A day in Playa Agua Blanca, Mexico

A quiet unspoiled beach halfway between Zipolite and Puerto Escondido

On my second trip to Zipolite this year, I felt like exploring beyond the town. Aldo, one of my hotel’s concierges/hosts recommended playa Agua Blanca. He called it the most beautiful hidden beach of the Oaxacan coast, so it piqued my interest and I put it on my map of beaches to discover this week. I had been to Puerto Angel, the next pueblo over on the Huatulco side the day prior and quite liked the overall vibe, although as a fishing village it was buzzing with activity. I was excited to find peace and quiet for a little bit.

Agua Blanca has seen its profile rise recently. A favorite of Puerto Escondido residents, the town lies about 45 minutes east, and as Puerto becomes “discovered” by American and Canadian tourists, the spillover effect could make Agua Blanca the next it-beach of the Oaxacan coast. Coming into the village, you are greeted with many a sign for lotes en preventa (building lots presale) and a few developments seem to be in the very early planning stage.

The road to the beach was unpaved and dusty, without a single bit of shade.

If you’re looking for intel on Agua Blanca online though, you won’t find many entries. That convinced me this was still one of these virgin spots where one could enjoy a quiet Mexican beach experience.

Getting to playa Agua Blanca is fairly simple once you get used to the local transportation system. From Zipolite, I took a colectivo to San Antonio, where the coastal road meets highway 200, and jumped right into a minivan (oh, the joy of air conditioning in late summer coastal Mexico). About thirty minutes into the trip to Puerto Escondido, I paid my 35 pesos and got off. On GoogleMaps, my stop looks like a small village on the main road. In reality, beyond a few houses and a sparsely-stocked general store, there wasn’t much to see. The road to the beach was unpaved and dusty, without a single bit of shade. Off I went towards the ocean.

After fifteen minutes of a mostly straight road through flat and bushy landscape, the terrain sloped gently, revealing a group of low-scale buildings and the sea behind them. September is the peak of low season, and I was beginning to like the lack of people around. Weather may not have been ideal but knowing I would potentially have the beach to myself more than made up for it. Instead of walking on the main street (a big word), I chose to head straight for the sand. I had imagined a small cove with lush vegetation and very few buildings, and the reality was a little different. The beach was huge in length and width and dotted with palm trees whose branches were slowly moving along with the wind (very cliché, I must admit). Along the shore were an unexpected number of bars and restaurants, all empty -for the longest time, I was indeed the only soul on the beach- and most of them seemed closed, low season and all.

I started walking west, and pretty soon reached what I thought was the end of the beach. In fact, playa Agua Blanca is huge but divided into several wide coves which you can’t see immediately when you get into town. I walked through rocks and discovered an even longer beach, with just a couple of buildings (and a very enthusiastic dog). I was almost overwhelmed by the wide expanse of sand ahead of me, and I decided not to go far. Have you ever felt like you might drown in sand? The view was gorgeous, but I felt so small – I guess the strength of the waves crashing on the shore didn’t help.

The beach in Zipolite is arguably as wide and impressive. What made Agua Blanca different was the utter lack of buildings beyond a compact front scattered around the main street where it meets to unpaved road to the highway. It was also utterly deserted. It felt very wild and remote, and for a second I thought I might have been teletransported to a small deserted island in the middle of the ocean.

I stopped at the first restaurant where I could see some activity, and got my usual camarones a la plancha (I am a person of habits). Both the shade and the cold water felt like a relief, and I briefly toyed with the idea of staying there for the rest of the day. Discovering the rest of the beach was too tempting, and soon I was back on my feet, sweating profusely. In my defense, the day registered as one of the hottest and most humid of the year.

I was almost overwhelmed by the wide expanse of sand ahead of me.

I got up and walked back to the main beach, and then headed east. I figured there may be another beach past the little rocky point I could see from afar, and I set my sights on it. Indeed, behind the rocks was another beach, even more impressive than the others, a little more curved, with a small hotel hidden behind tall palms. As it was getting really hot, and the hotel’s palapas looked very inviting, I figured I would enjoy this third beach from there. The hotel, a sister to a Zipolite property, was very well designed and all clad in wood, which made it blend very nicely into the surroundings. From my perch at the edge of the terrace and with a cerveza in my hand, the beach looked even better.

The shade and a little bit of wind made this second stop even nicer than the first one – at this point the heat was so intense that I contemplated going in the water to cool myself off, but I was quickly convinced by Ricardo, who was in charge of the beach club, that it was a very bad idea, especially at high tide. While the ocean waters are fairly dangerous here, the beach is known for its natural pools formed between the rocks scattered along the shore.

Instead, I chose to open my book (Hide and Seek, by Ian Rankin, a vintage treasure) and delved into a dark Edinburgh murder mystery, quite the contrast from my paradisiacal surroundings. After a while, and when the UV index reached a more acceptable reading, I resumed my beach walk. There is something to be said about yours being the only footsteps on such a big expanse of sand. That will probably be the one thing I keep with me from this day trip to Playa Agua Blanca: the utter sense of isolation, of quiet loneliness in front of an unrelenting ocean.

I left the beach around 5pm. I was told the buses towards Pochutla stopped running around 8pm, but I had this fear of waiting by the side of the road at night, so I took no chance. I had barely enough time to grab a bottle of cold water from the general store than a bus appeared on the horizon – this one without A/C, but the open windows provided more than enough air flow for me to dry after my walk back to the main road.

I met a couple staying at my hotel on the colectivo and chatted until we got back to the hotel. Being a little social never hurts – especially after a day of sandy introspection!

Images: towards the end of playa Agua Blanca’s main beach, the playa Agua Blanca sign on highway 200, playa Agua Blanca beach, the beach from the village’s main street, a street sign on the main street.

All images are mine.