out of luck.

when we first landed on the oaxacan coast we thought we were the luckiest two gals on the face of the planet:

*we had avoided the 6 hour vomit express bus that weaves through the mountains from oaxaca city to puerto escondito by flying in a mini plane with a much better view in only 40 minutes!

*we found carmen's cafecito which served the most delicious cinnamon rolls and chocolate croissants on earth.

*the beach in puerto escondito stretched out for miles, and we had a perfect view from our beach lounge chairs of the mexican pipeline, where all the surfers do their tricks.

*we were so happy about our delicious healthy lunch consisting of hummus and salad that we ignored the fact that our hostel was on a dirt road in the shoddy part of town...

until. our luck all changed.

we returned to our hostel after our day of perfection, and the owner (let's call him crazy steve, as we later found out the locals call him), had still not shown his face. many other backpackers assured us that he was slightly odd, but that we would definitely have a place to sleep. for example, crazy steve had screwed up the bookings for another group, so they had slept on the couch. luvely.

staying calm, cool and collected, we decided there was nothing we could do except continue to ride our streak of luck. it was decided that we should just go enjoy our dinner and hope that there would be a bed to sleep in when we returned. as we were about to leave, as luck would have it, crazy steve walked in the door. crazy steve had given away our room because he did not know that we were coming, even though our luggage was there and we had paid a down payment on a reservation.

crazy steve: 'grunt. grunt. well you should have told me you were comin'

us: 'we did. we made a reservation. look on these papers on your desk. our name is right there.'

crazy steve: 'well, i don't know bout all those papers. grunt. grunt. why didn't you come back during check in?'

us: 'you don't have a check in time. and you weren't here when we came to check in.'

crazy steve: (now talking to his bird) 'oh well, bloody ell, how was i sposed to know that you were comin. what should i do? it is high season and someone told me that you guys were going to be in the dorm room. grunt.'

us: 'well, um, who would have told you that? we don't know anyone here. um, do you have a room for us? or should we just leave?'

crazy steve continued to yell, swear and blame us for coming to his hostel. his solution was to kick out the couple who had our room, but they had also reserved and made an online payment. realizing that he was totaly mad (like the hatter), we packed up our bags and walked out (even though we knew it was the busiest weeks of the year and our chances of finding accomodations were slim). but we were empowered! we were making our statement to crazy steve!

and then it started to rain. and we could not get a cab. our luck had taken a turn for the worst.

and i'll leave it at that for today. check back tomorrow to find out what happens to our two heroines!