Belén Fernández, is a contributing editor at Jacobin, and has written for The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and Middle East Eye. She is the author of Exile: Rejecting America and Finding the World and The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work.

Zipolite, so it’s said, means la playa de la muerte—the beach of death—although I did not find this out until more than two months into my stay in the village when a wave almost killed me. Zipolite had been selected as a destination based on a quick Google search of “beaches Oaxaca” during the particularly energetic San Salvador hangover that had produced a good part of the back-of-notebook itinerary. These periodic travel planning frenzies, while supplying the requisite sense of chaos and adventure, also allowed me a certain feeling of control over the universe. Granted, things like eighty-five-hour flights to Sri Lanka via absurd combinations of non-U.S. airports always sounded more exciting during the planning phase. Zipolite had also been chosen as a suitable point for international rendezvous with Marwan, a Lebanese-Palestinian friend whose own travels were severely hindered by his Lebanese passport but who was able to obtain a Mexican visa without jumping through dehumanizing hoops.

The bus ride from Oaxaca City entailed seven hours of mountain curves and speedbumps taken at high speed—something I should have known seeing as I had hitchhiked the very same route with my Polish friend and former travel companion Amelia in 2005. That trip had taken place primarily in the back of a pickup truck, which is perhaps why I had blocked the details from memory. This time around, I at least had a seat in which to lurch violently while the Austrian in the next row pathologically opened and closed her window. I dismounted from the bus in Zipolite into a blast of humidity and dust, prompting a resolution to never wear pants again, and headed to a cheap pension in the Roca Blanca neighborhood at the western end of the beach. Perks of the room included a water pump under the floor that was not unlike a jackhammer in its effects on the immediate environment. I settled in to await Marwan’s arrival.

On the surface, Zipolite—Mexico’s only official clothing-optional beach—was not exactly my type of seaside, despite its aesthetic glory: a kilometer and a half of golden sand surrounded by hills that abruptly turn from brown to green with the (now erratic) arrival of the rainy season. But the fierce currents rendered swimming for sport or leisure essentially impossible, and even just wading in to pee often constituted a lengthy struggle. The iconic giant white rock off the coast—hence “Roca Blanca,” rumored to be the result of accumulated bird shit—provided the backdrop for many a nude selfie, as well as many a photograph surreptitiously and not so surreptitiously captured by visitors from Mexico City on nudist safari. The panorama also played host to all manner of naked yoga, meditation, hula-hooping, acrobatics, jogging, and lounging. These activities posed a conundrum for me, because, try as I did to appreciate the participants’ bucking of the silly convention of clothing, white people doing yoga naked was somehow even more irritating than white people doing yoga clothed, and I usually just ended up feeling like a reactionary asshole. Until, that is, the quarantine happened and there was no longer a surplus of people to throw me into ethical dilemmas.

A village of only a few thousand inhabitants, Zipolite’s clientele ranged from the aforementioned demographics to gay vacationers to Mexican families from surrounding towns to surfers, drug enthusiasts, older European couples who conducted morning strolls on the beach in matching straw hats, and ever well-behaved compatriots of mine—like the woman whose life I ruined by taking too long to pay at the convenience store and who entered into an apoplectic fit in the way that only Americans know how. Canadians fleeing their dismal climate were also in abundance, and a Canadian-specific condominium complex called La Monarca—a yellow monstrosity responsible for the devastation of a coastal mangrove—was the predominant eyesore among the otherwise largely unobtrusive architecture (think non-yellow hotels, thatched roof huts, cabins, hammocks).

Belén Fernández, is a contributing editor at Jacobin, and has written for The New York Times, Al Jazeera, and Middle East Eye. She is the author of Exile: Rejecting America and Finding the World and The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work.

Zipolite, so it’s said, means la playa de la muerte—the beach of death—although I did not find this out until more than two months into my stay in the village when a wave almost killed me. Zipolite had been selected as a destination based on a quick Google search of “beaches Oaxaca” during the particularly energetic San Salvador hangover that had produced a good part of the back-of-notebook itinerary. These periodic travel planning frenzies, while supplying the requisite sense of chaos and adventure, also allowed me a certain feeling of control over the universe. Granted, things like eighty-five-hour flights to Sri Lanka via absurd combinations of non-U.S. airports always sounded more exciting during the planning phase. Zipolite had also been chosen as a suitable point for international rendezvous with Marwan, a Lebanese-Palestinian friend whose own travels were severely hindered by his Lebanese passport but who was able to obtain a Mexican visa without jumping through dehumanizing hoops.

The bus ride from Oaxaca City entailed seven hours of mountain curves and speedbumps taken at high speed—something I should have known seeing as I had hitchhiked the very same route with my Polish friend and former travel companion Amelia in 2005. That trip had taken place primarily in the back of a pickup truck, which is perhaps why I had blocked the details from memory. This time around, I at least had a seat in which to lurch violently while the Austrian in the next row pathologically opened and closed her window. I dismounted from the bus in Zipolite into a blast of humidity and dust, prompting a resolution to never wear pants again, and headed to a cheap pension in the Roca Blanca neighborhood at the western end of the beach. Perks of the room included a water pump under the floor that was not unlike a jackhammer in its effects on the immediate environment. I settled in to await Marwan’s arrival.

On the surface, Zipolite—Mexico’s only official clothing-optional beach—was not exactly my type of seaside, despite its aesthetic glory: a kilometer and a half of golden sand surrounded by hills that abruptly turn from brown to green with the (now erratic) arrival of the rainy season. But the fierce currents rendered swimming for sport or leisure essentially impossible, and even just wading in to pee often constituted a lengthy struggle. The iconic giant white rock off the coast—hence “Roca Blanca,” rumored to be the result of accumulated bird shit—provided the backdrop for many a nude selfie, as well as many a photograph surreptitiously and not so surreptitiously captured by visitors from Mexico City on nudist safari. The panorama also played host to all manner of naked yoga, meditation, hula-hooping, acrobatics, jogging, and lounging. These activities posed a conundrum for me, because, try as I did to appreciate the participants’ bucking of the silly convention of clothing, white people doing yoga naked was somehow even more irritating than white people doing yoga clothed, and I usually just ended up feeling like a reactionary asshole. Until, that is, the quarantine happened and there was no longer a surplus of people to throw me into ethical dilemmas.

A village of only a few thousand inhabitants, Zipolite’s clientele ranged from the aforementioned demographics to gay vacationers to Mexican families from surrounding towns to surfers, drug enthusiasts, older European couples who conducted morning strolls on the beach in matching straw hats, and ever well-behaved compatriots of mine—like the woman whose life I ruined by taking too long to pay at the convenience store and who entered into an apoplectic fit in the way that only Americans know how. Canadians fleeing their dismal climate were also in abundance, and a Canadian-specific condominium complex called La Monarca—a yellow monstrosity responsible for the devastation of a coastal mangrove—was the predominant eyesore among the otherwise largely unobtrusive architecture (think non-yellow hotels, thatched roof huts, cabins, hammocks).