A little about Playa Zipolite, The Beach of the Dead . . .

Playa Zipolite, Oaxaca, Southern Mexico, on the Pacific Ocean. A little bit about my favorite little get-away on this small world of ours.

Zipolite, a sweaty 30-minute walk west from Puerto Angel, brings you to Playa Zipolite and another world. The feeling here is 1970's - Led Zep, Marley, and scruffy gringos.

A long, long time ago, Zipolite beach was usually visited by the Zapotecans...who made it a magical place. They came to visit Zipolite to meditate, or just to rest.

Recently, this beach has begun to receive day-trippers from Puerto Angel and Puerto Escondido, giving it a more TOURISTY feel than before.

Most people come here for the novelty of the nude beach, yoga, turtles, seafood, surf, meditation, vegetarians, discos, party, to get burnt by the sun, or to see how long they can stretch their skinny budget.

I post WWW Oaxaca, Mexico, Zipolite and areas nearby information. Also general budget, backpacker, surfer, off the beaten path, Mexico and beyond, information.

REMEMBER: Everyone is welcome at Zipolite.

ivan

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Puerto Escondido and Surrounds, Oaxaca brydanger 01/30/2013

Puerto Escondido and Surrounds, Oaxaca

We finally made it out of zipolite (but didn’t go far).
And…it was only 2 weeks later than we thought we’d leave. Jen finally caught the mechanic grabbing his morning beer and made sure he was swinging by in the afternoon and that confirmed yet another day sticking around. We don’t mind, it was quiet and peaceful and we aren’t sure there’s anywhere else we could live for cheaper.

The mechanic and his mexican colleague show up late in the afternoon and have a look at the bus. Run through the same drills i’ve been doing for weeks and that every other mechanic has done. He gives us the second opinion that we hoped he wouldn’t- the head is starting to wear and will need to be retooled at some point. He also tells us that we are likely fine to finish our journey (as long as we don’t mind not knowing where it might happen to need retooling). We make a mental note to consider doing the work before leaving mexico but still have to figure out how much time we have have left in mexico first… full moon over la punta

When we crossed back into the country from guatemala they issued us new tourist visas. We get to stay for another 180days (and are certain we could easily do just that). Problem is, they neglected to update our vehicle permit- meaning that E doesn’t get to stay. Unless we can figure out a creative way to get the permit renewed, we have to be back at the border and back in guatemala by valentines day. Not a huge deal, except our hearts were a bit set on driving further up the pacific coast first. fish taco escondido

We are now in Puerto Escondido, home to some of mexico’s biggest waves. Not currently as it’s low season, but the occasional thunderous boom from the direction of the water reminds us how epic these waves can get from time to time and we can only imagine what it must look like in high season. We drove through town and grabbed a taco (our most expensive in mexico) off the main tourist beach, and as we suspected- it was all a bit too much for us. We enjoyed the taco and OJ, but discussed making it only a day trip and heading back to calmer points south.

Luckily, someone pointed us to a camping spot at La Punta (the southernmost point of the bay Escondido fills) and we drove down to check it out. Definitely more our style. You can see the bustling energy of Escondido down the other end of the beach, but over here its quiet, calm and quite a bit cheaper. It definitely feels the tourists, and you can sense things coming this way rapidly. The backpackers and tourists all trying to figure out a way to stay are opening tiny pocket bars, coffee shops and sushi joints anywhere they can find a little nook that they think will hold their dream. We enjoy it, and it gives us plenty of places to stop (and eat) and talk with them about their space and their dream as we walk around town. signs la punta

We don’t have the benefit of the wind tunnel effect we had in zipolite and have become really aware of just how hot it is this week. 104 inside the bus this afternoon and it had to be higher in the peak of the day. Hard to imagine our friends snowboarding this weekend and drinking a steaming apres drink. We can barely get the frig to run strong enough to make us cubes for our evening tequila toast, and we are sweating 24/7.

