Puerto Escondido

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.-

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore ;-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell’d, uncoffin’d, and unknown.

(G.G. Byron)

The legend says that Captain Andres Drake, brother of famous Captain Francis Drake, anchored near a bay of calmed waters looking for Spanish galleons to assault. Previous to the arrival in the bay, Captain Drake had kidnapped a Mixtec girl in the town of Huatulco. During a moment of distraction the girl escaped and swam towards the coast, where she disappeared from her captors. The girl was never found again, but the pirates continuously referred to the girl as “La Escondida” or “The Hidden one”. The place where the girl escaped started to be known as “Bahia la escondida”, which later evolved to “Puerto Escondido.”

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