Oaxaca and Guerrero Coast

We’d been recommended Ziplolite by some friends in London, but after a few travellers that we’d spoken to had said that it was nothing special, we stopped there not expecting an awful lot and pretty much got what we expected. The coast at Zipolite looks just like hundreds of miles of the Mexican Pacific coastline, and offers little that you can’t get elsewhere. If Zipolite offered something else to entice visitors I could understand its popularity, but the sea is usually too dangerous to swim in (strong undertow and rip-tide), and the development that backs the beach is largely run down and hurricane damaged. If you want somewhere quiet to get stoned and eat pizza, Zipolite is great, but entertainment is limited to what you bring with you.

There is a campsite in town, but it had little shade, and knowing that the tap water at campsites by the sea is usually too saline to drink from, we offered to free camp and save some money. There was a fair a choice of places to park, it strikes me as the kind of laid back place where nobody would bother you wherever you choose, but we parked on an undeveloped plot next to a hotel and fronting the beach. It was nice to be so close to the sea, but the waves is Zipolite were huge when we were there, and anyone who doesn’t sleep like they’re in a coma will find the noise of the sea keeps them awake unless they move further back from the waterfront than we did.

Knowing that we had thousands of miles of beaches ahead of us, we stayed only one day before we got onto Mex 200 and headed to Puerto Escondido. We could have headed west on the local road, and stayed a night in Mazunte, but the urge to make some progress after several days of short drives meant that we chose to get on the highway to cover some miles.
Puerto Escondido has many beaches, but having spoken to some travellers who’d recently free camped in town, we chose to park on the furthest west of the developed beaches, Playa Carrizalillo. I’m sure those in the town centre are nice, but Carrizalillo has a large sand parking lot at the top of the cliff, and the high-street nearby has a nice mix of cafes and bars. There is a much larger, and much quieter beach to the west of Carrizalillo, but with no palapa restaurants to hide from the sub under, the heat is too much for two gringos and an extremely hairy perro. For anyone who wants a beach to themselves, I recommend taking the road down to club coco off the west end of Boulevard Benito Juarez; there is a large sand parking lot and for most of the day you’ll be the only people there. Carrizalillo was busy, but not thronging, and we spent three days hanging around the beach, drinking fruit juice and eating fish tacos. Having spent two hours learning to surf in Puerto Escondido, I have a new respect for surfers; it was the first time I have been made to feel properly old. After two hours my arms and legs were like jelly, and I spent the rest of the day feeling like I’d been in a washing machine on spin-cycle. I have the utmost admiration for the people that spend every day out in the water.

On the morning of our third night rough camping in the parking lot of Playa Carrizalillo, we were woken at about 7am by a man angrily shouting something at us in Spanish. My Spanish is terrible at the best of time, but when I’ve just woken up it’s worse than normal. I did however get the part where he said that it isn’t a trailer park and we should move. We were planning on getting back on the road that morning anyway, but we packed up a little earlier than we otherwise might. Noami and I were both surprised that the first time we’d been moved on from a parking spot in Mexico was not in a town centre, but in a huge field with an abundance of space and no obvious owner.

Our next stop was Acapulco, not somewhere I was excited about visiting, but well situated as a rest point on our way north. We stayed at a campsite on the spit of land near Pie de la Cuesta, west of town; it had been deserted by the flock of Canadians who spent their winters on the Pacific coast of Mexico, and so we had the place to ourselves. We spent a day visiting Acapulco, which was predictably mediocre. The old town has few redeeming features, and the new stretch of development stretching east looked like Miami all over again. We wasted a few pesos watching the ‘legendary’ cliff divers, and spent a few minutes in the run down Zocolo. The only surprise in Acapulco was the huge indoor market, filled with a great mix of fresh food, cooked food, and crafts of all kinds.

We had intended that our journey would continue north along the coast from Acapulco, through the rugged coastline of Michoacán, but everyone in Guerrero that we’d spoken to had strongly advised us against it. We already knew that Michoacán has a reputation for being a dangerous state, but we’d spoken to a few travellers who’d recently driven through with no trouble, and thought that perhaps the reputation was fuelled more by media hype than fact. After an Acapulco local implored us not to continue on Mex 200, we relinquished, and changed our route. We had always intended to leave the coast near Colima, and head inland to Guadalajara, but we instead elected to leave the coast immediately, and head in the direction Mexico City, from where we could pick up the 15.