Change is Afoot in Puerto Escondido

Change is afoot in Puerto Escondido, a dazzling region perched on the Mexican Coast. However, as David Amsden discovers, the place still retains its raw-edged surfing soul.

3 December 2022

I spent my first hour in Puerto Escondido doing what many had done before me: driving along a snaking two-lane highway in euphoric delirium. Though I was only a few miles from the center of the town on the Pacific coast of Mexico’s Oaxaca state, I felt an acute sense of being unmoored from the world I knew, stirred by a landscape of mountains and ocean and little else. I slowed for a herd of goats. I slowed for a man in a cowboy hat steering a tractor. I slowed, often, to scan the coastline for crashing waves, itching for a glimpse of their elegant fury.

It is not pure stoner hokum to say that Puerto, as everyone calls the place, is built on a wave, on the search for waves. Dig into the mouldier corners of the internet, as I’m prone to do when it comes to surfing matters, and you’ll find grainy footage of the area from 1977 that provides insight into how it came to be: shaggy-headed guys on the backs of burros, surfboards tucked under their arms, making their way through mangroves to a feral beach. That beach is Zicatela. Known for thundering barrels that draw comparisons to Hawaii’s famed Pipeline, it is today the town’s heart, those mangroves replaced by an ad hoc sprawl of tumbledown bars, shoes-optional restaurants, and increasingly stylish hotels.

Some 15 miles north of Puerto, I veered off onto a dirt road. It was barely wider than my car and led to an empty beach. Did this place, I wondered, feel a bit like how Zicatela had for those dudes back in 1977? The question, I knew, was absurd, but still I felt that buzz.

The Power of Surfers

Surfers are to certain beaches what artists are to certain neighborhoods: accidental instigators of change. They show up in pursuit of something personal and in the process create a world that intrigues many. I was drawn to Puerto to surf but also to understand how the town has come to exert a fierce gravitational pull far beyond the world of surfing – drawing in design fanatics, digital nomads, acolytes of modern wellness, and the rest. The constant comparisons to Tulum are reductive but also telling. After decades of being insulated, Puerto, it seems, is tipping in a few different directions, without any single group dominating the scene.

Casa Wabi and the Shift in Culture

One of the shifts came into dramatic focus at the end of the dirt road. In 2014, Bosco Sodi, the celebrated Mexican artist, built a creative compound called Casa Wabi in the wilderness here. It’s part public art foundation, part residency programme, and part private home for Sodi and his family. Designed by Tadao Ando, the Pritzker-winning Japanese architect, its mix of weathered cement and thatched-roof palapas provided the aesthetic template – sleek and austere, yet somehow earthy – for what followed. Now known as Punta Pájaros, the region has three hotels, two of them designed by the Mexico City architect Alberto Kalach, who also created a few sustainable homes that are peppered about and can be rented short term. There is a Japanese restaurant with an opaque reservations policy and a mezcal bar, operated by Sodi’s younger brother Claudio, which exudes curated mystique.

Hotel Escondido Experience

Checking into Hotel Escondido, I was handed a glass of something exquisite involving mezcal and tamarind. With its 16 freestanding bungalows facing the ocean, each tucked into a tangle of vegetation, the property evoked the romance of surf culture. It seemed built to pay homage to Puerto’s past while pointing, in some way, towards its future.

“I don’t want to sound pretentious, but it all started with Casa Wabi,” Sodi had told me before I came. He did not sound proud so much as weary about all he’d wrought. He had grown up camping in the area, and it was that experience – elemental, sweaty, rough-and-tumble – that inspired Casa Wabi. Now the influencers were coming, and he was unnerved. “I think it’s becoming too fashionable, too much about the selfie,” he said of Puerto. “This place was ruled by tough surfers. You don’t want the essence to disappear.”

Finding the Heart of Puerto

“If you want to understand the Puerto I love,” he’d said, “go to Roca Blanca.”

I found Roca Blanca, a curving beach of golden sand a few miles north up the highway, at the end of a labyrinth of sandy roads. The beach looked out on the craggy formation of white rock from which it gets its name. The white was the result of centuries of birds relieving themselves, but the rock’s effect was otherworldly from afar, like a fallen asteroid. Milling about were mainly locals and Mexican holidaymakers. I noticed they were doing something I hadn’t witnessed the artfully dishevelled crowd doing on the beach at Punta Pájaros: swimming in the ocean, fearless in the turbulent surf.

Local Perspectives

A handful of restaurants lined the beach, their wooden tables and plastic chairs shaded from the ferocious sun by thatched-roof structures identical to those at my hotel. Sitting down at one, La Puesta del Sol, I ordered fish tacos and a beer. My waiter was a young guy named Miguel Cobo, originally from Veracruz, who’d been in Puerto for a while and had a unique vantage point on its present incarnation. He remarked, “It all brings in more money, which is of course good, since Oaxaca is one of Mexico’s poorest states. But it’s a different vibe. Puerto is special because you still have Mexican families. Mexican owned restaurants. Beers for 30 pesos. People on adventures.”

City of Diverse Vibes

Like many locals I spoke to, Cobo said the town had changed dramatically during the pandemic, with remote workers streaming in, driving up rents and straining infrastructure. Still, Puerto remains notable for what isn’t here: towering mega-resorts, multinational conglomerates. In La Punta – an enclave of unpaved roads, hostels, bars and casual restaurants at the southern end of Zicatela, I saw a range of diverse characters, all embracing the spirit of the surf culture.

Surfing in Puerto

Antsy to get in the water, I rented a surfboard and walked out to the beach where the waves are mellower. The water was aquamarine in color, amniotic in temperature. The popularity of surfing has created a world where people now go on surf trips to learn. In Puerto, this means that locals can make very good money running surf camps for the inexperienced, and those who know how to surf can pay a local to get them to the top breaks, where there are fewer crowds.

Culinary Scene

For dinner, I visited Fish Shack La Punta, a hopping little joint set in a narrow alley near the beach. The smoked-fish dip with avocado, and the griddled fish sandwich slathered in serrano-chilli tartare sauce were incredibly delightful. The evolving culinary scene in Puerto offers a blend of local flavors with modern seafood dishes.

A Unique Experience in Chacahua

However, if you’re looking for something less curated, less crowded, Chacahua, two hours north, is worth exploring. Here, a handful of fishing shacks lines a river that connects a bioluminescent lagoon to the ocean, offering a raw stretch of sand.

Where to Stay in Puerto Escondido

Two properties from Mexican hotel brand Grupo Habita inject trademark cool without disturbing Puerto’s easygoing spirit. Hotel Escondido features palapa roofs and a social hub pool on the sand. The recently opened Hotel Terrestre has 14 two-storey bungalows with private pools, showcasing a modern architectural style from Alberto Kalach.

Further Afield

Puerto Escondido is an excellent gateway to this stretch of Oaxacan coast, known for great surf and laid-back towns such as Chacahua. Base yourself in Punta Pájaros; the town of La Punta has affordable options. From there, drive to Zicatela, the legendary surf spot, which is not recommended for swimming. Instead, try calmer Playa Carrizalillo.