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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

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Villas Carrizalillo: Traveler Reviews


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Villas Carrizalillo: Traveler Reviews 

3.0 of 5
 
Ave. Carrizalillo No. 125Puerto Escondido 71980Mexico
+52 9545821735
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Hotel amenities
Villas Carrizalillo
  • atardecer
  • El Hotel
  • Villa Colorada
Ranked #4 of 45 hotels in Puerto Escondido
4.5 of 5 stars69 Reviews
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Reviews from our community

    Trip type
Traveler rating
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SierraE
Mexico City, Mexico
1 review
“Fantastic, relaxing vacation spot!”
5 of 5 starsReviewed December 26, 2011 NEW
I spotted Villas years ago from Carrizalillo beach while vacationing with some college friends and always thought it would be a fantastic place to stay. The hotel overlooks one of my favorite beaches in Mexico, with waves but calm enough for more tentative swimmers. It's just a short walk down some stairs to the beach from the hotel.

Our family stayed in the Venecia villa, which is near the entrance to the hotel and doesn't have an ocean view, but was fabulous all the same. There are plenty of common areas (an upper terrace with a bar, a lower sundeck, a little lounge with hammocks and couches) with great views where one can enjoy the sunset or just sit and read. The rooms were nicely furnished with pretty local artwork and tiles and very comfortable. The only big complaint I had was that the internet didn't work in our rooms, you had to go up to the front of the hotel near the restaurant to get a signal, but it helped us unplug a little. The only other improvement would be if they stocked the kitchen a little more-- a large bowl for mixing would have been nice, and having a salt and pepper shaker so that not everyone has to buy them. But we had all the basics, including a blender.

The villas was a great place to stay, a little way out of town and not on the main strip (Zicatela), so it was very relaxing and quiet for most of our stay. Even though it was high season, the hotel didn't seem to crowded, and the beach only had lots of people on the weekends. The hotel staff was friendly and accommodating, proactive in helping with anything we needed and great at answering questions. We didn't take any of the tours that were offered, but they can set up everything from Spanish and cooking lessons to bird watching.

The dinners at Espadin (the restaurant located inside Villas) were excellent and reasonably priced (especially the garlic breaded fish, the calamari and the shrimp tacos), although we found their breakfast to be quite disappointing, compared to other places in town it was both expensive and not very good. Having the kitchen was nice, fresh produce, meat and seafood can be found at the market, which is a short cab ride from the hotel, and there's a grocery store nearby for anything else.

I would recommend staying at Villas Carrizalillo for families, groups of friends or especially a couple. I imagine it would be an excellent honeymoon destination.
Room Tip: If you want an ocean view, pick Mitla, Colorado, Terraza, Escondido or Puebla (details are available on the hotels website about how many bedrooms each one is etc.)
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  • Stayed December 2011, traveled with family
    • 4 of 5 starsValue
    • 5 of 5 starsLocation
    • 4 of 5 starsSleep Quality
    • 5 of 5 starsRooms
    • 5 of 5 starsCleanliness
    • 5 of 5 starsService
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JandJFarnhamCommon
farnham common
Senior Contributor
34 reviews
4 helpful votes
“Visit to Puerto Escondido”
5 of 5 starsReviewed December 18, 2011
Beautiful views from panoramic windows of room Escondido. Short walk down steps to isolated, intimate beach, good for swimming (no impediments). Roof top, open air, thatched dining room; beautiful food and well served. A dream hotel and location, Specially Recommended.
Room Tip: Check the villas own website which has very good description of individual rooms.
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  • Stayed December 2011, traveled as a couple
    • 5 of 5 starsValue
    • 5 of 5 starsLocation
    • 5 of 5 starsSleep Quality
    • 5 of 5 starsRooms
    • 5 of 5 starsCleanliness
    • 5 of 5 starsService
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MLphoto
Cozumel, Mexico
Senior Reviewer
10 reviews
5 helpful votes
“Easily the best in Puerto Escondido”
5 of 5 starsReviewed December 12, 2011
1
 
person found this review helpful
Five star service, rooms, views, and food. What else is there to say? We arrived late on a Sunday after a seven-hour drive from Oaxaca, had a late lunch and did not eat anywhere else. The food slayed us and we became hopelessly addicted to the anticipation of the next meal. In three days we managed to eat our way through most of the menu, but saved one or two items for our next visit. This is a very special place, so special it deserves its own blog post.

Michael
Latin Journeys
Room Tip: Mitla and Colorado are perfect for couples, who don't care about cooking. Most of the units have kitchens and these only have a kitchenette. With a restaurant like Espadin, who wants a kitchen?
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  • Stayed December 2011, traveled as a couple
    • 5 of 5 starsValue
    • 5 of 5 starsLocation
    • 5 of 5 starsSleep Quality
    • 5 of 5 starsRooms
    • 5 of 5 starsCleanliness
    • 5 of 5 starsService
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kerryferrer79
San Francisco, California
Senior Reviewer
10 reviews
“beautiful experience”
5 of 5 starsReviewed July 29, 2011
My husband read about this hotel in a travel magazine and wanted to go there for a beach vacation.
Our week at Puerto Escondido has been great , even if this part of Mexico, is not the easiest place to get to.
This hotel is beautiful, everything is very clean and well maintained, the service is attentive and very professional .
I highly recommend Villas Carrizalillo if you want a top class hotel.
  • Stayed July 2011, traveled as a couple
    • 5 of 5 starsValue
    • 5 of 5 starsSleep Quality
    • 5 of 5 starsCleanliness
    • 5 of 5 starsService
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Tapatileman
Queretaro, Mexico
Reviewer
4 reviews
5 helpful votes
“All perfect but the stairs...”
4 of 5 starsReviewed June 15, 2011
1
 
person found this review helpful
should be fixed asap! Paying 200 USD per night you should not be confronted with stairs so uneven ("chuecos") that older people or pregnant women put their health in risk.
  • Stayed April 2011, traveled with family
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Free Falling By Sarah Darling

