After a crazy over-nite bus ride from Oaxaca to Puerto Angel, south of Mexico, I find myself on the beach at four in the morning staring out at the Pacific Ocean in this tiny little bay. Puerto Angel is a Mexican navy base, there's a security guard at the post, he checks me out, and figures that I'm in no state of mind to do anything dangerous (anyone who's taken the bus ride from Oaxaca to Puerto Angel comes out of there having completely surrender to whatever comes around).

So I'm down there because I heard some friends of mine are supposed to be in the area. But, there's certainly no place on the beach or in the village for travellers. I don't have a clue where they might be, where I'm going, what I'm doing. I'm just simply and basically ''there-and-now", waiting for next things to show up.

At one point I notice this black bird in the bushes. I observed it for a while, it was doing its morning ritual, feed the bird, get water, check territory, and whatever birds do in the morning. Then it started to fly up the forest. Hey, what the heck, I just decided to follow that bird. I followed it in the forest, through multiple paths in the bushes, for about a mile or so. Not caring where it was leading me. No fear.

Until I came upon another beach, the little village called Zippolite. It's still morning and I haven't got my coffee yet, so I decided to walk the beach up to a small hacienda. I walk in and who is sitting there ? My friend....