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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

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

How to Get a U.S. Tourist Visa

How to Get a U.S. Tourist Visa

Si no entiendes ingles, no te preocupes – voy a traducir este articulo a espanol y subirla pronto. Saludos y suerte amigos…
Hello foreign friends. Don’t believe the hype.
Ignore the nonsense coming out of the U.S. media. Ignore the rude trolls on message boards and comment sections of immigration articles. We love you. We want you to visit our country. And we don’t mind if you spend a little money while you are here.
Popular opinion is that the U.S. government wants to make it hard for you. Immigration officers are stern. They are trained to intimidate liars, making it easier to detect their lies.
If you look at the application for a U.S. tourist visa, there are loads of questions like: Are you a terrorist? Are you a drug smuggler? Are you involved in human trafficking?
Laugh, roll your eyes or get offended, but answering these questions is one of the hoops you have to jump through. However you feel about terrorism – that it’s taken too seriously, that the U.S. deserves it, or whatever – it’s a fact that it exists and the U.S. government takes it quite seriously.
The bottom line is that if you want to take a vacation in the U.S. and you follow procedure (explicit and implied), then you have nothing to worry about.
Carefully Read and Fill Out the Application Online
Traveling to the U.S. begins with filling out the application form online. It’s in English, but if you can understand this article, then you can do the application.
Expect to spend between one and two hours reading the instructions and doing the application. Take your time, read everything and be sure you understand it all.
Start here to fill out the application. Notice how you must choose the country from which you will apply.
Depending on your country, you may have to go to one or two appointments. For example, in Mexico, first you have to go to one agency for your photographs and fingerprints, and then you go to the U.S. consulate for your interview.
Write down the application ID number that they give you on the first page. You will need it to retrieve your application in case something happens to your Internet connection.
A few pages of personal information follow. When you reach the page where it asks you for what type of visa, choose the B2 visa. It may say tourism/medical travel, or something with tourism in it. Just make sure it is the B2. The B1 is for business.
Some information you will need for the application are: Your parents’ full names and dates of birth; the address of your destination in the U.S. (if you don’t have one, just put in the name of any hotel. Having reservations isn’t necessary); and a contact person who lives in the U.S. If you don’t know anyone there, find someone. Ask family and friends for the name of a family or friend. You’ll find someone.
And you need a passport, of course.
Be certain that you have no mistakes. Check and double check.
You will submit the application online. Then you must follow the instructions for how to make an appointment at the U.S. consulate, if necessary. If not, you may have to mail them your passport.
Print Bank Statements
It may not be obvious on the list of requirements, but it is a good idea to demonstrate that you have sufficient funds for your stay. Print three or more months of bank statements. You should have 1,000 U.S. dollars for each month you plan to stay in the U.S.
If you don’t have enough money, print a relative’s bank statement and have that relative write a letter stating that they plan to support you financially during your trip.
Prove That You Have a Reason to Go Home
This is what the embassy websites won’t tell you – that your chances of acceptance improve greatly when you can demonstrate that you have ties back home that prevent you from overstaying.
The big four are a job, a school, a family, or property.
If you work, get a letter from your boss, on company letterhead, stating when you are expected back to work. If you are going to quit, try to get that letter anyway.
If you study, get a letter from the school on official letterhead stating when you will be returning to school.
If you don’t have a job or go to school, a deed of your house, a copy of a payment on a mortgage, or a rent certificate is helpful. Or write an official looking letter stating your family situation and that after your vacation you have a family to return to and take care of.
Don’t Lie in Your Interview
Even innocent people are intimidated by authority. They make you feel guilty, even when you are innocent.
Because of this, you may be tempted to lie about some small detail. You may do it accidentally. Don’t. Immigration officers are trained to detect liars and suspicious people.
That said – and of course I absolutely do not recommend lying for any reason – there may be something you feel you have to lie about. Perhaps you have a family member living in the U.S. illegally and you don’t want to mention that person. Maybe you don’t have specific travel plans, but you need to create some.
Be very careful. One lie will require more lies, and then finally your lies will run away from you. This is your biggest threat for being rejected. And your application won’t only be rejected, but you may be barred from entering the U.S. for 10 years or forever.
If you are nervous, if there is something you don’t want to mention, then practice with a friend. Get your story straight. Don’t lie about superfluous things.
And if you are a terrorist, reading this article as part of your insane research, why not go take a walk outside? Smell the flowers. Feel the sunshine. Do you really want to kill innocent people?
Please don’t.

