Liu's Motorcycle Diaries: Lost in Zipolite

We woke up the next morning deciding to spend one more night in Zipolite. We only got to spend about an hour on the beach while the sun was setting the day before, so we both wanted some extra beach time before moving on. This is exactly what we did. We ate breakfast, picked up some snacks and drinks to picnic with, found a secluded spot to indulge in some nude sun bathing (you only live once, right?), swan in the ocean, got creeped out by the nude guy playing with himself 10 feet behind us, relaxed around our hotel room, went out for some seafood, and called it a night.

Of course, we woke up the next morning again not wanting to leave, so we booked one more night and headed 10 minutes north to a town called Mazunte to see some sea turtles at an aquarium of sorts, and spent the rest of the day lounging around on the beach again. While we first pulled into town thinking Zipolite was going to be a dirty (with the road construction) hippie town that we wouldn't be into, we were actually very pleased with the town so much that we both agreed that this trip to Zipolite was our favorite trip up to this point all throughout Mexico. Zipolite is unique in that its still a small fisherman's village but with a small bit of tourism. The beach is wide, but not very long which gives it its small village feel. Like I said before, there are only a handful of “nice” hotels to stay at and only 1 or 2 places with air conditioning. There is one all nude hotel if thats your thing, and there is a carefree atmosphere that will make you never want to leave. Zipolite sucked us in so much that we would have stayed one more night if we could, but we had a plane to catch the next morning. We had heard from others that they spent a few weeks in Zipolite, and I can definitely understand why. To me, Zipolite is the new Tulum; a backpackers paradise. And to us; a three day heaven.

While Eric catches up on some blogging, I secretly switch rooms since the night before we could hear the people above us walking around on our semi thatched roof. I moved us to a room with no upper floor. This room was smaller but was much better, and more clean.

This place wasnt online, so we never saw it before arriving in Zipolite. Though we wished we had. While we loved our stay at the Posada Mexico, this place was only 150 pesos per room per night. That's $11! Though these rooms are more like camp style sleeping as there are no in room bathrooms and the rooms consist of a bed only, it looked like. But the rooms were right on the water and we could have parked our bike right under our room. I would definitely stay here next time.

There were many nude couples walking around and some singles laying around tanning. Where many nude beaches consist of nudes aged 50 and up, there was a wide variety of ages here at this beach. I was surprised to see there werent just creepers walking around nude and consisted of hippie nudes instead. I saw a few nude men and women playing their guitar naked on the beach. What a hippie life!

Walking around downtown. The streets are all being dug up for an underground wire system so the town looks pretty grim, but made for an interesting walk.

This is what most of the restaurants look like in town, pretty basic.

Lots of people playing soccer on the beach every night

The woman above walked by trying to sell these pastries. We decided to try them since there were such a large Italian expat community close by. They were wonderful! We only bought 3 pastries all together, one spinach and tomato, one chorizo, and one chocolate, but we wished we had bought more. She came back by with an empty tray and we were disappointed. We saw her each day after but by the time we did it was too late, she sells out quick! If you're ever in Zipolite and you see this woman walking by, don't hesitate, just buy them all!

Day 3

Taking the bike to the turtle sanctuary

The sanctuary was never finished. You can tell they had great intentions when they opened, but then ran out of money. Actually, we found out through Martha, an employee that the sanctuary has no money because the state takes the money from visitor admittance fees so the park has nothing left to work with. This is kind of sad, because the sanctuary really could use some fixing up. Though, I really appreciate what they are doing here. What was once a town that slaughtered, sold and ate these turtles (and not too long ago), they now give aid to turtles in need until they are self sufficient again. The best part about this place is that you can pick up the baby turtles!