Zipolite

We have made it to what certainly feels like the end of the road.  And in a way, it is.  A mile or so stretch of sandy beach wedged between two large rocky crags on each end, sheltering this little resort from the rest of the world.  This is Zipolite.  Fabled travelers hangout and the coolest spot of paradise you have yet to visit.  A guy from New Zealand we met on our second day sums up this place perfectly: "I came here for a week´s vacation... but that was two and a half months ago."

Zipolite is permanently stoned.  A hippie beach paradise populated by the zoned out, dropped out and tuned out.  Shirtless yogis weave necklaces, aging cosmic surfers sip Coronas at 9AM, and all manner of European tourists beach themselves in the sun, making an art of doing absolutely nothing.  There are more people here with dreadlocks than I have ever seen in one place.  Having not been to Jamaica or a Bob Marley concert, that surely isn´t saying much, but trust me on this, there are a lot of dreadlocks here.  And nudity.  Zipolite has earned some fame for its lassiez-faire attitude to clothing.  By which I mean, no one wears any.  My long ago proclamation about nudist beaches still holds true here: the people most in need of clothes are the ones least likely to be wearing any.  I don´t care who you are, no one wants to be surprised by a 70 year old German vagina when relaxing on the beach.

But despite the nudity, Zipolite is gorgeous.  The waves are huge and the ocean frequently violent with a very strong and dangerous current. 

It makes for exciting swimming, though!

Our first night in Zipolite, we decide to rough it a bit and sleep in hammocks.  For only 70 pesos each, we secure the right to hang all night on the second floor of a mostly deserted hostel with only the crashing waves as company. 

This sounds wonderful and romantic and the stuff of dreams.  It isn´t.  Hammocks are generally fine for a nap, but a full night´s sleep is pushing it.  Neither of us can get comfortable and William has bad dreams all night and I don´t think I actually slept until I finally passed out from sheer exhaustion right after sunrise.  Oh well.  Mark that one off the list!

We amble into "town" - which is basically one street.  One block, actually.  A few beachwear shops, an internet cafe, some bars and restaurants, and handful of stores not selling much.  It is really hot in the middle of the day.  Everything is dusty.  No one wears shoes.  According to our hypotheosis that everyone is most likely stoned, most businesses keep hilariously irregular hours.  One or two will open in the mornings (but not every morning), a few more open around dinner time, a some don´t open for several days.  You may enjoy a nice dinner one night at a little sidewalk cafe, only to return the next night to see it completel abandonded as if it never existed.

A photo is worth a thousand words, they say.  So let me save a few here:

We find a new hostel, run by an ebuillent French expat named Sylviana.  She immediately welcomes us into her ramshackle little place, which is not much more than a few bamboo huts and some mosquito nets set around a tropical garden.  There are no floors here, one or two lightbulbs, and the sanitation is unmentionable.  But we love it and move in for three days.  We have our own hut with a palm thatched roof and a bed draped in mosquito netting.  You can hear the waves crash as you fall asleep at night.

It isn´t the Four Seasons, or even The Holiday Inn Express.  But it is charming and there are other dirty backpackers there with us and we have a hard time leaving.  Our typical day in Zipolite is as follows:
1. Wake up at 7:30AM
2. Scratch new bug bites.
3. Avoid the toilet.
4. Walk for coffee and a visit to the market to buy beans, eggs, and tortillas.
5. Cook breakfast on the little gas stove.
7. Go to the beach.
8. Stay at the beach.
9. Contemplate getting up from the beach.
10. Put on more sunscreen.
11. Eat lunch in town.  Usually a tlayuda for 30 peosos.
12. Nap in the shade of our hut.
13.  Maybe write.  Probably nap more.
14. Buy some beer or mezcal or rum to watch sunset on the beach.
15.  Go to bed.
16. Repeat.

We are relaxed, blissful, and happy.  But we have to move on.

Oh!  And I found some real, green broccoli.  We took a walk for a few miles to a neighboring town and there it was.  Sitting there waiting for me.  I paid 8 pesos and took him home and cooked him up.  Scrambeled with some eggs and leftover spaghetti.  (We´ve had to get pretty creative with our survival cooking here...)

Up next... Zipolite to Pochutla to San Cristobal de las Casas.....