Jose Ars & Zipolite




Zipolite Surf Report and Forecast | BEACHLIVE.COM Today's Zipolite surf report and surf forecast for the beach visitor. Easy to use Zipolite surf forecast. www.beachlive.com/surf-reports-forecasts/.../zipolite_97344

Zipolite Surf Report and Forecast | BEACHLIVE.COM
Today's Zipolite surf report and surf forecast for the beach visitor. Easy to use Zipolite surf forecast.
www.beachlive.com/surf-reports-forecasts/.../zipolite_97344



Does anybody know the smartest way to get from Airport Mexico City to Zipolite by bus?

Airport Mexico City => Zipolite - Lonely Planet
Hi all,Does anybody know the smartest way to get from Airport Mexico City to Zipolite by bus? I already read on the tree thatś it easy to bus to Oaxaca but i cant  ...
www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID...




AlexisBulowski avatar
Jun 11, 2013 11:05 AM
Posts:  2
Airport Mexico City => Zipolite
Hi all,

Does anybody know the smartest way to get from Airport Mexico City to Zipolite by bus? I already read on the tree thatś it easy to bus to Oaxaca but i cant get my finger behind the trip from Oaxaca to Zipolite. I even wishfully wonder if there is a better connection between airport mexico city and zipolite.

Thanks in advance,

A
lake_wobegon avatar
Jun 11, 2013 12:38 PM
Posts:  917
1
Neither from Mexico City nor from Oaxaca (via Mexico City) ... is getting to Zipolite an easy journey, by bus. It's a very long ride. Two routes: 1) which takes you from Mexico City over by Acapulco then down Hwy. 200 through Pinotepa Nacional, Puerto Escondido and then a couple of options as to where to make the cut over to the Pacific Coast beach area at Zipolite; 2) which takes you from Mexico City to Oaxaca and from Oaxaca you have a couple of choices as to routes which will get you over the mountains to Hwy. 200 and the same couple of options as to where to make the cut over to the Pacific Coast beach area at Zipolite (most likely through Puerto Angel). Neither of these possible routes begins at the airport. You will have to make the trip from the airport to either the city's east or south bus terminal (depending upon the route you choose). If you have the money to do so, flying into Huatulco will save considerable time and wear and tear on your body. From Huatulco's airport you can get to Zipolite, relatively easy.

LW
Queretaro avatar
Jun 11, 2013 1:26 PM
Posts:  576
2
Vivaaerobus have cheap flights that will take you to Puerto Escondido (i.e. as cheap as the bus and about 11 hours quicker). You may have to stay in Mexico City overnight though (depending on your arrival time) although overall it may not cost you any time. If you go all the way by bus the most comfortable and quickest route is that described as option 1 in #1's reply.
mclarjh avatar
Jun 11, 2013 1:29 PM
Posts:  1,070
3
More detail: there is an ADO first-class service from Mexico City to Pochutla (782 MXN; 16 hrs). From Pochutla, camionetas travel frequently to the nearby beaches, including Zipolite (20 MXN; 20 mins).
enroutesiglo avatar
Jun 11, 2013 3:26 PM
Posts:  2,195
4
Considering that the bus is around 800-850 for an endless, winding, 16 hour ride, and the plane is around 800-1000 pesos for a quick flight 55 min flight to Puerto Escondito or Huatulco, there really is only one sensible choice.
AlexisBulowski avatar
Jun 12, 2013 10:04 AM
Posts:  2
5
thanks for your replies, i guess i just fly to mexico airport, check if there is any reasonable flight, if not take the bus.

adios
yaguri avatar
Jun 12, 2013 4:14 PM
Posts:  411
6
You'll probably get better airfares if you reserve ahead, rather than walk up to the airline desk at the airport.

Aeromexico and Interjet fly from Mexico City to Huatulco, which is a bit closer to Pochutla (and therefore to Zipolite) than Puerto Escondido.

