We have always wanted to go to Oaxaca, Mexico, but didn’t know exactly what part of the state to visit. May of last year, we were contacted by a “nomad blogger” who wanted to do a review of the campground in lieu of giving her a couple days free camping. We agreed to it. She arrived at the campground in early June. When she got here, she started to tell us about Zipolite, a hippie like beach community, just south of Huatulco in the State of Oaxaca.
She told us that we needed to visit and recommended that we come when she would be there also. She was planning on being there from November 2017 to April 2018.
With her glowing recommendations, we booked our flight. We took her word and, sent down the deposit for them to hold the room for us.
We’ll do our best to do a timely update. but here is a chronological account of our trip.
Day 1. We arrived on Saturday about noon to Huatulco airport. It’s small, and reminded me of Montego Bay airport in Jamaica. It’s small, clean and the people are friendly.
We picked up our rental car at Avis, and with the recommendation of many who have traveled to the area, rented a car with full coverage insurance. We just didn’t want to worry about anything.
With our Google translator, we asked directions to Zipolite. The ‘Señor‘ said,”take a right, then a right, and it’s about an hour away. On the way you’ll see a sign that says Puerto Angel, turn right and it will take you to Zipolite.”
Luckily, we asked directions because about five miles away from the airport, we lost cell service. Therefore, we were traveling blind. About 30 minutes into driving, I said to Toni “Do you think we are going in the right direction?” Toni responded, “well, you’ve got a built in GPS, so I know we are going the right direction.”
She was absolutely right, the GPS started to speak, “turn right in 600 meters to Puerto Angel.” Really, as it was speaking, we noticed the turn, took it and we were still on track. About 20 minutes later, we were in front of Hotel Salmastro in Zipolite.
The driving wasn’t that bad. The roads were windy. The speed limit went from 40 kph to 60 kph, most of the way. Everyone kept on passing us, because we were driving the speed limit… or maybe I should say it a different way – “No one drives the speed limit.” They drove about twice as fast as we were. However, the local drivers were courteous and didn’t try to run us off the road.
So, now we are at the hotel and they showed us our room. It wasn’t that big, and for what we paid, about $35.00 per night, we weren’t expecting much. We both agreed that it was acceptable and paid for our week (a little glitch – they had raised the price to around $37.00 (700 pesos), and that’s what they wanted us to pay. I showed ‘Stephano” the email confirmation for 600 pesos/$35.00 per night – and that’s what we paid for the week). Where else can you get a room on a famous beach for $35.00 per night? After all, this hotel was highly recommended by one of our 2017 campers at Two Creeks who visited Zipolite about four times over the last three years.
Well, we drank a couple of drinks, ate fish ceviche, and laid on the recliners. Toni fell into a deep sleep, and actually slept until the sun set – and it was a beautiful sunset. While Toni was lounging around, Glen walked to the other side of the beach and came back about 30 minutes later. We then went to Lola’s restaurant, just feet away for dinner. I think it was around 9 pm or so. Dinner was fantastic.
Because it was our first day, we were both exhausted, so around 10 pm, we decided to go to bed. Well, that’s what we “planned” to do… we got a big surprise… first Toni couldn’t find a mirror – there was no mirror in the room at all. We already knew the bathroom didn’t have a seat cover, but it was ‘clean’ (we thought). How was she supposed to take her makeup off? That’s only the beginning, we pulled the sheets back, it was crawling with ants. Yup, tiny red ants. Luckily we had brought some bug spray, so we sprayed the bed, put the sheets back on top – and I tried to comfort Toni.
That’s right, Toni was freaking out – “the ants are going to eat us alive”, she exclaimed. I jokingly, tried to tell her, it’s not that bad – if you know me, I try to turn negative stuff/situations into positive, so I said – “Well, you’ve heard of Naked And Afraid” – well, consider this “On The Beach And Afraid’! It didn’t go over well – Toni said, she needed a shot of tequila. So, we went back to Lola’s and got a couple shots of tequila, went back to the room, pulled down the mosquito net, kept our clothes on, and tried to sleep. Needless to say, I slept well, and Toni was virtually up all night. She was terrified and was scratching from the ants we didn’t kill. For some unknown reason, the ants didn’t bite me.
Stay tuned for Day 2 – it only gets better.
Why we had to change to another hotel
