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The coast is clear

By the time I drive into Mazunte, it's nearing the golden hour, and the late-afternoon wash of light beckons me to the sea. For three days now I've been scuttling from one location to the next, exploring the Oaxacan coast and pondering how I will ever, seriously, be able to brave the waters of this perilous part of the Pacific - which impishly touts itself as the Costa Chica, the Little Coast. I throw my knapsack into a beach shack and wander down to the waves.

In truth, the shores of this tiny village have been fine for swimming during the past few months. Only now, as the season slips into the stormy months of fall, has the ocean started to stir again. But at least, I realize as I get tossed about in the surf, there's not a single tourist anywhere along the mile-long bay; just a few fearless Mexican kids (who cast themselves into the swell as if it were their own private wading pool), some fishermen fixing their skiffs, and - wait, what's this?

I glance back at the beach and see that a dozen people have suddenly collected, jostling, pointing. The waves drown out their words, but I can tell there's excitement in the air. With great effort I paddle back to land and find, between them and me, a large turtle waddling along the sand. The crowd, now double in size, moves to let the visitor find space, and peace, to lay her eggs. They know the routine. Yet still more staring and pointing, more waiting and wonder. By the time I'm all dripped dry, the turtle has had enough and, without laying her eggs, has stolen away into the sea. The commotion, it seems, was too much for her.

Let's hope she can get used to it: Word is slowly starting to spread about the lesser-known Pacific Mexico. For years, the 70-mile coastal strip of central Oaxaca - the nexus of the Costa Chica - has been in the shadow of its flashier, noisier neighbors to the north: Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, and even small-town Zihuatanejo. Beyond the loyal coterie of international surfers and middle-class Mexicans, this seaside stretch between Puerto Escondido and Huatulco is still unknown - despite its spectacular string of beaches and its rich biodiversity (more olive ridley turtles hatch here than anywhere else on earth). I have come looking for a blissed-out Mexican beach dream, and - owing to a confluence of socio-geographical seclusion, government mismanagement, and singular surf breaks - it just may exist.

Or, rather, they may exist. Along with a burgeoning number of the cognoscenti, I am drawn to a handful of coastal towns, each an expression of someone's idea of unspoiled Mexico. My personal favorite is Puerto Escondido - a simpatico enclave that's grown beyond its surfer roots, with no big-brand hotels and no town planning, into one of Mexico's most naturally winsome beach towns. Then, a two-hour drive southeast, is Huatulco, a sprawling resort zone without the crowds. And last, midway between the two - lining the coastal dip in the map that's known as "the belly of the whale" - is a clutch of isolated villages anchored by the boho-chic communities of Mazunte and San Agustinillo (think yoga retreats, turtle tourism and secluded virgin beaches). Simply put: These are a lot of flavors for a little coast.

To realize the dream of Oaxaca's jeweled shoreline, it's worth exploring the reality of its isolated and embattled land. The coast has stayed anonymous because it's hell to reach: The 180-mile road there from the state capital is an eight-hour white-knuckle ride through jungle and mountain (though a daily flight connects the two in 40 minutes). What's worse, recently there were riots in Oaxaca City. What started as an annual teachers' strike for better wages escalated in the summer of 2006 into barricaded protests against the state governor, Ulises Ruiz (who's been accused of diverting millions of dollars toward suspect "public" projects). The police moved in, the violence turned deadly (claiming the life of an American documentarian), and the world media branded the evocative Mexican city a no-go zone.

Oaxaca is still hurting. Since the most recent disturbances, in July 2006, the capital remains a shadow of its former vivacity by day and ghostly quiet by night. The coast, meanwhile, has suffered by association - despite being totally divorced from any of the troubles. "It hit us terribly," says Robin Cleaver, co-owner of Puerto Escondido's most venerated hotel, the Santa Fe. "But the truth is, we've had long cycles of bad luck. Just look at what happened in the '90s." By which he means the Mexican peso crisis of 1994; the Zapatista rebel uprising of the same year, which threw neighboring Chiapas into turmoil, and whose restive image spilled over onto Oaxaca; and 1997's Hurricane Pauline, which slammed dead-on into Puerto Escondido and still ranks among Mexico's deadliest. Add to that the fact that this is the country's second-poorest state (after Chiapas) and you have some idea of why the Costa Chica remains off the radar.

