Puerto Escondido: Oaxaca’s Tourist Paradise Doesn’t Want to Be the New Acapulco

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“So it was heaven. The panorama was like a dream, Small cabin Local fishing families, sand without people,” recalls Lorenzo Castillo of his childhood and adolescence on the beaches of Puerto Escondido. Dream postcards that in recent years have made the city one of the most visited destinations in Mexico internationally. From January to November 2023, about 25,000 residents Also, the most attractive enclave on the coast of Oaxaca, received more than 800,000 visitors.

Tropical climates, kilometers of golden sand beaches guarded by coconut palm trees, palapas to seek shelter from the sun and contemplate the wild lapping of spectacular waves against the shore; The orangest sunset in the Pacific. A place that for some is losing its essence due to mass tourism. “Puerto Angelito is about to be overthrown, the influencers They filled it with people, even fighting to see which place honked the loudest,” complains Castillo, 56, a microbiologist in a private laboratory and owner of a restaurant in Marinero Beach.

Descendant of one of the first founding families of Puerto Escondido, a fishing village between the municipalities of San Pedro Mixtepec and Santa María Colotepec, the hotelier observes the decline of its landscapes. A change that started in the sixties, when the place became known. “First the surfers came from the United States, then the hippies,” he says. In the same decade, Pochuteco, one of the more than ten native indigenous languages ​​of the region, became extinct. “My mother was born here, my father in Pochutla. They moved to Acapulco and started a family there. Even though my brothers and I grew up in Guerrero, we came every year. Then we returned to continue business. Everything took off with the pandemic, we did really well. But some places became unbearable. “Punta Zicatella at night is chaos, it surpasses any attempt at peace!” He mourns.

“The problem is that we are at the limit,” says Marta Reyes, tourism councilor for the San Pedro Mixtepec City Council. Puerto Escondido is a cheap, very accessible place, everyone is welcome. There are no labels here: anyone can enter a restaurant or bar dressed as they wish. But the magic and fame of the place blew us away!”

The statistics support the mayor’s assertions: in recent years, the jewel of the Pacific has exceeded its capacity. According to data from the Oaxaca government, in 2022 alone, there was a nearly 145% increase in foreign visitors compared to 2021. “After the epidemic, many people stayed here indefinitely,” says Reyes.

“Since then everything has changed. Many local people were affected financially and foreigners took advantage to buy land. The cost of rent has gone up a lot,” laments Rosalinda Ramirez, who runs a food business at the foot of Zicatella Beach, the busiest and which has given the city its international surfing fame. As explained by the tourism councilor of San Pedro Mixtepec, the turning point came in 2022, when, as she says, “construction increased by 400%” and true gentrification began. “They want to privatize the entire coast, real estate companies are going crazy buying farmers’ lands, even those who had no interest before, even in the hills they are building: they are leaving them open,” Ramírez frets. declares time. Fish on the stove and serve to diners.

Around his business, on the beachfront, rose several cement blocks, huge hotels that were half-built and exposed their insides to the air. A few meters from the shore, signs overlap, some with very large labels, others more modest, made of cardboard. They all read: LOT FOR SALE, LAND AVAILABLE, followed by a telephone number. “And this is only going to get worse down the road,” explains Cook, referring to the recent work inaugurated by Manuel López Obrador.

On February 4, the President visited the region to officially open the Barranca Larga-Ventanilla highway. With an investment of more than 13,000 million pesos ($762 million), the new federal highway cuts from six and a half to three hours the 260-kilometer journey that until now separates the state capital from the coast. A project that, in the words of the president, “will bring together basic health and education services, allowing the population less travel time and more security. About 166,000 residents and visitors to the region will benefit.” With the new infrastructure, the Oaxaca Tourism Secretariat expects this year to exceed the 5.6 million national and international visitors received in 2023, which will have a particular impact on the tourism and development of Puerto Escondido.

