A morning in Puerto Escondido, Mexico.

We have just returned from spending 10 days in Mexico, enjoying the southern sun, sea and sand. It’s my first vacation to anywhere other than home since 2017. It felt good to shake off the travel rust (and the rust of what has been a very challenging couple of years in my personal life) and be immersed in a different place, culture and language.

We spent a couple of days in Mexico City and Oaxaca before driving down to Puerto Escondido, our home for 5 days. Our intention with this trip was to spend most of our time near the ocean—something I have had plenty of in my life, but not since having left Australia. We drove 6.5 hours down a long, narrow, winding mountain road to get to Puerto Escondido from Oaxaca, passing by dozens of small villages and towns built on the sides of the mountain. We saw many roadside stands with fruits, vegetables, handmade ceramics and wooden pieces, not to mention dogs, donkeys and chickens amongst the mountain scenery.

Puerto Escondido is a small beach town that is reminiscent of the sleepy beach towns in Australia. During the week of our visit, it hovered between 34ºC to 40ºC most days, the heat and humidity also reminiscent of home. The ocean was a welcome reprieve from the extreme heat, and we spent as much time as we could in the water.

Spending so much of my day-to-day life as a full-time photographer & creative, I was not as drawn to capturing our trip as much as I ordinarily would be. I needed a break from shooting, something that I love, but is now often reminiscent of work. I opted for simplicity and minimalism most days, carrying only my phone with me (and it, therefore, being the camera I most often had on me). We did, however, make a special morning pilgrimage to one of the many beaches in Puerto Escondido to capture these images—a time capsule of moments playing by the ocean, indulging our creativity, memorialising our trip, and savouring the hours together without feeling rushed to move onto yet another thing (as so often is the case in our fast-paced life).

Many a new core memory was made during this trip—including learning to surf in the challenging waves of Playa Carrizalillo, something that I never would have tried just mere years ago. I am grateful to the Canadian Rockies for reframing my relationship to fear—for having courage is not to have no fear at all, but rather, to feel the fear, and do it any way.