Puerto Escondido (
English: "Hidden Port") is a small port and tourist center in the
municipality of
San Pedro Mixtepec Distrito 22 in the
Mexican state of
Oaxaca. Prior to the 1930s, there was no town. The bay had been used as a port intermittently to ship coffee, but there was no permanent settlement due to the lack of potable water. The name "Puerto Escondido" had roots in the legend of a woman who escaped her captors and hid here. The
Nahuatl word for this area was Zicatela, meaning “place of large thorns". Today, it refers to the area’s most famous beach.