Puerto Escondido

There was no town here before the 1930s. The bay had been used from time to time to ship coffee from the plantations inland, but the lack of drinking water prevented a permanent settlement; the Nahuatl name for the area, Zicatela, means "place of large thorns". The first residents are considered to be Nazario Castellanos and Escolástica Valencia, night watchmen for the coffee plantations, and in the 1930s the port became more firmly established. People lived on fish, poultry, iguanas and turtle eggs.

In the 1960s Highway 200 was built along the coast, linking the Oaxacan towns with Acapulco. Coffee began to travel by truck and the port's role shrank, but surfers and other travellers found the quiet beaches and tourism grew. Drinking water, mail, government offices and a small airport, where the Rinconada now runs, arrived; restaurants that were once palapas, thatched shelters where fishermen cooked their catch, mostly gave way to modern tourist facilities.

The town straddles two municipalities: the Zicatela side belongs to Santa María Colotepec and the west to San Pedro Mixtepec. In August 2008 residents blocked the highway to San Pedro Mixtepec to protest at the lack of money for infrastructure. Hurricane Carlotta made landfall near the town in 2012, and on 19 June 2025 Hurricane Erick came ashore in Oaxaca as a Category 3 storm, cutting electricity and phone coverage for at least 30,000 people here. In 2024 a new highway from Oaxaca City opened, shortening a journey that had taken seven hours over the mountains.

Surfing defines the town's image. The wave at Zicatela, nicknamed the Mexican Pipeline after Hawaii's Banzai Pipeline for its power and shape, draws an international crowd of surfers and bodyboarders, and competitions have been held there every November. The Zicatela district caters to them, and La Punta at the beach's southern end has its own surf scene.

The town caters to a more downscale and eclectic crowd than neighbouring Huatulco — mostly surfers, backpackers and Mexican families — and the mix of foreign surfers and long-stay visitors with a working fishing port gives it a less polished character than planned resorts.

The Fiestas de Noviembre are the main local celebration, running through November into early December, with events on Zicatela, on the main beach and in the municipal plaza above it: a surfing tournament, a sailfishing competition, motocross and a festival of coastal dance. Visitors gather to watch the sunset from the small rocky beach around the cliff at the southern end of La Punta.

Puerto Escondido had 35,673 inhabitants at the 2010 census, and about 69 per cent of San Pedro Mixtepec municipality's population lives in the town. It generates most of the municipality's income, and residents have complained that it receives little support from the municipal seat in return.

Tourism is the main business, from surf schools and board rentals to restaurants, hotels and boat tours, and the airport is one of the fastest-growing in Mexico, its passenger numbers in 2025 double those of 2019. The opening of the new highway from Oaxaca City in 2024 brought a surge of visitors, with holiday weekends such as Holy Week overwhelming the town. The port still supports commercial fishing and draws people for deep-sea fishing, especially for sailfish.

The day starts early on the main beach, where fishermen land their catch at dawn and sell it to restaurants and families, and boats take visitors out to look for turtles and dolphins. Surfers time their days by the swell, and the coast's rainy season and hurricane risk from about June to November shape the year.

Most of the local cuisine is based on seafood and local plants, among them eleven species of banana, chocolate and coffee from the hills inland. Fish comes straight from the boats that land on Playa Principal at dawn, and the deep water offshore is known for sailfish.

The town's market, the Mercado Benito Juárez, sells fresh fish and produce alongside household goods, and the pedestrian Adoquín above the main beach and the Rinconada near Carrizalillo are the main restaurant strips. Restaurants were once almost all palapas, thatched shelters where fishermen cooked what they had caught; that tradition has mostly given way to modern restaurants. Small family-owned restaurants in palapas still stand on the beach at Puerto Angelito.

Being in Oaxaca, the town also has access to the state's wider kitchen — the moles, tlayudas and mezcal of the Valley of Oaxaca, now a few hours away by the new highway. Coffee from the plantations inland was once shipped from the bay.