Episode 11: Puerto Escondido of Many Beaches
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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
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