Puerto Escondito

Okay probably one of the highlights of my trip was being able to sleep on a bed on Sunday night. It was amazing!! But even better than that was Puerto Escondito... I think this is the coolest place I have been to in Mexico thus far. It was beautiful and it is one of the most famous surf towns in the world apparently. After all of us got sick on the bus drive to Puerto Escondito we sat around in the bust station for a little while until our stomachs settled. It was such a windy road, the bus was too hot and it smelled awful so it was not a nice drive. The view was beautiful though which made up for it.

When we finally got there we had to give our stomachs a break and so we just sat in the bus station for a little while and ate crackers. When the majority of us felt well enough to start the day we went for lunch at another little hole in the wall. Ashley actually got an extra treat this time when she found a huge bug on her pants, it was gross. The food was good though and it helped us all feel better.

After that we took a nice walk down to the beach and took a ton of pictures and just laid on the sun and enjoyed watching how huge the waves got. Seriously it was a beautiful beach. The sand was not good but the water was so beautiful and neat it made up for the lack of white sand. As you walk down to the beach there are beautiful walk ways that were fun to walk along. We took pictures of the waves and of each other and of the view. It is so beautiful there.

Our sweet tattoos after we washed them

Brooke, Ashley, Adri, Me and Kami

I look tall in this picture compared to everyone else but I don't think I'm the tallest at all. Dusty and Ashley are both taller than I am I think.

This is one of my favorites of Ashley and I

My legs got super tanned (well relatively speaking) from sitting here.

A cute little bridge we crossed over on the way to the beach

The view from my seat

While we enjoyed the sunshine a woman came up to Ashley, Adri and I and told us that she gave massages and reflexology treatments on the beach. My back was killing me so bad from trying to sleep on the bus I told her that I wanted one right away. Well cool story as she was giving me a massage she noticed that Adri was reading the Book of Mormon. She told us that she had read a little bit on the internet and that she was fascinated with what Mormons had to say about Mexican history. Our conversation went so long she finished my massage and was giving Adri a massage and we were still talking about things that she knew about Mexican history and stuff. It was really neat. She started telling us that she was reading the New Testament and really enjoying it and so I started telling her about what the Book of Mormon was. I told her that it was a record of several different groups of people who travelled over to the Americas. Some of her comments really blew me away, she said "There must be a record of the people somewhere and I believe that it is the Book of Mormon." She had to go to the bathroom for a moment and while she was gone Adri and I were saying that we should give her a Book of Mormon. I had left my backpack at the bus station which has in it a Book of Mormon specifically to give away. Adri only had her one copy with her but I told her I would give her mine (which was identical to hers) if she wanted to give hers away. The lady came back and when she did Ashley and I were in the middle of a conversation about something in the Bible. She asked me if I had a copy of the Old Testament. Of course I had one at home but not with me. She said she was having a hard time finding one. I was trying to think of a place where she could get one so I told her that the Mormon Missionaries would likely be able to order her an English copy of it and if she gave me her information I would look into that for her. Then she said "Actually I would really like to talk to some Mormon missionaries so if you could send them to talk to me I would really like that." Of course I told her I would look into when I got back to Tehuacan and pass on her information right away. Then Adri offered her a Book of Mormon and she was so excited to receive it. I showed her the footnotes and how she could use it to study with the Bible. I talked to her for a moment about the Chapter Headings and how in 2 Nephi it talks a lot about Isaiah. It was so neat. She immediately sat down and started reading the Title Page and seemed excited to read it. Then she said that she has always been amazed at how the Mormon website had always been a step ahead of her in her questions about Mexican history and how she had found many of her answers on that website. It was definitely a highlight for Adri and I because we could see how excited she was about it all. Now I just hope that the missionaries find her and are able to follow up with her and answer the questions she has.

By the way the massage was totally awesome, she gave me a foot massage as well as a back massage and it was wonderful. We enjoyed the sun some more and I got a lot of my new book read. It was great!

This lady, originally from New Zealand did not have dark hair. She was wearing the weirdest wig I've ever seen but she was good as what she did and I enjoyed the reflexology treatment.

After our masseuse left we took some fun pictures in the sand and had a good laugh. It was a race against the waves and we had to fix the writing several times but it was a lot of fun. Ashley wrote the 'h' backwards because she was writing it from above and then I just about died laughing. It was so funny we decided to leave it so that we remembered it. What a great day!

Love you all!!

I had no one in particular in mind for this picture ;-)

After that we had to go and catch our night bus home. It was an exhausting day and its pretty evident in the last pictures of the trip that we were all pretty tired and it looks like we haven't showered in days, which most of us haven't. It was a fun and exhausting trip. The best part of the night bus home was that I got to finish my second book which was so good and then got a few minutes sleep. When we arrived in Oaxaca at 7:30 am (after catching a bus from Puerto Escondito at 8:45 pm) we had to wait around a few hours until our bus to Tehuacan left at 10:00. We finally got home and then got straight to work unpacking because we had Independence Day celebrations to look forward to. What a weekend!