Blog 2.5

After almost four years of waiting Chantelle and I finally made it to Mexico! Why such a long wait you ask?? Well back in 2020, when Chantelle and I got married, my dad had gifted us a trip to Mexico where we could stay at his condo. But, there also happened to be another significant event happening all around the world in 2020, which complicated travel plans at the time, so we decided to wait until things cooled down a bit. The next 2 years didn’t exactly indicate that foreign travel was about to become any easier, so we continued to wait, but then last year we finally got antsy and went to Utah to get our travel legs back under us. But for 2024 it was time to push beyond the USA or Canada and finally head down to Mexico.

After about a 6 hour flight from Vancouver we arrived in Huatulco. My dad was already down in Mexico so he picked us up at the airport, and from there it was just a quick hour long drive to the condo in Zipolite. We got in just after sunset, but thankfully that didn’t really matter, as Zipolite really comes to life after the sun goes down. There were plenty of street vendors rattling off Spanish and the delicious smells of food floating out from the restaurants really got us excited about what the next two weeks had in store for us.

One of the many all night parties happening all along the beach

The next day I discovered, much to my delight, there was a lagoon filled with wildlife right beside the condo. It was as simple as walking out to the back of the building and you could watch all sorts of different birds swoop in and try their luck at fishing. There was even a Black Spiny Iguana that lived in the tree closest to the back stairwell.

The next few days we mostly hung around Zipolite as we settled in to our new coastal environment for the next two weeks. Although the town really ramps up at night, the energy during the day is usually fairly sleepy. There’s a few tourist stores to poke around in, plenty of restaurants, some yoga studios if you’re in to that, and a couple tasty bakeries. Now if you head out to the beach though, it does get a little more spicy, that’s because Zipolite is touted as the only nude beach in Mexico. If you don’t have any kids in tow or if nudity doesn’t bother you, it can make for a slightly less crowded/loud environment to lay back and relax.

Banos… a very helpful Spanish word 🤭 (📸 Chantelle)

Sunset in Zipolite is almost always spectacular, and the roof of the condo has a great view to watch it from. While watching the sunset from there each night, we noticed it was also the time that surfers would make their way out on the water. So on one of the evenings, as the sun was making it way down, we also made our way down to that end of the beach so I could try my hand at a bit of surf photography. I wanna say that having grown up taking photos of skateboarding, it kinda translated over a bit, but it was much different in the way that you had to choose who you thought was actually going to catch their waves.

When I inevitably got antsy and wanted to explore a bit more we took a colectivo to one of the other small towns nearby. A colectivo is basically the box of a truck with some benches, but they’re very affordable compared to a taxi, a mini bus you might say. Mazunte was the first place we made our way to, and to Chantelles delight there were plenty of shops for her to poke around in. While she did that my dad and I explored a few of the towns back roads for old cars and a glimpse in to local life.

My Dad and I on the back of the Colectivo to Mazunte (📸 Chantelle)

We met back up with Chantelle about an hour later, and with a beautiful beach and plenty of restaurants in Mazunte we decided to make our way towards the ocean so we could put our feet in the water, watch the waves, and eat some food.

While Chantelle had been poking around the shops in Mazunte, one of the others spots my dad and I checked out was the Mazunte Skatepark. A friend of mine had just left Zipolite and had mentioned there was a skatepark over in Mazunte, and even though I didn’t bring a skate with me I still wanted to have a look at it. To my surprise there were plenty of boards laying around the park for anyone to use (although I had to rock it barefoot since I was wearing sandals) so I was at least able to go for a quick push. The park is also up the a hill a bit, so the view is pretty awesome, it even had a couple resident Iguanas living there. When Chantelle and I went back to Mazunte on a separate day I brought her up to see it… and so I could go for one more push through it 😅

Going for a push on a local park board (📸 Dad)

My dads partner arrived about a week after Chantelle and I, so we came along for the ride back to Huatulco when my dad went to pick her up. We mostly just spent the free time we had shopping in a supermarket but we eventually made our way in to town. It was a very quick stop but we did get to look at one of the churches before we had to get moving and head back out to the airport.

Blog 2.6

Walk With Me 1.4