“Chico” aka Francisco Luis Lopez Hernandez is your quintessential local Mexican. Raised in the Colonia Buenos Aires on a street owned by all his relatives Chico like most of his friends graduated lizard school then dropped out of secondaria before he became an adolescent. He then took to a life of working hard, having long siestas, and staying up late with family and friends. Chico’s family for decades made their living as divers, diving for oysters and supplying the town with fresh slippery food. Chico’s uncle Ramon Barraza is the local diver you will see memorialized in the human version in Bucerias Centro called “el buzo del Bucerias” (the diver of Bucerias). Ramon collected oysters for 40 years before retiring. Chico was integral in starting the annual Oyster Festival in Bucerias. Every year, it features live mariachi and regional Mexican music, a beauty pageant to crown the festival’s queen, the “Largest Oyster Catch” contest, and a lively small boat parade by starlight. That’s just the entertainment. The fresh-shucked centerpiece of it all is a mountain of roughly 5,000 oysters on the half-shell, all given away for free, right on the beach. Other culinary delights include nearly 1,000lbs of ceviche, fried oyster tacos, oyster salad, and over 300lbs of fried fish. Chico can still be found some days when not hanging out with the Banderas Bay Gang, with his dive kit, a metal bar, and an inner tube with a net in it to hold the oysters he collects on the ocean floor.
