11/21/2006

If participants didn't know what a Tope is. They know after today. They come in several colors and sometimes stripes, sometimes they are camouflaged. We ran over several hundred today, but you can't kill them. They can do a job on you and your truck, however.
 
We left Acapulco about 7 am and headed down a nice highway along the coast. At the beginning there were several hotels and condo projects, but they gave way to many miles of undeveloped beach ocean front. As we headed inland the foliage became lush green punctuated by beautiful wild flowers of all colors. A times it felt like we were driving along with a green wall on each side of us. We traveled along the coastal plain with mountains to the east of us. When we entered the State of Oaxaca we encountered some areas of rolling hills and ranch land. Many times during the day we crossed small rivers headed to the sea. The banks were loaded with coconut palms and some had small villages we called Tommy Bahama villages. We also saw a number of honey bee hives. Although we didn57;t see any orchards, we assume that there we some around. We drove to the little village of Chacahua. There we took a boat ride into the Chacahua National Park for an hour and spotted all kinds of bird life, including pelicans, egrets, hawks, vultures, cranes and a lot of others that we didn't know the names. Although we didn't see any, our guide told us that there were crocodiles around, as well, but he said they don't eat people, only fish. Riiiiight!.
 

Coconut Milk Cows

We had a great lunch of fresh fish and mussels with fresh cut French fries. As we headed back to the main road we noticed many coconuts that had fallen on to the road and were happy one didn't fall on our windshield. We did learn how they get coconut milk here. I bet you thought coconut milk comes from coconuts. Wrong! Here they graze their milk cows under the coconut palms and when they get hit on the head with a coconut: Poof  coconut milk, True! As we traveled the road back to the main road a funny looking horse galloped right in front of our truck. Leejun was able to get a picture of it, which is attached. Along the road we also passed a lot of irrigated farm land. As we headed nearer to our over night stay in Huatulco we noticed very rugged mountains to our east and figured that's where we will be headed tomorrow. As we came into town we passed a car that was surrounded by armed police. Leejun said that the driver had a hand gun. We got by there pretty quickly. You may remember that we detoured around the City of Oaxaca because of the civil unrest there, but we are in Oaxaca State right now. We had a great day! We are headed right now to have an Oriental Barbeque on the beach at our over night stay Camino Real Zaashila Hotel.

Jim and Leejun

Funny horse we saw today!!!!

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