Mexico’s New Beginning : Mexoican fishing village on road to Guatemala was a sleepy hideaway. Then they paved the road and now big hotels and a planned resort area are under way.

I came south to learn if the old Puerto Escondido still exists.

Well, it does. Only it is threatened, this little fishing village beyond Acapulco on the road to Guatemala. For one thing, they paved the main street, Avenida Perez Gaspa. For another, Puerto Escondido is being invaded by Europeans as well as Americans.

Still, some compare Puerto Escondido to Zihuatanejo as it was 20 years ago. That was at a time when Zihuatanejo was a maze of broken streets and ancient pastel buildings. In Zihuatanejo I used to get an emotional high; the village had personality and character and a simplicity that is rare among resorts these days.

Probably it would have remained unchanged. Only the developers moved in next door at Ixtapa to install hotels like those in Cancun. And so they figured they had to spiff Zihuatanejo up too. Otherwise, they argued, the big spenders doing tours from Ixtapa might be turned off.

The same thing is occurring beyond Puerto Escondido. South of here, the developers from Ixtapa have created a resort that takes in 18 miles of magnificent coastline.

The village where all this is occurring is called Huatulco, and until this year fishermen and their families lived in shanties on the beach. Now they are being resettled inland in modern homes with hot water and TV sets. Only given the choice, they say, they’d prefer being back on the beach--enjoying those smashing sunsets in place of “Miami Vice.”

Midway between Acapulco and the Guatemalan border, the $1-billion project at Huatulco will be bristling with 25,000 rooms shortly after the turn of the century. Presently, though, Mexico is referring to Huatulco as its undiscovered riviera.

One hotel is already open, the little Posada Binniquenda. On Dec. 12 Club Mediterranee will introduce four pueblitos containing 500 rooms and five restaurants. The $28-million property (Club Med’s biggest in Mexico) features three swimming pools, three beaches and a dozen tennis courts. This plus three squash courts, an air-conditioned fitness center and an arts and crafts workshop.

Club Med promises that no one will be bored. The resort will feature cookouts on secluded beaches, sailing, windsurfing and tours to the Mayan ruins of Palenque and Oaxaca. The package price for a week at Club Med will range from $910 to $1,130 per person, including the round-trip air fare from Los Angeles.

In the spring, Sheraton will begin flagging down guests at Huatulco. So will a five-star luxury hotel, the Veramar. Meanwhile, a new jet-age airport is in the works along with a golf course that’s to be surrounded by villas and condos, all of which means adios to the old life.

By the turn of the century hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers will be settled in Huatulco. The developers say it will be bigger than Cancun. Currently, though, the coast is lined with dozens of uninhabited beaches. It is where the Spanish used to sail and pirates came ashore to spook the locals.

We drove down to take a look the other day and stopped for lunch at Al Fuentes’ restaurant at Maguey Bay. It is just a shack on the beach with card tables and folding chairs and palm fronds to keep off the sun. It’s not a very classy place, but the seafood is fresh. Al catches everything himself. What’s more, the shack doesn’t cost him a peso. As a result, lunch for four of us came to less than $8.

That’s cheap, amigo, even for Mexico.

At Tangolunda Bay, which is where Club Med and the other hotels are getting ready to open, another entrepreneur is getting rich feeding the workers at a second makeshift shack on the beach. Some days she earns as much as $2,000, which indicates how many laborers and carpenters are involved with the building of the new resort.

Her days are numbered, though. When the hotels open she’ll be out of business. Rich and idle.

Meanwhile, back in Puerto Escondido, merchants and hoteliers are making hay of all the publicity Huatulco is getting. This is because attention is being focused on their village as well. As a result the tourists are pouring in.

From Acapulco, 250 miles north, a paved road sweeps past beaches and there are streams that flow from the Sierra Madre where women do their laundry and leave it to dry on rocks lining the banks.

Occasionally the road passes little villages with signs advertising Carta Blanca, and other times it is necessary to slow down for pigs and chickens. It is the same with another road that twists over the mountains from Oaxaca. The chickens and pigs have the right of way. So it is best to fly. Either by DC-3 from Oaxaca or by jet from Mexico City.

Small hotels line the beach at Puerto Escondido. None rates five stars, but the best of the lot is Paul Cleaver’s 30-room Santa Fe. It features cowhide chairs from Guadalajara, tile from Puebla and lamps from Oaxaca. (Cleaver put in telephones only after the government insisted.)

Cleaver discovered Puerto Escondido in the ‘70s before there was a road to the beach, and so he paved his own.

Originally he figured on a hotel with five rooms. Instead he opened with 10. Only the electricity wasn’t hooked up, so he passed out candles to the guests. They thought it was romantic, so they kept the candles burning even after the electricity was switched on.

One guest stayed on for four months and when he left he apologized to Cleaver.

