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A little about Playa Zipolite, The Beach of the Dead . . .

Playa Zipolite, Oaxaca, Southern Mexico, on the Pacific Ocean. A little bit about my favorite little get-away on this small world of ours.

Zipolite, a sweaty 30-minute walk west from Puerto Angel, brings you to Playa Zipolite and another world. The feeling here is 1970's - Led Zep, Marley, and scruffy gringos.

A long, long time ago, Zipolite beach was usually visited by the Zapotecans...who made it a magical place. They came to visit Zipolite to meditate, or just to rest.

Recently, this beach has begun to receive day-trippers from Puerto Angel and Puerto Escondido, giving it a more TOURISTY feel than before.

Most people come here for the novelty of the nude beach, yoga, turtles, seafood, surf, meditation, vegetarians, discos, party, to get burnt by the sun, or to see how long they can stretch their skinny budget.

I post WWW Oaxaca, Mexico, Zipolite and areas nearby information. Also general budget, backpacker, surfer, off the beaten path, Mexico and beyond, information.

REMEMBER: Everyone is welcome at Zipolite.

ivan

Friday, April 20, 2012

A Turtle Liberation: A Sad Story with a Happy Ending


A Turtle Liberation in Mazunte, Mexico | Uncornered Market
Setting free baby turtles along Mexico's Pacific coast, in an area that was once hosted a turtle slaughterhouse.
www.uncorneredmarket.com/2012/04/turtle-liberation-mexico/






A Turtle Liberation: A Sad Story with a Happy Ending


 Filed Under:  MexicoNorth AmericaSustainable TourismTravel by Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
Turtle Liberation, MexicoThis is a story about a baby turtle and how we helped to set him free. It’s also a tale of working together and conservation gone right.
“Blood is heavier than water. The surface of this beach used to be covered in blood, turtle blood,” explained our boat captain, a former fisherman, as he pointed to a sandy beach just down the coast from where we’d launched in Mazunte, Mexico.
He continued, pointing, “See the ramp? It was used to send the turtle meat up for processing. We would take all the meat from inside the shells. Everything was used. Sometimes we processed thousands of turtles a day. The meat was then sent inland. That’s where the money was.”
But that was then, and fortunately this is now.
For the sea turtles of Mexico’s Pacific Coast, as well as for its people, this sad backstory comes with a happy ending — in the form of a little turtle like the one above having a chance to survive to full term, hatch into the world, and with a little help, make its way into the wild as nature intended.

From Turtle Harvest to Turtle Preservation

In Mexico, turtles were big business. If the turtle eggs themselves weren’t harvested, grown turtles and every last bit of their physical being were.
Sea Turtle, Mexico
In response to declining turtle populations, the Mexican government placed a ban on turtle eggs in 1971, but it was largely ignored. An official ban on the harvesting of turtle meat and eggs followed in 1990, this time with greater enforcement. And although it’s impossible to put a full stop to turtle fishing, the turtle slaughterhouse has shut down and there are steep penalties for people caught trading in turtle meat.
During the transition, however, the Mexican government took into consideration those whose livelihoods depended on turtle fishing. In addition to helping families set up guest houses for tourists, the government encouraged turtle fisherman to offer turtle tours – for travelers to witness turtles swimming freely in the ocean — as an alternative and more sustainable means to a living.
Mazunte Beach - MexicoThese days, that same coastline where the ground was covered in blood now plays host to local families and tourists enjoying a day at the beach.

One bay over from where the turtle slaughterhouse had been located, the Mexican National Turtle Center (Centro Mexicano de las Tortugas) in Mazunte now offers tours to school groups and educates them about sea turtles and the principles of ocean conservation.
From turtle harvesting to turtle conservation in a little over a decade. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

The Egg: Protecting Turtles from the Beginning

The center also monitors where various species of sea turtles lay their eggs and moves the eggs to protected areas along the beach. When the eggs are ready to hatch, the center then organizes “turtle liberation” (liberation de las tortugas) events at various beaches nearby.
When a turtle liberation takes place, they post signs around town announcing the time and location of the event. Everyone is welcome to participate – to learn firsthand about sea turtles, support the center with a voluntary donation, take a brand new baby turtle in hand, and release it to run free into the ocean.

Our Turtle Liberation

Turtle Liberation, MexicoJust far enough back from the pounding waves of the ocean at Playa de Ventanilla, our turtle liberation organizer drew a line in the sand for us all to stand behind. He explained the conservation work of the center that helps protect sea turtles, from the moments when the adults deposit their eggs on the beach to when the babies are set free into the water.

