Leaving Mazunte we traveled a few hours west along the Oaxaca coast. As the sun was beginning to sink we stopped at a beach that was recommended to us by a lady whose comedor we had a late lunch at. We slowly made our way along a coast road and then found a seafood restaurant on a hill overlooking the water. The owners were very kind and they told us we were very welcome to set up camp. Dan and I parked broadside to the shoreline while Julia and Mike (traveling with us since Oaxaca) set their tent up under the resto's roof which was made of wood poles and palm bows.

The wind was whipping up some big waves and the horizon became obscured by some heavy bottomed billowing clouds. We settled ourselves in few hammocks hanging under the roof expecting a storm as there were occasional flashes of sheet lighting. However, we waited until 10 and then were too exhausted to wait for the storm any longer, and went to sleep.

By chance, my eyes opened to a thin slit around midnight and were caught in a blinding flash of lighting. I jumped up and looked out to see a brilliant show going on with flashes of white, orange, pink, and yellow lighting. I managed to capture a bunch on video, before trying to snap a couple shots on my little point and shoot. Now you'd think with lightning sizzling through the thick ocean air every few seconds for over 2 hours, I'd be able to capture a few shots even with my crappy lil' camera. NOT SO... I probably took close to 60 shots and this photo above (one of the first) was the only one that froze the tricky stuff. Still, I feel even that was a gift!



Our hosts the owners of the restaurant, were a very gracious and easy-going couple. I guess It's part of the vibe of living in such a beautiful location. The husband, whose name now escapes me, was a sturdy guy. I watched him carry a yoke with two 20 L buckets on it up the hill from the water's edge about 6 times so that he could wash the concrete floor of the kitchen and control the dust on the sand floor. Good way to keep in shape.


As we left our camp spot, we drove out past a barren expanse and stopped to investigate further. They were salt flats: large flat planes where sea water is let in and then trapped and allowed to evaporate, probably over a few weeks.



Above, Dan walks out into the smooshy salt desert to scout for a shot with the Bolex. Without sunglasses the sun's reflection off the flat grey-tinged white salt was blinding.


The surface of the salt was very dry and like a crust, below which was a mush of what remaind of the ocean water and the organic materials it covered, now rotting and releasing a pretty nasty odor. We wondered what was done to cleanse the salt before it as used, or if it even needed to be cleansed.


Salt collection is a millenia old tradition, and we forget about the importance of this spice that has had a hand in humanity's ability to preserve food and thus travel through places where they would otherwise have risked starvation.

Now, just seen as a mundane spice, it was not always so. Salt once was worth more than gold. Roman legions were paid in it, because they were "worth their salt". One of Ghandi's famous acts of non-violent protest was gathering salt at the ocean side. This was an act in defiance of the British rulers' controversial salt tax which forbade the act.


The salty crust covered everything.


Driving on we stopped to refule and grab a snack. Now, the problems surrounding the Coca Cola company and it's use of and contamination of water supplies aside, we have been drinking more of this tooth rotting sugar drink down in Mexico than maybe ever before in our lives. It's strange, but Dan and I agree that it probably has to do with the glass bottles. Somehow the stuff is just transformed when it comes out of cold glass.



Above, climbing into the hills of Chiapas.