Mexico Revisited: 2013-2014

Feb 4-11 2014 

About 30 years ago the Mexican government took a look at Puerto Escondido, the “Hidden Port”, with its wealth of good beaches and declared it the next big resort area. Plans were made and begun for three big, new resorts to be built and an airplane runway was built. Somehow those plans never came to fruition and the Mexican Government shifted its focus on Huatulco, farther east along the coast. There are now several large resorts in Huatulco, but Puerto Escondido looks almost the same as it was when we last visited in 2006, perhaps a few more small hotels, but not many. It does have an International airport, but the big difference was the lack of tourists. Granted we arrived after the busier weekend, but the main street in town was a long way from crowded and several small shops had closed their doors.

There are four main beach areas in Puerto Escondido. Play Principal is the original port that stretches about 500M in front of the original fishing village. The waters are calm and the swimming is good, as long as you stay clear of the fishing boats. The swimming improves even more the farther west you walk, where Playa Principal becomes Playa Marinero.

Around a rocky outcrop is Playa Zicatela, where 4 km of sandy beach drops off sharply to the ocean. Depending on the winds and various weather patterns, huge breakers crash along this coast, giving Zicatela AKA the “Mexican Pipeline”. Surfers watch the weather reports coming out of New Zealand, knowing that NZ storms are likely to hit Zicatela about four days later. The die-hard surfers book a flight and fly to Puerto Escondido to try their luck in the big surf. The surf had been relatively flat for 2 weeks prior to our arrival so there were few surfers around. Even in calm conditions the swimming can be dangerous with rip tides occurring frequently. We concentrated our visits to walking the beach and watching the surf build up whenever the winds built up.

The eastern end of Playa Principal ends in high cliffs and a rocky promontory. The other side of this promontory hides a smaller, protected Bay with a sandy stretch called Playa Manzanillo and around a few rocks in the center of the bay, Playa Angelita. Both beaches were lined with simple beach restaurants, each with palapas (palm thatched sun shades) and lounges free for the day for those willing to buy drinks or a meal. Playa Manzanillo, which was our favourite beach, had good snorkelling off the shore near the rocks. I even disturbed a turtle that was feeding on the bottom one morning. At lunch time a few men arrived with a pail full of fresh picked oysters which they shucked and offered for sale at $100MX per dozen. I tried just two and they were delicious, with fresh lime and some hot sauce.

The last beach within walking distance of town is Playa Carrizallilo, just a little farther west of Playa Andelita and Manzanillo. It too was great for swimming and had similar beach restaurants, palapas and chairs.

We got our exercise going to both Playa Manzanillo and Carrizallilo. Both beaches can only be reached by negotiating long stretches of stairs. Manzanillo stairs were is worse condition than I remembered from our previous visit but we managed them without harm. Carrizallilo is reached by walking down, and up 160 steps, but they were in relatively good condition.

This year we chose a hotel on top of the cliffs at the far western eand of the town, about half way between Playa Principal and our favourite beach Playa Manzanillo. Hotel Barlovento turned out to be a good choice. We had a spacious suite overlooking Playas Principal and Zicatela. Many of the guests return year after year and have kitchenettes in their units. We didn’t have a kitchen but the open-air restaurant was convenient and good. We spent part of the time at one of the beaches before returning to the hotel for an extra swim in their nice-sized pool.

Laguna Manialtepec  is about 15 KM west of Puerto Escondido, is a birder’s heaven. We took a morning tour last year and we repeated our visit this year. Our guide was Mike Malone, a Canadian ornithologist, who lives in Puerto Escondido four months in the winter and returns to Point Peelee Ontario for the summer. The second visit was just as good as our first visit. Eight tourists were picked up by Mike in a minivan shortly after 7 AM and driven to the Lagoon where we transferred to a motor boat. The lagoon is fed by runoff from mountain streams swollen from the rains that come from May until September. A sand bar separating the lagoon from the ocean is breached each year allowing shrimp to escape and fish to enter the lagoon. Fishermen with nets and spears spend their mornings in the lagoon catching several varieties of fish. When the sand bar opens, the fishermen have a short window in which to catch the shrimp, now full size after living in the protection of the lagoon. We spent more than two hours identifying shore birds and some colourful smaller birds. Last time there was a turtle center on the sand bar but not this year. We stopped on the sand bar to have a snack at the small restaurant and to walk the beach, which dropped away sharply, creating breakers that crashed onto the shore. Mike said to watch out for dolphins and whales. Sure enough, a humpback whale surfaced and spouted not far from shore. We watched it make its way north and then two humpbacks surfaced and blew going south. Mike said it was a mother and calf. Seeing the whales was just the icing on the cake for a great birding day