Not Many Walks Along the Beach – April & May 2020

Surfers and swimmers love the beaches of Puerto Escondido, Mexico. We stayed near the swimming beach, Playa Carrizalillo, during our first week and then moved to a guesthouse across the road from Playa Zicatela, the surfing beach, for the remainder of our two month visit.

We enjoyed a few morning and evening walks along the water’s edge before local officials closed the beaches in early April due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Puerto Escondido is considered to be one of the top 25 surfing beaches in the world, with its tall and long, blue, barrel waves from March to December. And the city usually hosts at least one international surf competition each year. We were fortunate to see several talented surfers during the early part of our stay while the beach was still officially open.

On the morning of Mother’s Day the waves were much larger than usual due to a storm further north on the Mexican coastline. So, surprisingly, local officials ok’d surfing from 7 to 10 am.

If you look really closely you can see a surfer.

Yellow-shirted lifeguards watched over the surfers and police officers on ATVs supervised the many spectators and photographers.

Because the large, powerful waves were developing in quick succession, jet ski drivers ferried surfers out past the barrels. And even that process was not always easy.

During our hour on the beach that morning, we only saw 4 or 5 surfers ride waves. Unfortunately we didn’t get a video of the surfer who entered a wave barrel, continued as it crashed over him, and, much to our surprise, rode out the other end. Very impressive! When he reached the shore the spectators applauded.

Even though this surfer never stood up, he was still fun to watch.

We appreciated many colorful features of Puerto Escondido during our morning and evening walks, most of which were along the long beachfront road.