Cabanas Biuzaa, Playa Zipolite


CABAÑAS BIUZAA. " EL LUJO NUNCA FUE TAN SENCILLO"www.biuzaa.com
ZIPOLITE OAXACA.
CABAÑAS BIUZAA. "The luxury never was so easy" www.biuzaa.comZIPOLITE, OAXACA. (Translated by Bing)


Salsa experience!

Scuba Diving Huatulco

Guelaguetza 2013


Casa Orquidea Zipolite changed their cover photo.




Altamira, Mazunte,Oaxaca rafaelgonzalezmonrea

Christine Sæther Jun 12 I had my dream birthday in Zipolite 2002 riding beautiful Athenea! ♥

I had my dream birthday in Zipolite 2002...
Christine Sæther12:51pm Jun 12
I had my dream birthday in Zipolite 2002 riding beautiful Athenea! ♥



Small-batch mezcals, from the heart of Oaxaca Former Ophir resident Judah Kuper, right, with wife Valentina and his in-laws, Aquilino, Epifania and Mateo Garcia. Kuper and longtime friend Dylan Sloan have launched a mezcal importing/exporting business called Mezcal Vago. Aquilino Garcia is one of the mezcal producers. [Courtesy photo by Joanna B. Pinneo] Ophir men launch mezcal importing business By Katie Klingsporn

Small-batch mezcals, from the heart of Oaxaca
The Daily Planet
It was on one of those adventures that the men found themselves on a street in Oaxaca, Mexico, where they were overcome by a parade of carousing graduates lighting off fireworks and carrying gas cans. The two gringos were pulled into this mobile party, ...



Small-batch mezcals, from the heart of Oaxaca


Former Ophir resident Judah Kuper, right, with wife Valentina and his in-laws, Aquilino, Epifania and Mateo Garcia. Kuper and longtime friend Dylan Sloan have launched a mezcal importing/exporting business called Mezcal Vago. Aquilino Garcia is one of the mezcal producers. [Courtesy photo by Joanna B. Pinneo]

Ophir men launch mezcal importing business

By Katie Klingsporn
Editor
Published: Wednesday, June 12, 2013 6:07 AM CDT
Dylan Sloan and Judah Kuper were 19 years old when they met, a couple of ski bums camping in Bear Creek before their first ski season in Telluride.

They struck up what has become an enduring friendship, and in those early years, would often travel together during the off-seasons. It was on one of those adventures that the men found themselves on a street in Oaxaca, Mexico, where they were overcome by a parade of carousing graduates lighting off fireworks and carrying gas cans. The two gringos were pulled into this mobile party, and soon the students were urging Kuper and Sloan to drink from gas cans, chanting “Toma! Toma! Toma!”

“What hit my lips was so smoky and powerful that, momentarily, I though it might actually be gasoline,” Kuper recalls. “In fact, it was my first taste of mezcal.”

That was the beginning of a love affair with Oaxaca and its people, food and spirits that led Kuper to settle in the southern Mexico state, open a beachside bar there with Sloan, start a family, and most recently, launch Mezcal Vago with his longtime friend. The import/export company aims to bring artisanal small-batch mezcals from the tiny family-run palenques — mezcal production facilities — of Oaxaca’s hills to the restaurants, bars and tables of the U.S.
*
Mezcal Vago, which has sister companies in Mexico and Ophir, has brought three of its mezcal varieties to Telluride, and is planning to offer more soon. Sloan said businesses from Honga’s to La Marmotte, Siam, The Chop House and Floradora are serving Mezcal Vago, and all three liquor stores carry it.

“Telluride has been an extremely warm environment to get kick-started,” he said.

Along with its Colorado distributor, the business is working with distributors in Texas and New York to sell the mezcal and hopes to expand to further states in the near future.

The goal is to share Oaxaca’s finest mezcals — which Kuper says convey the earthy, arid and smoky qualities inherent to the state — with the world. None of the mezcal producers they work with have produced commercially before, and none of them are producing commercially for anyone else. The result, Sloan and Kuper say, is that they are making available the kind of handcrafted spirits that could previously only be found at farmers markets in Oaxacan pueblos.

“This repesents truth in mezcal,” Kuper said. “It’s not us looking for the smoothest, or the least smoky or the most smoky, it’s us bringing a mezcal that gives you a sense of place, that takes you on a journey to where my father-in-law is from, where my wife grew up.”

