Puerto Escondido

Puerto Escondido means hidden port. It isn't hidden anymore. The town on Oaxaca's Pacific coast built its reputation on Zicatela — a fast, hollow, heavy beach break that fires on south groundswells and has been separating serious surfers from visitors since the 1970s. On the right day in October or November, with a solid south swell running and the offshore wind holding in the morning, Playa Zicatela is one of the most powerful beach breaks on earth. The drop is steep, the barrel is long, and the wipeout zone is long enough that the beach photographers have been setting up there for decades. It is not a beginner wave. That is the point.

La Punta, the quieter bay at the southern end of the beach strip, is the other side of Puerto Escondido — a right-hand point over a sandy bottom that works on smaller swells, fronted by a community of surf schools, palapa restaurants, and the kind of laid-back infrastructure that grows up around a wave that everyone can enjoy. Between the two, the town runs along the waterfront: fish markets, mezcal bars, Oaxacan restaurants, the arrival of architects and chefs and designers who came for the surf and stayed for the coast. Grupo Habita — the Mexico City boutique hotel group — has built three properties here since 2014. Casa TO's Ludwig Godefroy interpreted an Oaxacan temple in raw concrete and made the pool that became the most photographed in Mexico. Alberto Kalach built Hotel Terrestre into the jungle between the Pacific and the Sierra Madre, and Casona Sforza at the Barra de Colotepec delta south of town. Casa Wabi, the Tadao Ando-designed artists' retreat, sits on the coast further south. Puerto Escondido is no longer just a surf town. It is also, increasingly, one of the most interesting design destinations in Latin America.