After 31 nights parked at El Rancho outside of Oaxaca City (and nearly five months in the highlands), it was time to bid adios to the mountains and head back to the coast.
We actually hadn’t planned on leaving today at all. The RV park we were headed to didn’t have availability for us until Monday. This was Saturday.
However, when I checked the forecast this morning, I noticed a ton of rain headed our way tomorrow (and here, we thought rainy season was over!)
Our Mexico-USA RV Journey 2024-25
The new highway connecting Oaxaca City and the coast has been having a lot of problems with landslides from recent heavy rains. There have been periods where the highway has been closed for days, but it’s now open.
The new highway gets us to the coast in just over three hours. The old highway (if we’re forced to use it) takes seven hours and is popularly known by travelers as the Vomit Highway.
I had a feeling that if we didn’t get to the coast now, we could be stuck here for another week. So, we packed up the RV as fast as we could and rolled out.
The new highway is actually the old highway for about half the distance. At San Juditas, the road splits into 175 and 175D (the new route). It’s hard to believe that veering right should get us to the coast in about two hours. Veering left, would take nearly five.
That’s not to say we didn’t encounter some slow spots along the way. There were several one-lane sections where they were still repairing the land slide areas, but the road was still open.
Because the RV park in Zipolite wouldn’t be ready for us until Monday (it was a mystery why), we opted to stay a couple of nights at a ma and pa RV park (“RV park” is generous) just outside of Puerto Escondido.
We had a heck of a time finding anything in town that looked like it would accommodate our rig, but this place on the shores of the famous croc-infested Laguna Manialtepec seemed like it would suit us for a night or two.
When we got out of the RV, the heat and humidity hit us immediately. We’d been living on the hot and humid coast in Mexico for three years prior to our RV journey, but have been up in the mountains for several months now.
It’s obviously going to take some adjustment, so we crossed our figures hoping that this place had power to hook up to, and enough voltage to run some A/C.
One of the caretakers took us over to a rough looking building and showed us a blackened and melted two-prong outlet hanging from the eave by a pair of thin wires. Oh boy, I thought, as I wiped away a river of sweat rushing down my forehead.
But I refused to give up. Like so many other times in Mexico, I started my hunt for another option—around buildings, in trees, in grass, under rocks—no place is too crazy to find an outlet in Mexico. And soon, I stumbled on a three-prong beauty attached to a pole sticking up from the ground—not far from the RV.
We asked the woman who greeted us about plugging in there. Yes, a possibility, but she would have to find the switch to turn it on.
So I waited, and waited, and waited, until it began to get dark. Finally, I decided to just go ahead and test it myself, and voila! It worked.
As it turned out, it was just barely enough amperage/volts to run our heat pump on cool without melting anything.
By then, we were hungry. Fortunately, this lagoon is a popular bioluminescence boat destination, and the small community just down the highway, was one of the main jumping-off points. In Mexico, that means food.
We made our way along the narrow highway and 15 minutes later, found what we were looking for.
In the morning, we wasted no time hopping on a colectivo into Puerto Escondido. At one time, we were seriously considering a move here (sight unseen). We opted for La Paz, instead, but have often wondered what we missed out on. We had one full day to try to answer that question.
Our first stop of the day was Playa Zicatela—ground zero for surfing, brunch, and bikini-clad Instagrammers.
We found a pretty bang-up place for breakfast (look at those pancakes!!!). But the rest of the neighborhood failed to do it for us.
We thought it might remind us a bit of Sayulita, but in fact just seemed like a bunch of drunk frat bros wishing they could surf (and a lot of businesses catering to that demographic). There are a lot of things that grate on us about Sayulita (a place where we lived for nearly a year and have been back to numerous times since). But Sayulita has a certain irresistible quality to it that, even on its worst days, it’s still hard to hate.