Mezcal Vago’s products are a far cry from the bottles of brown mezcals that come with worms floating in them. All of Mezcal Vago’s mezcals are made in the traditional Oaxacan style — joven and clear — and their only ingredients are agave and water. They are produced by roasting agave underground and are not aged in oak.

The result is a sophisticated, complex set of flavors and a potent spirit of around 90-110 proof.

“We’re bringing it back in its truest form,” Sloan said. “It’s incredibly smooth and you can get past the burn and get these great flavors. It’s such an awesome representation of a beautiful heritage.”

Mezcal is akin to wine in that it comes in many different varieties with flavors influenced by the dirt, climate and water specific to each region, Kuper said.

“Mezcal is an incredibly complex and elegant spirit,” Kuper said. “The difference in flavors from one to the next is mind-blowing.”

Each bottle of Mezcal Vago comes with a label detailing who made it, what pueblo it is from, the size of the batch and other specifics. Bottles start at around $50.

The formation of Mezcal Vago is part of a larger story about travel, love and continuing a centuries-old tradition.

Sometime after their first taste of mezcal, Kuper settled on an island west of Puerto Escondido in Oaxaca, where he and Sloan opened a small beachside bar. One day, Kuper developed an ear infection and went to a rural health clinic. Out walked a beautiful little nurse, and Kuper was thunderstruck. He ended up courting, then marrying, the nurse, Valentina Garcia, whose father’s family has been manufacturing fine mezcals for generations. Kuper started selling his father-in-law’s mezcals at his bar, and said patrons were impressed with its quality.

The more he learned about the craft, the more he realized this was top-notch stuff. He ended up traveling all over the state to research different brands and flavors.

“We thought, let’s do a bunch of tours, learn everything we can, see how it really holds up … It held up,” he said. “His mezcal is totally unique, really good and really represents the truth in mezcal.”

As he became part of her family, he realized it was time to share these mezcals — and others like them — with the world.

For those who want to see what Mezcal Vago is all about, Sloan is hosting a tasting on Thursday from 4-7 p.m. at Pacific Street Liquors. To learn more about Mezcal Vago, visit mezcalvago.com.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Puerto Escondido | Beforetwentyseven Posts about Puerto Escondido written by brigittemartina. beforetwentyseven.wordpress.com/tag/puerto-escondido/

Puerto Escondido | Beforetwentyseven
Posts about Puerto Escondido written by brigittemartina.
beforetwentyseven.wordpress.com/tag/puerto-escondido/



Weekly Photo Challenge: Fleeting

I realize how fast time goes by when there’s a new weekly photo challenge. I’m always looking forward to this challenge, because it gives me a good reason to go through my favorite photo album: My trip through Mexico. I did my internship in Oaxaca – Mexico in 2011 and ever since I can’t stop thinking about this amazing country and it’s wonderful people. I love using my Mexico pictures, because they all have a special meaning to me and I remember every single moment.
Picture uno: I sat in the bus to Puerto Escondido playing with my camera when I saw this cute couple. I caught them giving each other a quick kiss. Just too cute!
Puerto Escondido
Puerto Escondido
Picture dos: Puerto Escondido has one of the best surfing beaches in da world! Of course I wanted to scratch ‘surfing’ off my bucket list so I took a lesson. I’m not a pro. Not even a talent. This is just a lucky picture of me being able to keep standing up for more than 10 seconds. But I loved it!
Puerto Escondido
Puerto Escondido
Picture tres: Of course I visited Zócalo (Plaza de la Constitución) when I was in Mexico City. The Zócalo in Mexico City is 57,600 metres² (240 m × 240 m) and one of the largest city squares in the world. It is beautiful and really nice to walk around. I saw these people having a quick lunch. Only the dad noticed me, right at the moment I took the picture.
Mexico City
Mexico City
Picture cuatro: I like to show more pictures of my Dutch life. I took this picture in Schiedam for my photography course last year. I love that even though all objects are blurry,  you can still see everything.
Schiedam - The Netherlands
Schiedam – The Netherlands
Let me know what you think if you want to (: Thanks and good luck on this challenge!