WE ARRIVED IN PUERTO Escondido mid morning and taxied to the cabanas on Zicatela beach where we met 26 years ago and had blissfully spent five weeks two years ago. At that time we were happily surprised how easy it was to go home again. This year, the cabana we had stayed in was already booked for the next few weeks.

Fortunately, we found friends in residence where we had met them two years ago in the Santa Cruz bungalows, adjacent to, and operated by, the Santa Fe Hotel. It was great to catch up with them and after they headed back north, we moved into the vacant bungalow. The location is key as, for Paule, the big waves on Zicatella hold little attraction but a tranquil, before breakfast, swim in the calmer ocean across the street is nirvana.

So, a dip in the ocean at playa marinero sets up the day and the dazzling sunsets close it out. After the dip, we have breakfast on our second story terrace with the sound of the waves and then we pretty much loll around going from pool to beach with reading, dining, catching up with old friends and making new ones effortlessly filling our days.

We justify this upgrade in lodgings, uptick to our travel budget and reversion from serious tourism to beach sloth as a springtime celebration of our 25th wedding anniversary and Paule noted that we will be spending exactly 25 days in this lap of unexpected luxury.

Puerto Escondido has always been Puerto Magico to me. I first visited in early 1977. Uninspired by Acapulco, I recalled a woman I, two years before, had told me of Puerto Escondido and how much she thought I would like it. A seven hour bus ride from Acapulco got me there at nightfall and after I got settled in at one of the few hotels, I wandered down the, then, sandy beach street, the Adoquin, to the only bar that was full of music and people and there she was, saying it took me awhile to get here. Magico!

For the next several years, my airline employment enabled me to spend at least two weeks under Puerto’s spell each year. Stateside friends began to note I had this mellow glow going on my return that would last like a suntan. The attraction was simple, you wound down things to the simplicity of life being a beach in Mexico, with weather warm, local citizens kind, loving and your fellow, off the beaten path, tourists engaging and interesting.

Those years it was a remote location, accessible by long bus rides or a  WW2-era DC3 that lumbered over the mountains from Oaxaca. Once there nature, on land and sea, local fisherman village life and your fellow travelers were the attractions. If you got bored, it was your problem and those afflicted could raise the communal level of intelligence by leaving. Those staying seemed to have a great time and I made many friends and had great adventures, even convincing some California friends to come see for themselves.

In 1983, I gave up the airline job and started graduate school. I had finally convinced a friend and his girlfriend to go down see this place I’d been raving about and, over the long Christmas break, I came down to join them. A few days into the New Year, I met Paule. So besotted we were, we almost married there but decided to save the celebration to share with our families up north. We visited the scene of the crime, the next year but work, responsibilities and other destinations kept us away for years.

When we came back in 2002, my how the little town had grown as more people discovered its charms and made it their full or part-time home. The little sandy streets had been paved and their was daily jet service at the expanded airport.

The three mile Zicatella beach that was once just a long, wide expanse of sand and brush with what was said to be the third best surf break in the world is now peppered with hotels, shops, bars and restaurants and on the beach side, where once were, a few small bars doing a little business, there are now several times more of these, all garnering smaller slices of the tourism pie and each competing for walk-in business with louder music and brighter lights, rendering the tranquil beach atmosphere a thing of the past. Paule noted that on our little morning dips in the ocean, if we keep our eyes on the shoreline and sea, it all seems just as it was when we met. The little U shaped bay still has the fishing boats bobbing close in and in the older part of town, the same little seaside restaurants exist with today’s catch ready for the plate and there still is a profusion of coco palms ringing the hbeach. The other night, the sunset was spectacular. After it went down we lingered to watch a couple fellows with nets wade into the surf to haul in the little white fish that had come close to shore to their and the frigate birds and pelicans profit. They would come in and dump the nets on the shore for their children to gather them up, squealing and laughing in delight, while wives smiled and jokes were made, the same ones we heard all those years ago.

While much has changed in our eyes, I am still very certain that any twenty-something, beach-loving, Mexico experienced traveler from the north who encountered Puerto Escondido for the first time this year would feel as though he had landed in paradise just like I did long before all this white hair showed up.

It will be a few more years before we come back. We live in Quebec City and it is now a longer response to the question, where we are from as San Francisco has to be acknowledged, as well. To Paule’s chagrin, I sometimes just shorten the process and say, well, WE are from Puerto Escondido. That will remain true too.