News that much of the local population celebrates, such as Geronimo Villanueva, known in the area as El Pistachero. “Everything will be close,” says this 82-year-old traveling trader, who has survived on his nomadic business along the coast for 50 years. “Sweet potatoes, pistachios, popsicles and tamarind pulp. “Big and red, take your candy!” He repeats a rhyming song while pulling his cart. “I travel to all the coasts with my products,” says the seller, who has seen the changes in the region. “It was all pure dirt, from Acapulco to Oaxaca. When they built the road, it made everything easier for us,” he says. That work on the nearby beaches in the sixties opened Acapulco to business and connected the Guerrero coast to Puerto Escondido for the first time. “It was amazing, a lot of people started coming. And I started selling more,” El Pistachero happily admits.

“The highway facilitated logistics and transportation, reduced supplier prices and improved services,” explains Castillo, a man who has already experienced the metamorphosis of the port where he was born and where he now lives. “With the highway, Acapulco, which was a weekend destination, became something of a daily occurrence. What’s happening in Puerto Escondido. The shame is how the place is developing, everything is so planned,” says the hotelier that the Oaxacan destination will end up the same as before. “The day after the inauguration of the new road, everything was packed. He Stocks A month of my restaurant was gone in one day,” he says, still amazed.

Towards an unsustainable fate

“We are growing chaotically,” says Reyes. And, as he explains, the necessary infrastructure for this does not exist. Neither regional organization plans, nor budgets. “More than 50% of the local population does not have a sanitary drainage system, a much smaller percentage has drinking water,” says the municipal councillor. “Good services only reach certain areas, here the pipe comes once a week,” says Lorenzo Castillo, an expert in water quality analysis.

Until last year, the hotelier was responsible for one of the Clean Beach Committees, which works to carry out environmental management in the area. Local organizations that, together with NGOs such as Salvemos Puerto Escondido, Costa Unida or SOS Puerto, have been demonstrating for some time to demand access to clean water and stop the erosion of real estate projects by the authorities by foreign investment groups. Last year the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (COFEPRIS) warned that the beaches of Puerto Angelito and Bahía Principal had recorded levels of bacteria higher than permitted. A problem that arises, above all, from the pollution of lagoons connecting to the sea.

“The discharge of sewage in Puerto Escondido has been known for years. All the waste from the upper basin that remains in the sewers comes down, and it is washed into the sea with the rain,” says Reyes, for whom the situation is becoming increasingly serious. Puerto Escondido’s last virgin beach , following complaints from residents and activists about environmental damage by Punta Colorado, the governor of Oaxaca visited the area to announce the rehabilitation of the wastewater treatment plant, which was inadequate and presented many failures. Protests and protections registered by residents also succeeded in halting urban development that Dunes, jungles and forests will further threaten the ecosystem for various protected species in this part of the coast.

“I am confident that the state authorities will do something quickly. As well as the disposal of garbage dumps,” says Reyes, referring to the Pedro Mixtepec Municipal Landfill. “Dumping in open air and without any control, is very hazardous to health. There are no programs for solid waste management,” the councilor lamented. There is also no municipal road planning strategy. “With new highways needed now more than ever, where heavy vehicles will travel. We need a lot of support from the federal government because we are drowning,” the councilor claimed.

According to Castillo, basic services require investment in infrastructure. “But, above all, a management plan,” says the hotelier, who is committed to creating eco-techniques, tools developed for the efficient use of natural and physical resources, “so as not to end up like Acapulco. “Without regional planning we would have the same way,” he laments. The councilor agrees with him: “Tourism is welcome, but without endangering our natural assets or the environment for the population of Puerto Escondido.”

The challenge is to find a model of balanced and sustainable tourism development and foreign investments capable of generating development for local populations without taking away their landscapes or reducing their rights, such as access to clean water. “The money generated by tourism is good for the people here, but we have to find a balance. The misfortune of Hurricane Otis gave us an example that development without a regional strategy can be the end of our paradise,” warns the hotelier with a certain nostalgia that the landscapes of his childhood memories on these beaches are disappearing with the expansion of tourism.