Our organizer held up a large turtle shell, with the skull attached. “We found this two months ago. All the meat had been taken. People still capture sea turtles for meat. Our work is not finished.”
Baby Turtles, MexicoThen he went around with the basket of baby turtles, perhaps a hundred or more, to be released. They were tiny little things, crawling on top of each other, squirming to be free.

We could each choose one.
Baby Turtles - Playa La Ventanilla, MexicoIt was an oddly emotional event. In seconds, we developed an attachment to the baby turtles we’d chosen. They were so small, but surprisingly strong. Their instincts clearly led them; they wanted freedom to make their own way.

When we looked out at the water, the waves were so big and rough. They were more than we could take on. As tiny as our turtles were, we worried about how they’d ever survive.
Baby Sea Turtles, MexicoBut once we set them on the ground, they scampered toward the water with all their might. We were giddy, like proud parents, as we watched them disappear into the waves and swim away.

This would be the swim of their lives.
Not all of their brothers and sisters found the same initial fortune, however. Some hit the waves at the wrong time, were tossed about and landed on their backs in the sand. We took turns turning the lost turtles right side up, perhaps a little closer to the water to give them a head start on their life in the wild. After twenty minutes or so, all the turtles were in the water, the sun had set and we found ourselves on a natural high.
Sunset - Mazunte, Mexico
Sure, we had seen beautiful turtles in the museum earlier that day, but taking part in the launch of a baby turtle’s life into the wild was an entirely different experience. From blood on the beach to turtle liberation, an opportunity had been seized amidst challenge.
The following day, during our boat tour, we saw dozens of giant turtles swimming about, catching a breath at the water’s surface. Up, gulp, and back down. Large and graceful, they’d seen a few years.
We can only hope that when you take your boat ride someday, you’ll get a chance to see our turtles.
—-

Planning a visit to the Mexican National Turtle Center and a Turtle Liberation

If you are planning a trip to Oaxaca and the Pacific Coast, and especially if you have kids, consider paying a visit to the Turtle Center and timing your visit with a “turtle liberation.” Your kids will love you for it. And you will love it, too!
Because of the diversity of sea turtles in the area, you’ll find different species laying eggs throughout the year. We were in Mazunte at the end of March/early April and there were liberation events almost every day. However, we’ve been told that May to July is the high season for turtle hatchlings.
Don’t pay attention to touts selling “turtle liberation” tours for 100+ pesos. This one is easy to do yourself. Check in with the Turtle Museum (preferably at the beginning of your stay in the area) and inquire about planned turtle liberations. The schedule and location will depend on the condition and quantity of the hatchling baby turtles.
Our event was at 6PM on Ventanilla beach, just around sunset (also a spectacular photo opportunity). A collectivo or taxi from Mazunte to the road that goes to Ventanilla (2 km) should cost 5 or 10 pesos ($0.40-$0.80). From there you have a pleasant walk for 1 km. For a ride that gets you down to the actual beach, plan to pay a little more (e.g., 40 pesos/$3.20).








Unbridled ‘Almost Never,’ a Novel by Daniel Sada By RACHEL NOLAN Published: April 20, 2012


Unbridled

‘Almost Never,’ a Novel by Daniel Sada

If you read only three novelists on Mexico — and you should read many more, but that’s your affair — choose Juan Rulfo, Roberto Bolaño and Daniel Sada. Rulfo cleared the way for magic realism with “Pedro Páramo,” published in 1955, a decade before the Boom. Bolaño, a Chilean whose great subject was Mexico, asserted that realism itself was magic enough to support a novel, and his gangs of visceral realists and killers bore him out. Meanwhile Sada, who died last year, reveled in wordplay and mimicry in his Joycean celebrations of Mexico’s cowboy north.
Pascual Borzelli Iglesias
Daniel Sada

