I slept in a place like this. Photo by Mikah & Erin, Flickr

While my camera was being repaired in Mexico City, I went to Zipolite, near Puerto Angel on the Pacific coast south of Oaxaca, for a week. I basically had a non-productive Good Time. I met various existentialists, rebels, wanderers and dope-heads, Mexican and foreign, who were spending a few days, weeks or months swinging in hammocks, lying in the sun, dodging or diving into huge waves and courting a bit of danger, eating fresh fried fish and potatoes. One reads books, relieves oneself in the bushes because there are no toilets, and practices important Spanish phrases such as “What’s for dinner?” “How much does it cost?” “Another beer please.” “It’s going to rain.” “Is the beer cold yet?” “What is THAT?” (a half-eaten shell-less turtle perhaps, or part of a manta ray).

I hung out in places like this. Photo by Mikah & Erin, Flickr

On one adventure I hiked with a new friend westward to another beach to discover that the fishing co-op there was processing turtles. The effluent running into the sea from the cement building contained congealed blood, assorted guts, and turtle eggs, which look like ping-pong balls until they dehydrate a bit, when they look like squashed ping-pong balls. Inside the building about ten men were gleefully scrubbing the undershells of what must have been pretty large turtles. We walked on and saw about twenty 3-foot long turtles lying on their backs helplessly under a shelter, their waving heads and flippers digging troughs in the sand. We could have got heroic like Glenda Jackson and Ben Kingsley in the movie Turtle Diary, and rescued the turtles, but we thought we’d like to get out of there alive, so we went on.

Zipolite beach. Photo by Hector Garcia, Flickr

Climbing some rocks that jutted into the bay, we saw some men and boys fishing – using turtle egg yolks as bait. We were offered the local delicacy, and I did it: I swallowed that turtle egg raw. I almost threw up.

UPDATE 2013: This was no doubt the very same location in that has since been converted into a sea turtle sanctuary with an aquarium where the slaughterhouse used to be. The Olive Ridley turtle has been making a comeback, and ecotourism has replaced turtle slaughter as the economic driver in the area. See article and audio from NPR Endangered Sea Turtles Return To Mexico’s Beaches.