Bob Marley’s Waiting In Vain wafted from the single speaker to our spot in the hammocks. Looking beyond the tables under the palapas, and past the loungers under colorful umbrellas, the Pacific glistened under the mid-day sun. It was hot, and no one was out on the beach. In fact, no one was in the water. Or at any of the tables, hammocks or loungers at La Punta, the restaurant on Playa Zicatela where we had chosen to spend a Friday afternoon. There simply weren’t any visitors around, explained our host, as he handed me a frosty Pacifico beer – the crowds wouldn’t show up until Christmas, and it was still early in December. We had braced ourselves for a crowded, raucous scene on Puerto Escondido’s most famous beach, but instead, we enjoyed one of the most relaxing afternoons ever – swinging in our hammocks, sipping cold beers, listening to the music, eating a plate of fish and salad and watching the sun dip towards the ocean.

There’s a beach for everyone in Puerto Escondido – beginning surfers and the backpacker crowd spend the day at Playa Corrizalillo; locals flock to tiny Puerto Angelito or Manzanilla; those seeking solitude (or to watch the nightly turtle hatchling release) head up to the long stretch of sand at Playa Bococho; and for advanced surfers and those looking for a late-night scene, there’s Zicatela. With an international airport and the main coastal highway running through town, Puerto Escondido has easy access. We had flown in from Cancun after our month in Puerto Morelos, ready to explore a region of Mexico neither of us had visited before. The coast of Oaxaca boasts a string of beach towns that we plan on seeing over the next month – after Puerto Escondido there’s Mazunte, Zipolite, San Agustin and finally Huatulco. Another thing we were anxious to do here was view sunsets over the Pacific, which were lacking over in east-facing Puerto Morelos. While each beach here in Puerto Escondido may appeal to different segments of the traveling population, they all have one thing in common: stunning sunsets.

Our week in Puerto Escondido passed quickly. Besides our relaxing afternoon on Playa Zicatela, we enjoyed delicious breakfasts and fresh juices at a local cafe, went to quiet Playa Bacocho to set up our sunshade and spend the day cooling off in the protected shallows behind some rocks in the otherwise rough and riptide-prone surf; and savored delicious dinners at a variety of ethnic and Mexican restaurants. Too soon, it was off to little Mazunte, a village about one-tenth the size of Puerto Escondido. Here we had a room at Posada Ziga, a family-run guesthouse with an eclectic mix of rooms stacked at the end of the beach, perfectly quiet, with a thatched palapa where we could hang our hammocks for the afternoon, and when thirst hit, take a few steps over to the bar next door for a beer or mojito. Seems we had found paradise yet again.

After a few days we had settled in to our new routine – breakfast at our hotel, morning beach walk and swim, afternoons in the hammock and evenings choosing among the many dinner options available in the village. It would be hard to leave Mazunte at the end of our week, even though we were planning to move just down the coast once again to Zipolite. However, news from the US would have me moving sooner than expected, and not to another quaint little beach town.