I start my search for the Costa Chica's chilled-out charm in Puerto Escondido - or Puerto, as it's usually called. The first thing that hits you on arrival (at least if you're a man) is that shirt and shoes are optional. Scratch that: Wearing anything above the waist or on your feet is manifestly overdressing. Nobody shakes hands, either. Instead, from Chileans and Australians and Italians (in Puerto, just about everyone's from somewhere else), I receive a sort of surfer-dude salutation that involves a slide and click of the palms followed by a homeboy knuckle bump - and not once do I get it right. I don't even know what questions to ask. On several occasions - at a bar and on the beach - I get to talking and ask: So, what brought you to Puerto? Or, what do you do? The first would invariably evoke an answer involving a vacation gone hippie (came for two weeks, stayed for two years). The second mostly drew a blank gaze and a shrug, as if to say, Like I'd be so bourgeois to actually do anything ...

This is the kind of town that had hippie roots before there were hippies. The first tourist hub on Oaxaca's coastline, the port began to prosper in 1928, exporting the state's famed coffee. By the '40s, it was already dancing to its own tune: When a tax collector came in 1942, he wasn't just kicked out of town - he was killed on the road out. As Gina Machorro, the wondrously provocative veteran of Puerto's tourist booth, puts it, "We have this Oaxacan tradition of being unfriendly to outsiders - or at least to those outsiders who tell us what to do." Which perhaps explains why the federal government never made any headway - as it did, most famously, in Canc�n and Los Cabos - with turning this singular piece of paradise into Resortlandia.

Thankfully, Puerto's main beach, Playa Principal, still looks almost exactly as it did half a century ago - a perfect arc of white powder sand fringed by a swath of palms leaning toward the sea. A clutch of palapa huts now skirt the sand, and the fishermen share the waters with teenage bodyboarders. Behind the trees, a pedestrianized downtown drag (or el adoqu�n, "paving stone") is home to a few decent restaurants, some primitive-looking nightclubs, and Gina Machorro's tourist booth.

"Our beloved governor is trying to rebrand us as the Oaxacan Riviera," Gina tells me on her walking tour of the town. "Even the guidebooks are using the name now. It's insulting. We're the second-poorest state in Mexico, we've got places down the road with no water or electricity, and now we're a Riviera." The Costa Chica is not the Mayan Riviera, nor was it meant to be. Unlike in Playa del Carmen - Mexico's fastest-growing tourist town - development has not spiraled out of control in Puerto: In fact, the town has yet to sprout any five-star resorts, designer hotels or hipster bars. What it does have is a collection of beaches whose drama and diversity are unmatched anywhere in Mexico and whose Playa Zicatela is Latin America's hottest surf destination, bar none.

"Every day it's like a machine," says Ángel Salinas, Puerto's de facto surf pioneer. "More longboards have been broken here than anywhere else in the world." Ángel should know. A surfer since the age of eight - and famous throughout the surfing world for the colorful wrestler masks he sports at sea - the 41-year-old champion set up the first surf shop in town, as well as Mexico's first surf clinic for children. Puerto now has 15 surf shops in all and holds two international competitions annually, and about a third of the 450,000 visitors who come here annually are "serious surfers," according to Ángel.

"For years, people thought we were just a bunch of bums and weirdos," he tells me at his shop, Central Surf, on Zicatela's sole, seafront street. "It wasn't until 1987, when we had our first international tournament here, that the locals realized, 'Hang on! Everyone's hanging out, enjoying themselves - and they're not drug addicts.' It was, you know, mucha armon�a [lots of harmony]. They realized, 'This is Puerto. This is our image.'?" By the '90s, Puerto was barely escondido (hidden) anymore, and nowadays you can find Swiss-made bagels, Japanese sushi, and a Czech-managed hotel on Zicatela - whose laid-back multiculti feel has eclipsed the stale Anytown, Mexico, scene around el adoqu�n.

The coast is clear