Playa Zipolite

After a busy week of city-to-city wandering the beach beckoned us forth. Originally, Paul was interested in heading to the Yucatan peninsula and although the beaches here ARE beautiful, I was keen to stay away from the hordes of American tourists who call their resort-fueled hedonism 'authentic.' 

So after lengthy debate and a recommendation from my friend Whitney, a well-travelled hippie at heart, we made our way to Oaxaca Airport and to the state of Oaxaca's coast at Huatulco. Beautiful beaches abound in this part of the country but we took the specific recommendation of going to Zipolite, an enclave for nudists, often of the gay older gentlemen variety. A 45-minute flight and one-hour hairpin turn, vomit-inducing taxi drive later, we arrived at our literally on the beach hotel, El Alquimista. 

The hotel's placement at the end of the beach in a little cove made it particularly cozy. We opted for an on-stilts room with a sea view and air conditioning but lots of people took to the beach huts below. 

I generally don't say much about the places I stay but this hotel was special: yoga chalet; day spa with the world's best massages; a sand-floored beach restaurant with the BEST EVER prawn tacos and guacamole. Honestly, best ever. And none of this broke the bank. 

My first view out the window revealed a weathered lifeguard, in at least his mid-70s, clad with his lifeguard flotation device, flowing white beard and naked, naked brown butt. It set the scene for a magical week. Over the years lots of people have wandered to this little corner of the globe and just got stuck--they never left. They took off their clothes, downed tools and refused to leave. 

Within hours we understood their decision. The beach itself is a sheltered 2km stretch of sea and golden sand. Wooden structure beach bars dot the landscape but not in an overbearing way. The road feeding into the town is not particularly over-trafficked. It's a mostly cash economy, which got us into a bit of trouble when the town's only ATM stopped working.

Since we arrived on Easter weekend, the beach was packed, a term I use loosely, with Mexico City's sun seekers. By Monday, most of them had left and we had the beach largely to ourselves. Paul and I took to our regular spot, under a rattan roof-like umbrella and made friends with a gay couple from CDMX. Putting my crap Spanish to use again, we struck up several days' worth of unconventional conversations and even waved our friends goodbye when they checked out before us. 

We spent our days reading books on the beach, wandering the strip of sand, having massages and taking the occasional yoga class. Paul dabbled in public nudity. No one even blinked. It's a hard feeling to put into words but Zipolite gave me confidence and peace. Go naked or don't. Eat lots of food or don't. Just be who you are. I've never had quite that beach experience before.

We briefly wandered off the sand into 'town', another very low-key experience.

The most activity we found ourselves doing was walking to the other end of the beach and partaking in a sundowner at sunset. 

Our time in Zipolite drew to an end far too soon but Paul did agree that it was the Mexico of his imagination. We settled the bill with our hotel (who gratefully did accept credit cards) and made the reverse journey back to the airport and then up to Mexico City for two final days of wandering before a flight back to London. I'm generally not someone to travel back to the same place twice but I must admit that Zipolite is the kind of place I'd return to. Those ageing hippies got it right--stay, relax, enjoy watching the world go by.

A Mexican Love Affair

Long time, no blog. And it may be the case that I have all of last summer, October's long weekend break and Tanzania's February school trip to blog. But Paul and I arrived home off a red eye flight at 3:45pm yesterday and I'm trying to get all the thoughts down before they leave my head. I've had pan dulce for breakfast, stupidly decided that a barre class was the way to work off the jetlag and then, in true sloth fashion, watched people run the London Marathon on tv. Alas, one thing about the trip must be said:

Mexico was epic.

Leave your preconceptions at the door (I didn't). Let the American media hype be damned (I did). And dare to venture beyond the Yucatan peninsula (done and done). And so, with a two week Easter Holiday we started in Mexico City, took the public ADO bus (more on this later) to Puebla, boarded another bus to Oaxaca three days later before boarding a flight to Huatulco and spending five days on the coast at Zipolite Beach. With one day left to go, we returned to CDMX and took in all (or at least a few) the sights, smells and panaderias we didn't have time to during our first stay. 

It was love. 

And I know the country has issues: crime, kidnappings, drug cartels. But we were met with: pedestrian-only Sunday streets in the capital, carbohydrates dipped in carbohydrates, incredibly kind people. 

Mexico forced me to consider my identity. I'm not the only brown kid who was born and raised in America. I'm not the only brown kid whose parents expected them to learn the language in school instead of speaking it to them at home. And i'm certainly not the only brown kid who grew up in middle America desperately wanting to blend into the blond whiteness of everyone else around them. 

Herein lies the drama of growing up in the USA, where minority is less than on so many levels. But this is not a space for my political ranting. My point is that I didn't have a framework to consider the goodness, uniqueness, antiquity of my own ethnic background. I knew bits of it--food, some spanglish, some traditions; but Mexico was not a place we travelled to as a family and so it was easy to believe the stereotypical hype. My bad.

This trip has been a game changer.