 30 years ago, and how unacceptable this would be now there. It's funny how we would still be considered just "poor", yet here it's called being one with the nature... 

To be continued...

P.S. No more AI tool this time, as you probably guessed:)

Stay safe!