Tuesday, December 27, 2011


Surfline founder Sean Collins dies at 59


Surfline founder Sean Collins dies at 59

The founder of the forecast site was regarded as an innovator and influential member of the surf community.
  
By LAYLAN CONNELLY / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
The words "Follow Your Passions" will forever be inscribed in concrete on the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Main Street.
Sean Collins, the founder of Surfline.com, wrote the phrase when he was inducted into the Surfers Hall of Fame in 2008 and lived by those words. The influential surfer dedicated his life to following waves, tracking winds and sharing stories of swells with the world.
Article Tab: collins-fame-adorn-sean
Flowers adorn the Surfers Hall of Fame at PCH and Main Street in Huntington Beach where Sean Collins, the founder of Surfline.com left his mark in 2008. Collins, 59, died monday of natural causes.
PAUL BERSEBACH, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
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Collins, 59, died Monday from natural causes, according to the Orange County coroner's office.
His youngest son, A.J., said Collins was playing tennis at his club in Newport at about 2 p.m. when he died suddenly from a heart attack. The family was together, trying to grapple with the news.
For the surfing community, Collins' death means the loss of one of the most influential surfers in the world. He changed the way people sought out waves around the world.
Collins founded Huntington Beach-based Surfline, which started as a phone service and became one of the most powerful surf forecasting web sites in the world, guiding surfers who once aimlessly searched for waves but now had information readily available to predict the best windows for waves.
Peter "P.T." Townend, surfing's first world champion, remembers Collins coming to a meeting at Surfing Magazine and explaining this new phone service.
"We were all going, 'We don't know if that will ever work," he recalled. "And now look at us. It's the No. 1 communication to our world."
"We've all ridden more waves because of Sean Collins. It's that simple."
Collins started tracking weather patterns while spending hours at sea with his father on a sailboat. He had no formal training, just a few courses and a passion.
By the early 1980s, friends would ask for his advice on where to hit the waves. Then surfers he didn't know started calling.
He teamed up with some Orange County businessmen to help create a phone line called Surfline. He eventually ended up buying that company and launching the largest surf forecast web site in the world.
"People tell us we can't do it, and we're going to try that much harder," Collins said in his Hall of Fame induction speech.
The soft-spoken surfer helped the everyday surfer who wanted to get some waves before work in the morning as well as the world's best surfers looking for secret, undiscovered spots. He advised organizers of the world's biggest surf contests of the best days to hold the events.
Government agencies asked for his advice about sand replenishment projects, and he personally sent alerts to lifeguards and news agencies when big waves were on the way that could threaten the lives of beachgoers unfamiliar with the ocean's strength.
Collins often told stories about Federales in Mexico in the '80s who thought he worked for the CIA when they uncovered strange-looking machines in his car.
He traveled south to Mexico often when big swells hit, sometimes cutting it very close to destructive hurricanes that hit so he could find the best waves. He was part of a team that discovered Cortes Bank, a wave that only an elite group of surfers can tackle that rarely breaks and only in the best conditions.
One of his favorite things was the family surf trips he took with his two sons, Tyler and A.J.
"My No. 1 priority now is surfing with my kids,'' he said in an Orange County Register article in 2005. "We got some incredibly good sessions. It's great taking off on a big wave and having my kids see me and hoot at me."
Collins was named one of the 25 Most Influential Surfers of the Century by Surfer Magazine in summer 1999 and the Eighth Most Powerful Surfer in the Surf Industry by Surfer Magazine in summer 2002. He sold Surfline in 2000 but stayed on as president and chief forecaster, heading the forecast team. He traveled the world seeking the best waves and photographed and documented many of his surf sessions.
A few years ago, the Register interviewed Collins about his work for a story about having the best job in Orange County.
"I founded the site because I saw a need, but primarily because I wanted to follow my passions and wanted to control my own future. I believe the real secret of my success was to surround myself with really good people who could help to build our business," he said.
"The personal payoff is the lifestyle of continuing to be able to chase great surf around the world while getting paid for it, and I couldn't do that without my great team of people."
In a biography on Surfline.com, he said this about the secret to success: "Really simple things when you think about it. Mostly just follow your passion, try to be a really good person and a good judge of character, and then just surround yourself with a great team and really good people. Add lots of luck, and all kinds of great things can happen."
Information about a service is pending. He is survived by his wife, Daren, and sons, Tyler and A.J.
Please share memories of Collins or stories of how Surfline affects or has changed your life below.
Contact the writer: lconnelly@ocregister.com

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