Insane Surf, Nudists, and Hippy Communes!

North America » Mexico » Oaxaca » Zipolite

May 30th 2011 

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Puerto Escondido

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The view from our hostel.

Puerto Escondido is a quiet Mexican town with an insane beach break, most commonly known as the Mexican Pipeline. I read later that it is one of the heaviest beach breaks in the world, and many people have broken their boards or even their spines in the pounding surf. 

Apart from surfing, there is not a lot to do in Escondido, so thankfully we managed to find a few kiddies waves that were more suited to my level. Unfortunately my year-long stint in London had taken its toll and my surfing was more than a little rusty, but I still managed to have fun! We spent a couple of nights drinking beer in the local bars, where we met a lovely Australian couple called Beth and Matt. They, like us, were sick of the heat, and were thinking of heading down to a little chilled out beach called Zipolite. We also had Zipolite on our 'must do list' so we decided to join them. 

Zipolite is Mexico's only official nudist beach; however, the entire time we were there we only saw three nude people, and none of them were pretty. There was nothing much to do there apart from 

Zipolite

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The place we stayed. It was indeed, a nice place on the beach.

lie in hammocks, read, eat, splash about in the surf, and drink beer. It was pure heaven! At night we often made the excursion down to 'El Chocolate Invincible', the bar owned by Mr Crazy Horse Invincible. So the story goes, Crazy Horse got drunk one night in England, where he's from, and legally changed his name to Crazy Horse Invincible. He is a really nice bloke, but at the time he had a broken leg and was hobbling around on crutches. We asked how he broke his leg and he said that he fell from the first floor of his mates' house while sleepwalking one night. He refuses to go to the hospital to get it fixed , despite the fact that the local community has offered to pay his hospital bills. One night on the way back from his bar we saw a huge turtle laying eggs in the sand. 

We also met an awesome couple of Mexican guys who were staying in the room next to us. They spoke great English and enjoyed listening to Claire, myself, and the Australian couple talk about our home countries. We ended up catching a ride with them to a 

Zipolite Beach

little mountain town called San Jose Del Pacifico; Mexico's home of magic mushrooms. We managed to avoid the magic mushrooms, which luckily were out of season, and ended up staying in this weird hippy commune. In the evening the clouds descended and the entire town was shrouded in this eerie fog, while tiny fire flies provided flickers of light around the tops of the trees. The people in the commune were very nice and the scenery was spectacular, but weren't really feeling the hippy vibe so we decided to move on.