Answer: Let's not ponder that too much...
Everyone has a travel tale in which, looking back, they’d have done things differently – and for me, deciding that the small town of Puerto Escondido, on the stunning Oaxaca Mexican coastline, would be the ideal place to take a week of Spanish classes was just such a moment. Puerto Escondido: Hidden Port. Sandy beaches, the crashing Pacific waves… peace and quiet, surely? A tranquil paradise, just perfect for learning some sexy Spanish conjugations before heading southwards down the gringo trail that crawls up and down the South American continent. What could possibly go wrong?
In retrospect, the fact that Puerto Escondido was referred to, albeit briefly, in
The Lonely Planet as “a surfers’ paradise” was probably the first warning of what was to come. Naturally, I took no notice. It wasn’t until checking onto my miniscule
Aeromexico flight – along with a planeload full of sunkissed, muscle-bound, dreadlock-sporting surfers, plus boards – that it began to hit me that this may not have been my wisest choice. For, as all hardened backpackers know: where surfers go, drugs, booze and parties inevitably follow. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that, after several months living out of a backpack, men sporting dreadlocks had become infinitely more attractive to me…
After a brief flight- the journey was so short, and so turbulent, that when after only five minutes in the air we started plummeting to the ground I screamed, convinced we were crashing (when we were actually landing) – I found myself crammed into a
collective along with seven surfers, plus boards. I had booked myself into a hostel which, on the website, looked like a pleasant, friendly sort of place. The fact that the seven surfers and I were all headed to the same destination,
The Tower Bridge Hostel, was the second sign that it was time to abandon all hope of constructive language learning. The hostel was run by a British expat whose brain seems to have been melted by too much Mexican sun and the local tequila – a fact that soon became apparent when, just the day after my arrival, he disappeared without cause or explanation, leaving behind no instructions, no money, and a rather bewildered twenty-year-old American boy who, for lack of any other purpose, took charge of the running of the hostel. His interpretation of “running” consisted of letting us help ourselves to beer at will, and leading us to the finest bars, illegal substances and prostitutes you might find yourself in need of.
What ensued was basically the Mexican equivalent of a teenage house party gone awry in the parents’ absence: absolute carnage. Nothing was paid for. Alcohol flowed freely, and plentifully. The sun shone all day, and the nights were long and eventful. Life was good at Puerto Escondido’s number one party hostel.
That is, unless you’d signed up for six hours of Spanish classes every day.
My
school was absolute paradise every way – lessons were affordable, and classes were conducted by friendly and fun local teachers outside in the sunshine, overlooking the beach below and surrounded by tropical flowers, hammocks and passing iguanas. It was here that I learnt to my sadness that no one Spanish-speaking would ever actually say “Hasta la vista, baby”. But sadly, due to the festivities back at Party Hostel 101, it was also here that I succeeded in falling asleep
during a one-on-one class, and learnt the slang for “I’m hungover”, which roughly translates as “I’m raw”-
“estoy cruda”. And it was here that, when asked by the well-meaning teacher if I’d sampled the local tequila, I barely stopped myself from throwing up at the memories of the beach the night before, when double tequila shots had made me
literally chunder everywhah! (Yes, this was during my
gap yah). The Spanish for “throw up” is
“vomitar”, by the way.
Over the week, although my Spanish was slowly progressing, life at the hostel was deteriorating rapidly. The swimming pool was now the unofficial WC, and unusable. The cleaner, who hadn’t been paid, was gone, and the kitchen took on an “abandon hope all ye who enter” quality. The surfers spent their days lying sprawled across the various threadbare sofas, surfboards abandoned, pumped full of muscle relaxants (which are legal and available over the counter in Mexico) and thus rendered incapable of moving, whilst I crawled my way to class on no sleep. Dorm rooms began to acquire an orgiastic quality (not a conducive environment for doing your homework) and I subsisted on sunshine, beer and a lone pineapple. It was gringo culture at its lowest.
Of course, all good things come to an end, and eventually so did my time in Puerto Escondido. Thirty hours of intensive one-on-one classes had been of some use – seeing as I’d arrived on the continent without a word of Spanish I felt entitled to take pride in even the smallest achievement – and on my final day there, the hostel owner made his unobtrusive return. When I asked him where he’d been, he explained “I just had to get away from it all for just a few days. Just get out of here, down the coast. Just me and the dog.”
I paused. “Do you mean… this dog?”
“Yeah,” he replied, blindly waving in the direction of the long-suffering hostel labrador.
“You mean this dog that’s been here with us all week?”
“Oh yeah… not the dog then.”
That was all the explanation we ever got. But in a way I understand what that crazy man was saying about having to get away from Puerto Escondido for a bit. The place looks like paradise but it sucks you in, like a backpacker black hole. Ultimately, I left on that rickety plane with no significant language abilities, but one hell of an important lesson: never, never sign up for Spanish classes in a surfer party beach town. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.
Warning: Hammocks are conducive to hangovers, but not to language learning.