ALMOST NEVER

By Daniel Sada
Translated by Katherine Silver
330 pp. Graywolf Press. Paper, $16.
Sada is already a cult figure among Spanish speakers. Bolaño’s appreciation of his writing (“of my generation . . . the most daring”) is splashed across the cover of the new English translation of his 2008 masterpiece, “Almost Never.” The novel concerns a 29-year-old agronomist and sex enthusiast, Demetrio Sordo, who works at an orchard on the outskirts of Oaxaca. Bored, he begins to frequent a high-class bordello, where he falls in love with a “spectacular whore” named Mireya, putting the proprietors on edge. “Such unhealthy devotion was causing universal unease at the Presunción: this was the first time in its history a client had come to sin as punctually as he went, with intrepid daily devotion, to his job.” Mireya latches on to Demetrio as an escape from the brothel, but circumstance and an uncompromising madam conspire against them. Her rate rises vertiginously.
Then, on a trip to a wedding in a dusty northern town, Demetrio meets the starchy Renata. He falls in love with her, too, and courts her through letters. It is 1945: modernity and Hiroshima try to elbow in on Demetrio’s consciousness, but he’s busy pursuing the ladies. An intractable love triangle ensues, in a satire of machismo run amok. As events force Demetrio to choose between the women, the plot takes a turn toward the outrageous. There are holdups in the red-light district and midnight flights with suitcases full of cash. There are faked pregnancies. There are uptight landladies and prostitutes who turn prints of “The Last Supper” around to face the wall before commencing their work. There is an overabundance of sex in all forms: anxious sex, joyful sex, furtive sex, martyred masturbation.
What is so daring here? It’s not Sada’s depiction of the Madonna-whore complex, nor his take on the delusions of a Mexican macho — although both make for delicious burlesque. What’s new is the voice, and Sada’s glorious style. Katherine Silver pulls off the near-­impossible feat of translating the cacophony of thoughts, interjections and slang rattling around Demetrio’s fevered brain, not to mention the continual asides of an arch narrator. Here is Demetrio attempting to write his first letter to Renata: “He couldn’t decide whether to write ‘Highly esteemed,’ ‘Dear,’ ‘Wondrous’ or simply, ‘Hi, Renata,’ or the name by itself, next to a drawing of a flower, using five colored pencils. No! Such vulgarity, quickly shunned. . . . Nonetheless, try, try, try again, knowing that sheer obstinacy would carry him to his goal, whatever that might be, which might provoke stentorian laughter that was nonetheless sympathetic.” Demetrio’s surname means “deaf,” and he’s fittingly oblivious. Still it’s impossible not to be swept along by Sada’s manic language, his Cervantean plot twists and his affection for the hero who shares his initials; and so we root for Renata’s swift reply.
While “Almost Never” is the more straightforward book, the author’s reputation really rests on a 1999 novel called “Porque Parece Mentira la Verdad Nunca se Sabe” (“Because It Seems a Lie the Truth Is Never Known”). Given its 650 pages, 90 characters and use of archaic metric forms like alexandrines, hendecasyllables and octosyllables, translation represents quite a hurdle. If only Katherine Silver would take it on.h
Rachel Nolan is a former staff member of The Times Magazine.

Christ Church host Cinco de Mayo event April 20, 2012 2:04PM



Christ Church host Cinco de Mayo event

MAPS

Updated: April 20, 2012 2:50PM
 

Christ Church Winnetka will host its seventh annual Cinco de Mayo FiestaFest on Sunday, May 6. The benefit dinner at 470 Maple Street, Winnetka, typically attracts 75-100 people, and raises funds for maintenance projects at its partner church, Jesus de Nazaret, located in the small village of La Esperanza, in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico.
Church volunteers again this year will serve up traditional Mexican fare donated by local grocer The Grand Food Center.
“Christ Church is a mainstay in our community, and we’re pleased to continue to assist the church with wonderful benefit,” says Winnetka store manager Rick Pasquini.
The dinner cost is $15 (age 13 and older) and $5 for kids. The event will be held from 5:30-8 p.m. in the church’s Great Hall. Then evening includes dinner, piñatas for the kids, entertainment and prizes.
Combining the FiestaFest proceeds with funds raised from its annual Easter Lily sale, the church generates about $2,500 each year for improvements to the Mexican church. Christ Church parishioner Gary Martin, who helps to organize the annual dinner, says that the money helps offset maintenance projects like painting and caulking. The Winnetka parish is working with their partners in La Esperanza to install a water filtration system in the near future.
Martin and about 10 other Christ Church parishioners fly to Mexico at their own expense. From Mexico City, they head to Veracruz, where they travel about four hours south to La Esperanza.
The relationship, Martin explains, is the result of a decade-long partnership between the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago and the Diocese of Southeast Mexico.
“Our goal isn’t just to travel and help with a service project like Habitat for Humanity,” says Martin. “Instead,” he relates, “we hope to develop and pursue true, life-long relationships with this church and its parishioners.”
While the heat and humidity in this region makes the work grueling, he says, it’s also quite remarkable to see what the group can accomplish in its five-day stay. “We’ve been doing this for about 7 years now, and many of us return to this village year after year.”
For information about the FiestaFest, visit www.christchurch.org, or call the church office at 847-446-2850.