| Zipolite - Ciudadania Express, periodismo de paz Hace cuarenta y cuatro años, conocí Zipolite por primera vez. Lo atrayente, en aquellos antineoliberales años, era su playa nudista, donde llegaban jipitecas, - ... |
Salvador Hernandez.
Forty-four years ago, I met Zipolite for the first time.
The attractive thing, in those anti-neoliberal years, was its nudist beach, where jipitecas arrived , -bottle of mezcal in hand and churro de mota between the yellow teeth-, and thugs from the farthest reaches, contrasting with the muses, who wandered around naked. the white sand carpet: Swiss, Italian, German, English or French. The most convincing representation, that the UN was not in the "Big Apple". Enriching races and languages, the already multicultural state of Oaxaca.
"Zipolais" was the center of the blowout par excellence. Long ago to AIDS. When Caro Quintero, possibly, was harvesting his first plants of marijuana.
Although Zipolite means "Sea of the Dead", the only victims were swimmers, who dared to swim where there was no return.
Only a trained dog, it was the hope for those who were about to die drowned in the whirlpool of White Rock .
A red cloth, tied to a dry branch, was the warning of an open sea without concessions, since the "lifeguards" of the navy, only limited themselves to looking at those who were about to succumb, in the green waters of the Pacific ; and the naked güeras, of course! There was no room for heroic acts, and athletic nudists did not enter into the act.
On one occasion, on the verge of drowning and with the delusions of a dying man, a short, bald foreigner saved my life by plunging into the water and pushing me by the waist towards the beach. In the distance, he saw the blurred images of the curious.
After struggling between life and death, I was able to touch the sand with my big toe. When my friend “El Matador” entered, and after an arduous fight with Neptune and his hosts, we reached the seashore, where we spent hours lying on the sand.
At night, "El Matador" and I, we had a bottle of Bacardi to celebrate our rebirth. We never saw abroad again. No matter how much we asked about him, no one could give us any sign of his existence.
It is worth mentioning that there were no public lighting, luxury restaurants, or exclusive hotels or bars as now, the ladies of the palapas who sold food and drinks were called "tías", although there was no kinship.
The reasons for leaving Zipolite were minimal: buying fish or very basic products. We walked to Puerto Ángel where they sold a black meat fish, called skipjack, with one, it was enough to eat four days, either in broth or fried.
From Puerto Ángel to Pochutla, you took a bus . In Pochutla there was a market and a telephone booth inside a store. The one that communicated us with the outside world.
II ) "Noah's Ark"
The first time I went to Zipolite, I looked for a place to leave my sleeping bag and a hammock to rest. Someone pointed to the end of the beach, there was "Noah's Ark" by Aunt Gloria, where if you wanted, you could eat, only vegetarian food.
I left my things, from there I could see the entire length and breadth of the beach, only the cliff that protects the "Playa del Amor" at the other end limited the beautiful view. A few cabins and a few people walking near the wild waves, it was the common postcard.
In the "Noah's Ark" no soft drinks or alcohol were sold, only fruit water. I was struck by a small altarpiece, adorned with seashells, there was the urn with the ashes of the owner's daughter. The photograph of a beautiful young woman adorned the simple altar.
Everything was harmony and spirituality, except when Gloria went on a trip, and her son organized anthology evenings, giving a 360 degree turn to the naturist environment. From noon, a blackboard announced the meats available from eight o'clock at night; natural fruit water was off the menu. The Dionysian evenings culminated in a spectacular sunrise. The "zipolitera" brotherhood was in conjunction with nature.
On one side of the "Noah's Ark", Mauro, like a good fisherman, had a cabin at the top of a mogote, which, with the help of a spyglass, was the first to locate whoever arrived at the nudist beach. What Mauro was least interested in was the tourist flow. The aesthetics of the foreigners was paramount.
Years passed, a few years ago I came back. I confess that I completely misplaced, that place was no longer the Zipolite that I knew in the seventies.
The worst of all is that I couldn't find hotels for less than five hundred pesos.
Although Zipolite has become a tourist destination, I must admit that my heart was at the bottom of the sea, when I "saw" my loved ones about to die. So I'm not going to stop going. Zipolite has that charm that other beaches that surround it do not have.
