The Puerto Escondido surf guide

Welcome to Puerto Escondido

Surfing in Puerto Escondido

Puerto Escondido holds two waves that could not be further apart, and the whole town runs on the distance between them.

• 2spots

Zicatela is the reason the name is known: a sand-bottomed beach break that takes deep-water south swell straight off the Pacific and stands it up all at once. It is not a wave a surf week is built around unless you already know what you are doing, and the honest advice is to watch it from the sand for a day before deciding anything.

Carrizalillo is ten minutes west, a small cove reached down a long staircase, and it is where every school in town works. It is the reason a mixed group can come here at all: one of you surfs the beach break, the others learn in the bay, and you have dinner together.

The season is the southern winter reaching north: May to October is when the swell arrives, and November is Zicatela's cleanest month. That is the opposite of the Nayarit coast further up, so if your dates are fixed, they may already have chosen your coast for you.

The town itself is not quiet. Zicatela's strip runs on surfers and stays open, and Carrizalillo's end is calmer. It is a real place with a working port rather than a resort, which most people count in its favour.

Welcome home.

Explore Puerto Escondido

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• Seasonal guideWhen to goMonth by month
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