Oaxaca's wild Pacific coast — where Puerto Escondido's Playa Zicatela is the world's most challenging shore break (the Mexican Pipeline's barrel waves reach 6–10 metres in peak season and attract the international big-wave surfing circuit), the Adoquín pedestrian promenade connects the restaurant strip to the beach without a single car, the Laguna de Manialtepec (12 km west) is one of the three best bioluminescent lagoons in North America, mezcal from the Sierra Mixtec highlands arrives directly in Puerto Escondido unmarked and unbranded at a fraction of export price, and the Mole Negro of the Oaxacan coast differs from city Oaxaca mole in ways every repeat visitor argues about
Puerto Escondido (50,000 permanent population; 200,000+ in high season) is a Pacific coast beach town in Oaxaca state on Mexico's Costa Chica — the coastline between Acapulco and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The town has a distinctive identity: it was discovered by Mexican surfers in the 1960s before becoming an international backpacker and surf destination in the 1980s, and retains a working-fishing-village character alongside the tourism infrastructure. Playa Zicatela (the Mexican Pipeline) is one of the world's great surf breaks, drawing professional big-wave surfers November–March when the…
The Puerto Escondido area was inhabited by Mixtec-speaking people (the Mixteca de la Costa, related to but distinct from the highland Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca's central valleys) before Spanish contact. The town's name — 'hidden port' — refers to the natural bay's concealment by headlands from the open Pacific, which made it a useful anchorage for coastal vessels. The modern town developed around the fishing community of Zicatela in the early 20th century. Mexican surfers from Guadalajara and Mexico City discovered the Zicatela shore break in the 1960s, and an informal surf culture developed thr…