You Can Take A Spaz to the Seaside

Swimming in Playa Carrizalillo is like trying to swim during a laundry wash cycle. That’s what makes it such a good beach for surfing. 

I’m a pretty strong swimmer so I was fine to go further out and bob around and around in the waves with G and F. We noticed we were getting pulled further and further out to sea and decided to swim back in, and that’s when I realized that a sedentary winter of injuries had taken its toll on my endurance. Fighting the current was tiring, really tiring, really really tiring, and we were a long way out in choppy water with no lifeguard. My thinking brain was saying, “don’t worry, you tub of buoyant goo. You can swim and float and swim again and be fine.” But my lizard brain was screaming “YOU’RE GONNA DIE!!” G saw that look flash in my eyes and reaffirmed the thinking brain and I did swim in safe and sound and really annoyed with my melodramatic survival brain.

We sat on the chairs awhile watching people get smacked down by the waves and washed in and out. I couldn’t resist for long and went back in. We bobbed around closer to shore but the waves were violent. At one point the waves crashed over me, knocking me down and dragging me in to shore almost up to our sun beds. I had time to shout hi and bye to N before it dragged me forcefully back out on my stomach. I managed to find my feet but I had been thoroughly exfoliated, my toe felt like mince meat and my bikini bottoms looked and felt like a full diaper. 

When I was done my broken toe was a third larger than it had been when I first went in. I stayed close to the shore for the rest of the day, although the shore kept getting higher and higher as the day went.  A couple of kids in googles, swim shirts and board shorts seemed to have it down. They were hauled back and forth diving into the larger waves and having a blast. One fella just laid down near the shore being pulled under and over the waves and sand being simultaneously sandblasted and water boarded and not seeming to notice. Every so often an older lady or gentleman would sit down on the sand and be surprised when a big wave broke over them and tried to drag them in.

A pool day made sense for the next day considering the ocean had made a couple of us pukey and dizzy. Me less than others, surprisingly. I still had a big ole sore toe.

Much of our area seems devoted to restaurants. And in this area, where there are restaurants there are restaurant dogs. They come in and patiently wait for a pat or a nibble of your dinner. Restauranteurs and diners seem fine with this co-existence. One restaurant has a please don’t feed the dogs sign but we think that may be because the resident dogs are a touch portly. There are also restaurant cats but they have more dignity than to walk over and put a paw or a head on your knee.

L is obsessed with photographing the critters of Puerto Escondido. The gallery in her phone must consist primarily of photos of dogs in the street, photos of dogs in restaurants, photos of her food and then photos of dogs eating her food. Yesterday she almost scored a horse photo but then she tripped over a speed bump and abraided her knee pretty badly. It was messy so G had to go run for big bandages and tape, the woman across the street sent her little son with a package of moist wipes and some unidentified salve, a cab driver stopped to offer a roll of toilet paper and the tattoo shop guy brought out thick paper to clean up all our bloody supplies. People here are very kind.

Our lower limb bad luck continued onto the next day as well when G slipped on water down our curving cement staircase. We were lucky in that it’s an open staircase with no railing and a big metal pointy art object and she contained her spillage to the actual stairs and avoided being punctured. We were able to attend to her quickly and she was able to continue with her day. 

That beach day went much better. For me, anyway. There was a woman offering massages on the beach and she is now my new best friend. Or maybe the guy who sells the rose petal ice cream.