Final days in Puerto Escondido

The village of Ventanilla, which means “little window,” gets its name from the window in the above rock formation. This beautiful, and nearly isolated, place is home to many, many animals and the local people are very conservation minded.

Several sea turtle species lay their eggs on Ventanilla’s beach, and local volunteers take the eggs and place them in a protected area so they are not harmed by predators and more importantly, poachers. Once the eggs hatch, the baby turtles are helped back into the ocean. During February one of the turtle species lays their eggs, but it most frequently happens at night during a full moon, we were told, so we didn’t get a chance to see that.

The area is also home to a lagoon which was destroyed by Hurricane Paulina in 1997. The locals have replanted countless mangrove trees which are home to a large number of birds, iguanas and other animals. We took a boat tour of the lagoon and saw great white herons, gray toucans, woodpeckers and more.

Most exciting, however, were the crocodiles. In the above picture, you can see how close the crocodile was to our boat (that’s Davis’s arm on the right and the edge of the boat on the lower left). We saw four or five crocodiles in the wild.

The conservation group also has an animal sanctuary with deer (I had no idea there were deer in Mexico, but there are) and more crocodiles. The animals are threatened and the group is doing what they can to increase the wild population. Baby crocodiles are raised until they are a year old and then released into the wild. All of the kids got to hold a seven-month old crocodile.

As our tour of the lagoon ended and we arrived back at the beach, someone spotted whale spouts way out in the ocean. We saw two or three whales spouting, and even saw one breach. Amazing! We also saw a group of flying fish (I think) that kept leaping out of the water.

Tomorrow we leave Puerto Escondido for the city of Oaxaca. We have spent much of the day packing, getting the car washed and preparing to leave. We also spent a couple of hours on the beach and in the pool – making the most of our last chance to enjoy each.

This morning we talked about our favorite and least favorite things about our stay in Puerto Escondido. Rafael’s favorite things were: the pool and playing with Papa; his least favorite was the beach (too much sand!). Isa’s favorites were the beach, pool, turtles and crocodiles. Her least favorite was sitting in the car. Davis’s favorite thing was surfing, and her least favorite was getting sand everywhere. Selso’s favorites were surfing, watching Rafael learn to swim and spending time with his family. His least favorite were the mosquitoes. My favorites were swimming in the ocean and seeing all the wildlife. And my least favorite were the mosquitoes.