Van Life and CoronaVirus - STILL STUCK IN MEXICO

We were out running some errands this morning and Kurt said to me, he said, you know Snow, we have not updated you guys out there in YouTube land in quite some time on how Mexico and how our community of Puerto Escondido are dealing with the coronavirus. So that's what I'm going to do in this video. But don't worry, it's not all facts and figures and statistics. There's a lot of pretty cool stuff going on here. Our area is slowly starting to open up, starting mainly with the restaurants and such, which are all open air type restaurants on the beach. A lot of ventilation and they're doing a really good job with keeping the tables separated and hand sanitizer and washing of hands and the staff wearing masks. So we feel really safe going out and checking out a lot of the local restaurants and taking in all the beauty that this community has to offer. Plus, we've gotten to do a few other pretty cool things that we're going to show you in this video too. So come on guys, let's go see what's going on in Puerto Escondido. Fishing skills in a little boat that I'll rent. Ain't got nothing but time to kill. No vacations been more heaven-sent. Between the sun and the deep blue sea. Flat out beach bed in the sea. My feet in the sand, green umbrella drink in my hand. For lunch today, pork toast. These are all appetizers we're just going to share. Pork toast, some corn fried lamb stuffed something that looks yummy, and shrimp tacos. So let's see what it looks like when it comes out. Juice of the day. We don't exactly know what it is. We know it has vanilla in it and it looks yum. Oh, it's peanuts. Here Kurt, you got to try it. It's really good. Flat out on a beach bed. In the sun and the deep blue sea. In the sand. Kurt, is it good? Oh my gosh, this is the best meal that we have had in Mexico. Yeah, including the Baja. Including the Baja. Best meal right here. Those fries are delicious. So, so good. All right, what's your name? Fernando. Fernando. Welcome to Almoraduz. This is very good. Thank you, Fernando. It's a pleasure. We really enjoyed that lunch, but one of the most unique local restaurants we found is this one. Perched on a cliff overlooking a beautiful ocean cove. It's a family-owned place that was started by the matriarch of the family when her children were just young kids. Now the daughter runs the place and she shared a bit of the history with us. This cove used to be where the local fishermen would come and dump all of their trash. The shells, the nets, any plastic, just all of their garbage. And it was a shame, but her mom petitioned the Mexican government to allow her to clean up the cove and build this restaurant right here to serve the local community. After five years of red tape, the government gave them permission. And when it first opened many years ago, it was one small palapa with just enough room for one table and a gas cooker. No water or electricity. Now, many years later, the cove has returned to its beauty and they serve fantastic food for tourists and locals. She even allowed us to take a hike on the property to the side of the restaurant. Get away, don't let it close. I've got about 500 miles on my Rad Mini and I've been riding it on the beach. I've been riding it up and down all these steep hills in Puerto Escondido, so I've completely worn out my brakes. It's just time for a tune-up and so I gotta go pick our bike up, my bike up. I hope it's done. I dropped Kurt off to pick up his bike and then the plan is circle the block one time around this very busy market and our gigantic van while Kurt goes in to see if the bike is ready. And these are tiny streets, hard to maneuver, and I just went back around to see if he was good to go or not. Did you know what he said? Circle one more time. So I'm maneuvering these crazy tight streets around this very busy market one more time, but we'll see if the bike's ready when we get back. Good news, the bike was ready. So we headed back to our little bungalow where we've been hunkered down for close to five months because of the coronavirus. And over the past month, our landlord, Marcella, has been getting tons of work done while the virus has the tourist economy here shut down. She's adding a little market, another bungalow, remodeling a bungalow, replacing the deck on our outdoor tub area. Just tons of work, but we don't mind. We actually enjoy watching all the activity. I guess being locked down for so long has us a bit stir-crazy. And with the kitties being in the apartment most of the time, you guys don't get to see them as much. But rest assured, they are living a pretty fantastic life and enjoying all of the bird noises around here. But what about the Well, the numbers here are climbing, and there seems to be some controversy over the numbers, the amount of testing, and so forth. But because we are away from any large cities, and the local government seems to be doing a fairly decent job of enforcing the social distancing rules, the numbers here in our community seem to be staying below the average of the country. But we are just guests here in Mexico, and we have no intention of putting a burden on their health care system. So we will be extremely cautious and very respectful of any guidelines, and then some. Masks, no crowds, hand sanitizer, washing hands, social distancing, all are a part of our new way of life down here. But on days that we do not venture out to try to find something to do, or we're not working on editing videos for you guys, we have no problem just relaxing by our peaceful little pool here at our casa. And sometimes, if we get lucky, and Susie and Mar are here, who are more like friends now than just workers here at the bungalow complex, every once in a while they'll surprise us with some coco frios. But tonight, guys, we have something amazing that we get to go be a part of. So come on, let's go see what that is. The first predator is the human. Yeah. Because they recollect eggs here. Traditionally, the community has been supportive by selling the eggs, you know. So we found everybody on the beach during the night, even these kind of people that they used to. So it's a quiet, it's a convivence. But then the fly, dogs, a lot of birds eat the eggs, and then the ocean. So what we do here is to get less, more opportunity for the turtles to arrive to the ocean. And from that moment, they will be on their own. Good luck, Charlie. Okay. So what we are going to do, they birthed, so we are going to release the turtle. Nice. Baby, because they're younger. we just got to release baby turtles into the ocean. And we got pretty lucky because Angie, our Spanish teacher, is also a volunteer here at the turtle rescue. So she helped set this up so we could be a part of this. And look at how beautiful the new turtle's home is. Isn't this just crazy cool? So it's Kurt's birthday week, and tomorrow we're going to do a really cool activity that is likely going to be pretty freaking funny too. And that's what we're going to showcase in our next video that's coming out on Saturday. So if you guys haven't already subscribed, you're going to want to do that. Definitely hit the notification bell so you know when we release that video. And then in the meantime, you can check out these two videos if you haven't already seen them because we think they're tons of fun. And we'll see you guys in a few days, so y'all can check out what in the world Kurt is going to be up to tomorrow. Cheers, guys.