"I strongly suggest you check-out Chacahua. It's beautiful there, with an awesome right-hand point break. The road in is good and it's easy to find......" Noels words echoed in our heads, particularly the bit about the good roads. We had been bumping down a scenic but terribly potholed dirt track for the past hour, taking wild guesses when confronted with unsigned forks in the road. The sun was going down and soon we would be in darkness. 'Never drive at night', our number one rule was close to being broken.
　
We should of known better than to take Noel, the Brazilian Bear Grylls seriously, his idea of a bad road is one that is completely impassable if you can make it over without getting stuck its classed as a good road!
　
Mosquito Infested Paradise
　
When we had just about lost hope of ever finding the village of Chacahua, there it was before us. After some investigation as to where we could camp for the night we found ourselves winding down a narrow (both width and height) sandy track which eventually emerged at a small beach. The beach seemed deserted so we decided to go in search of someone, anyone who could advise us where we could camp and if it was safe. As we opened the doors to the air-conditioned cab we were literally bowled over by the intense heat and attacked by swarms of blood thirsty mosquito's the size of flies. We made a hasty retreat back to the cab to make a decision on what to do. Night was upon us so driving out was not an option, and after the 7 hour drive from Acapulco, including the two hour hell drive on the Chacahua dirt track, all we wanted was somewhere cosy to lay our weary heads. We made the decision to abandon our little sweaty box and booked in at some colourful cabana's we had seen up by the village; at least we could plug in the fan and set up the mossy net.
　
The Parque National Laguna's de Chacahua is a beautiful sanctuary for various bird and marine life, it is made up of coco-palm plantations and mangrove fringed islands. There is a crocodile breeding centre there as the crocodile population has been decimated by hunting in previous years. Chacahua village straddles the channel that connects the west end of Chacahua lagoon to the ocean, we were staying on the lagoon side so we had to hire a panga (fishing boat) to drive us the short distance across to the ocean side. The abundance of fish in the lagoon was obvious on the first morning when we were on our way to the surf-break, fish of different sizes and colours and even a beautiful sting-ray swam within arms reach of our boat.
　
The ocean side of Chacahua village is the perfect place to bliss-out, the beach is lined with brightly coloured cabana's and restaurant palapa's and has a real Afro-Caribbean vibe to it, a reflection on the many descendants of African slaves who escaped the Spanish and made settlements in the area. There is a right-hand point break off a stone jetty which gave Ollie some seriously long rides with only a few people in the water and he even commented how it could be as high as number two on his 'Best of' surf list. First spot was still Rio Nexpa of the CSI fame. With an extremely strong current and waves a little too big for Shay to handle in her surfing infancy, she took to the waves on her body board and enjoyed some fun rides with a few locals in the washing-machine, this was an area of the beach where the currents were criss-crossing all over the place and if you timed it right you got shot up into the air. We spent four days hanging out on this beach until the mosquitos finally drove us out.
　
Air-conditioning, Television and Mexican Pipeline
　
Next stop, Puerto Escondido, was to be the holiday within the holiday; we had already decided that it would be here where we would check ourselves in to a nice hotel with a pool, restaurant and air conditioning. We found a nice, reasonably priced, German run hotel on Zicatela beach, right across the road from the infamous 'Mexican Pipeline'. Unfortunately pipeline was flat when we arrived and forecasted that way for the rest of the week. We had been looking forward to some more big wave entertainment after getting a taste back at Pascuales, however, because the waves were not up to their usual standard, Shay was able to take the opportunity to take on pipeline on her body board, just to say she's surfed 'Pipe'! She was soon to learn that just because it was small, doesn't mean the waves are not powerful and managed to get barrelled and dumped in the hollow waves; much to Ollie's delight! The rest of the week spent in Puerto Escondido was largely spent alternating between the hotel pool and sun lounges, the nearby restaurants and our lovely air-conditioned room with TV. Its shameful to admit just how good it was to be glued to the box after all this time being incommunicado from the outside world.
　
In Puerto Escondido we met a couple of Texans, Ben and Joe, and their crew of 'Chupacabra Hunters'. They had decided to travel as far down south as possible in their Toyota camper van, sourced for $1200 in a police auction. Their mission was to investigate, and search for local mythical creatures and folklore along the way. There crazy trip was being documented on their website www.benandjoe.com, so they had a cameraman and computer geek with them to keep it maintained. They were heading to Mazunte beach and persuaded us to join them.
　
Weirdoes in Paradise
　
Mazunte beach is a well known traveller's hang-out, the kind of place where you can get stuck for months. It has a picturesque sandy beach and crystal clear waters, perfect for swimming. The area attracts many walks of life, from Goths to hippies to people just trying to find themselves. Daily life on the beach of Mazunte consists of a few people meditating, a couple in the lotus position, a group of dread-locked hippies smoking pot and talking of their days in India and a couple of nudists frolicking in the ocean. When we arrived at our beach location we were immediately accepted into the bosom of a little community that had grown in the area and within a day felt like we'd known everyone for years. Head liners in our little group of misfits are;