We spent several hours walking around the barrio and the entire stretch of Playa Zicatela multiple times (my sandals fell out of the backpack, so we found ourselves logging many more miles than expected looking for (and eventually finding) them).
Granted, we weren’t able to stay into the evening, but here on a Sunday (the liveliest day on any Nayarit Beach), it just felt like there was something missing. Where’s the vibe?
We spent a couple of hours poking around Puerto Escondido proper, but didn’t find it particularly charming or special.
Again, it’s hard to make a good assessment of a place in one day. But we’ve spent enough time in so many Mexican beach towns over the years that we’ve developed something of a quick intuition for whether we’re going to like a place or not. Which is fine by us, as that only means we made the right choice.
By mid-afternoon, dark clouds had completely blotted out the sun, promptly followed by what the forecasters had been predicting all week: rain, and lots of it.
Our day in PE ended hiding out at a pizza parlor, then a maddening odyssey in the rain trying to figure out how the heck we get back to the lagoon—which turns out, is no small feat.
The rain had let up by morning, and Lori got herself a nice perch in the coconut grove to jump onto a couple of work calls.
Riley and I had a nice little morning of croc-spotting. We didn’t see a single one, but spotted plenty of interesting birds to make our efforts worthwhile.
After breakfast, we hit the road. Next stop, Zipolite. Travel time: Just under two hours.
With the exception of getting behind a couple of slow trucks on a narrow road, the stretch along Highway 200 was mostly pleasant. However, Zipolite is not on Highway 200, but on a smaller road that hugs the ocean, providing access to Mazunte, Zipolite, and Puerto Angel.
In short, the road is not made for our size of vehicle. Lots of low-hanging branches and narrow squeezes between parked cars. It’s curvy and hilly and, well, let’s just say not my favorite driving in an RV.
But the stretch isn’t terribly long, and before we knew it, we had arrived at Rancho Los Mangos and our new home for a while.
Rancho Los Mangos took my creativity and sleuthing to new heights with regards to hooking up.
It tested the limits of my patience in the afternoon heat, and showed us the true lengths some of these places are willing to go to avoid any kind of maintenance whatsoever.
In the end, we landed on quite possibly the only spot left that we could fully hookup in (despite there being several empty sites available).
Even then, I was forced to hookup water, electricity, and sewage from three different sites, and place the Starlink in a fourth site to get a clear [enough] view of the sky.
God help us if any additional rigs roll in during our stay.
With that settled, it was time to head out and explore town.
The difference between Zipolite and Puerto Escondido or Playa Zicatela is like night and day. We immediately knew we were going to like this place.
Zipo’s funky, full of character, packed with interesting people leading interesting lives, and is overflowing with a beachy international Mexican vibe that resonates with us.
Lori visited here 15 years ago and stayed at a hostel on the beach, which amazingly still exists.
Back then, there was a hidden beach at the far end that was understood to be clothing optional. So, we were a little surprised on our first sunset beach walk to pass dozens of beach walkers casually letting it all hang out.
Turns out, the regulations here were loosened about a decade ago, making the entire beach in Zipolite clothing optional. Many hotels have capitalized on this, becoming nudist retreats.
The nudist community here seems to be pretty strong. But it also seems to be a really open-minded and relaxed community on both sides, with clothed folks and naturalists intermingling and having a good time together.
It’s also worth noting that clothing is required throughout the rest of town, just not on the beach.
It’s going to be a different kind of stay for us, offering a unique opportunity to step outside our comfort zones a bit. But that’s what travel is all about, at least for us.
I’m sure it will elicit some questions from the boys (or maybe not), but we think it’s important not to hide the world from our children, but allow them to see how different people choose to live their lives.
We’ll explain that it’s not what we’ve chosen, but that there’s not inherently anything wrong with it either.
But perhaps the best part of all of this is that we booked Lori’s parents a flight and an apartment here several weeks ago before we knew about the new norm.
And Lori and I are looking forward to seeing how that all pans out.