We did work up a sweat in the right way this evening however. As we returned to our campsite along the beach we managed to weasel our way into a locals’ volleyball game. Not a huge window to play in between the unbearable sun and encroahing darkness, but we lived up every second of it. la punta vball

Tomorrow we head in to the airport to see if customs/immigration can do anything to help with our vehicle snafu. If not, we point back south and wander our way back to Guatemala. Not exactly how we planned it, but that’s okay- we hear they have beaches there too.

Playa San Augustine, Mexico brydanger 02/02/2013

Playa San Augustine, Mexico

We’ve begun (very slowly) moving south again. And it isn’t a choice we take lightly. We have spent a lot of time at airports in the last few days, especially for people on a road trip. Apparently visiting aduana (customs) offices away from a border means going to the nearest international airport and entering the exit. Well, not so much entering as that’s prohibited, but approaching the arrivals exit, telling the guard that you need to speak to the aduana and standing outside while they are fetched from inside. Its an interesting process and we actually got flagged for security as the two suspicious looking gringos hanging around the airport and taking photos. He seemed to buy our story and all ended well. Luckily Karma had already made friends with the other guards nearby. huatulco airport

We have now talked with two different aduana offices as well as the US consulate in acapulco. They all tell us the same somewhat sad news…that we have to return E to guatemala, and that we should do so before the expiration mid-february. In fact, there also seems to be a general impression that we should do so without driving as the vehicle could technically be seized. How exactly we get our vehicle/home to Guatemala without driving it… that gem of information nobody seems to know.

The urgency comes from our paperwork overlap. Apparently, a vehicle permit has to be tied to your temporary visa in order to be valid. Since ours didn’t get renewed at the border along with our visa- its no longer valid. Which means all sorts of applicable fines and seizure of the vehicle, should some policia decide to do so. We tried everything from hardship renewal to applying for a FM3 (or whatever they call the new one since FM3s don’t exist anymore) to get around having to leave the country so soon, but it suffices to say- we’ve begun making a run for the border.

We have also decided that since we will be in Guatemala, there’s a strong chance we might continue exploring the other countries of central america. I say might because (as you may recall) we already tried that once and the beauty that is mexico somehow lured us back after less than 2 weeks away. Regardless, since there’s a chance we will continue on we, are going to have the engine retooled before our departure. The discussion here was difficult, but we did have the same diagnosis from two different respected mechanics, and the simple fact of the matter is that if one should ever need considerable work done to their kombi- mexico is the place to do it. We’ve been warned that once we get across the border, the prevalence of mechanics with old vw knowledge might not return until columbia- which we haven’t even decided to visit yet. banana grove

We also happen to be in an area that is among our cheapest lodging to date, and since we can’t exactly sleep in the bus while it’s in the shop- we have to consider the additional expense of sleeping as part of the repair. The cost of engine retooling and 4 days in a hotel room weren’t exactly part of the plan, but we do often say that we travel without one. argh. At least the room here will be essentially free compared to having the retooling done back home.  All of that decided, we are currently heading south of our cheap hippy heaven, waiting to drop off the vehicle and taking care of other time stamped details in Huatulco.

Our first stop was at Playa San Augustine, which we were pretty excited to visit after reading that it had snorkeling (hard to find on this coast). We pull in and feel like were back in Majahual waiting on the cruise ship to reach port. No large cruise ships here but clearly this pristine little beach is too close to the tourist center of Huatulco and the beach is lined with uninterrupted restaurants and snorkel operations. The boats come in back to back dropping people off for lunch and the main occupation in town has changed from fishing to boat taxi ferrying people back and forth the last 15 meters from boat to beach.

We should have known something wasn’t right when we were getting out of the bus and spotted life jackets in mexico…but it didn’t really soak in until we looked at the prices on the menus. A real pity too, this is just the type of beach that we would have tried to find a way to stay for a few years were it not bombarded by tourists- instead we left after lunch (just in time, as the ATV tours were heading to the beach to join the boaters). san augustine