Ben and Joe: The crazy Texans, when not hunting Chapacubra's they are constantly on the search for free stuff.
Rose: Mexican national whose done time in Hollywood. A 60's flower child, policewomen, masseuse, hairdresser, photographer for National Geographic, you name it she's done it!
Chapacubra Crew: Assisting the Texans in their crazy journey by providing video and web support along the way. Both Mexicans picked up on route, one down to earth and friendly, the other moody and a little spooky.
Don Jerre: The 'boss' of the establishment we are staying at and pretty much the entire beach-front in the area. A lovely Mexican guy who is happy to accommodate us with whatever we need.

And last but not least...

Richard: The hippie in a loincloth from London. He has been travelling around the world, mostly solo, since 2004. Soon to be the 4th travel companion in our journey after Ollie got a little too drunk and invited him along (Shay is never leaving him to his own devices again!).
　
Our original plan was to spend one night in Mazunte then make our way to Barra de la Cruz, another classic point-break, in time for the new south swell which had been forecasted that week. We ended up missing the peak of that swell as we managed to get caught in Mazunte, romanced by the beautiful surrounding area, natural whirl-pools and hippy vibes.

We managed to finally drag ourselves away a couple of days later and drove the two hours south to catch the tail end of the swell. Barra de la Cruz is a tranquil fishing village set about a mile from the beach. With only one road in they are able to close beach access off when they please and charge 20 pesos a head per day. This may sound a little cheeky but the beach is beautiful and clean and the village thriving. With no camping possibilities in the town we booked into some tidy cabana's, there didn't seem to be any mosquito's around but there were tons of massive bugs, some like we've never seen before, we were thankful to have our net up in the evenings as it would be covered in all sorts of creepy crawlies menacingly trying to squeeze themselves through the cracks. We surfed nice, but mediocre waves for a few days before going back to Mazunte to pick up the hippie for the pilgrimage into the highlands of Oaxaca.
　
Trouble in Paradise
　
When we rolled back into Mazunte we were met with a harmonious sight, Rose and Richard (in his loincloth) working together side by side in our posy on the beach. A lot had happened since we'd left. The Texans had moved on and Don Jerre had been taken to hospital with a prostate problem leaving Rose in charge of his establishment. Rose had taken this opportunity to oust the many free-loaders who were taking advantage of Don Jerre's kind nature by swindling him out of beers and loitering on his property. She had definitely stirred up a bit of a hornets nest and made a few enemies in only a couple of days. OK, so not as harmonious as we first thought, and it was about to get worse. Within hours of our arrival the Hippy, who is a big fan of a bit of free-loading himself, and Rose were at each others throats and we were caught in the middle, cringing as they lobbed insults at each other. We could see it would be a no win situation. Rose is a tough nut with a razor tongue, after years of living within the b****y world of Hollywood; she was used to getting in the last word. Richard, pompous and opinionated, refused to back down to her so it cascaded into an all out verbal war of the know-it-alls. The more it went on, the more we wished we'd never come back and just continued on our merry way to Guatemala.
　
Despite the growing tension, we still enjoyed our next few days at Mazunte beach. Rose treated us to her speciality massages on the beach; a good strong deep tissue massages which we both needed after hours of driving and surfing. It hurt like hell at times but we felt a lot better for it in the end. We also met a great girl from Alaska, Shannon, celebrating with a jaunt around Mexico after finishing a degree on Linguistics and Anthropology. At 26 years old, Shannon is already well travelled, even living in New Zealand for a year (Hamilton of all places). It was nice to have someone normal to bond with amongst all the weirdo's and we wished that it was Shannon who was accompanying us up the mountains.
　
So for the second time we bid our farewells to Mazunte, with the hope of catching up with Shannon in Oaxaca for her birthday. We cranked the engine of the truck and reluctantly made our way up the hill to pick up Richard and for the first time in four months, headed away from the ocean.