“What’s wrong?” asked Cleaver.

The guest shrugged. “I’m broke,” he said.

Cleaver laughed out loud, tore up the bill and said, “Adios, friend.”

The cherubic 52-year-old Cleaver is an ex-schoolteacher who got to Puerto Escondido by way of Oregon, Washington, Arizona and finally Europe, where he boarded a freighter bound for Mexico.

After arriving in Puerto Escondido, he told himself he’d found his place in the sun.

His colonial-style hotel with its swimming pool and gardens faces the thunderous waves of Cicatela Beach. Cicatela is said to be the best surfing beach in Mexico. And yes, that even includes Mazatlan. Scriptwriter Paul Vincent, 29, of Santa Cruz, Calif., has traveled the world as a surfer and he’s seen nothing like it.

“But it’s dangerous,” he said.

It is the danger that fascinates the surfers. Sipping beer at Paul Cleaver’s hotel, a group from California told how they get a spiritual high from the immense force at Cicatela, even though they fear it. A young surfer died earlier this year, killed by his own board when he wiped out and a powerful wave slammed it into his body like the sharp edge of a guillotine.

For gentle souls it is best to stay poolside at the Santa Fe. Or else watch the action from the dining room where the menu features fresh red snapper and shrimp, octopus, breaded oysters, fish soup, vegetarian hamburgers and pastas.

At night it is as silent as a falling star at Cicatela Beach. The bar at the Santa Fe closes by 11 p.m. And there is no disco. Only a strolling musician who plays love songs on the guitar. Later, the Milky Way lights a path across the heavens and thunderheads roll in from the sea, filling the night with electricity. The explosions in the sky send shock waves to Earth and rattle the windows at the Santa Fe.

Snooze in Hammocks

In Puerto Escondido, vacationers short on pesos snooze in hammocks on the beach and dine at snack stands along Avenida Perez Gaspa. Still, in town, along Marinero Beach, there are remarkably inexpensive hotels.

A single at the Las Palmas figures out to around $12 a day and doubles go for about $16. The Moorish-style, two-story Las Palmas attracts a Bohemian crowd. Wrought-iron furniture is scattered about the garden and there’s a well with an oak bucket. Actress Maruschka Detmars, who was vacationing from Paris, said she prefers the Las Palmas and Puerto Escondido to places like Puerto Vallarta and Zihuatanejo.

“I’m Bohemian,” she said.

Bohemian and beautiful.

One can get by for even less at the Hotel Loren. A room with a private bath costs $10 and you’re within walking distance of Marinero Beach with its restaurants and souvenir stalls.

One of the slickest hotels in town, the spotless, white-stuccoed Hotel Paraiso Escondido, charges $19 for an air-conditioned room overlooking its swimming pool and garden restaurant.

While I’m fond of funky little hotels with the character of an old hacienda, not everyone is. So for the less adventurous, the 100-room Puerto Escondido Castel, with its splendid gardens, a couple of restaurants, three bars, air conditioning and TV (just like home), shapes up as a bargain at about $30 for a single and $40 for a double.

Hike to the Beach

There is only one drawback: It sits on a bluff overlooking the ocean. As a result, guests must hike along a wooden stairway to the beach. Going down it is a breeze--it’s the climb back up that makes the swimming pool more appealing to non-joggers and others allergic to activity.

September through March are the best months in Puerto Escondido. During summer, when it rains, I’m told, it gets muggier than a Finnish sauna. An old guy in town describes Puerto Escondido as a “little seedy.” And he’s right. But even he agrees it has character. Character as well as characters. Particularly during Easter, when the village looks like a replay of Haight Ashbury during San Francisco’s hippie invasion.

It was just another sleepy Mexican village until someone booked a tour group here several years ago. Then others discovered Puerto Escondido. After this, the population doubled. Now the beaches are crawling with French, Germans, Italians, Brazilians and Canadians as well as Americans.

The laid-back life style is what attracted everyone in the beginning. Chickens had the run of the streets. Dust storms spun in the paths of every jalopy that bumped along Avenida Perez Gaspa. So they paved the damn thing and destroyed the charm. Others began selling T-shirts. Someone else opened a pizza joint. Now there are souvenir stalls.

Still, it’s beyond the Twilight Zone of most flashy Mexican resorts. Hardly anyone hurries. Especially in the afternoon. It’s simply too hot. That’s when vacationers curl up in a hammock. Or else uncork a Carta Blanca and forget the real world.

That’s easy to do in Puerto Escondido.

For inquiries on Puerto Escondido and the new resort at Huatulco, write to the Mexican Government Tourism Office, 10100 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 224, Los Angeles 90067. Telephone (213) 203-8153 or (213) 203-8191. For details on the new Club Mediterranee, contact Edwina Arnold, Club Med Sales Inc., 40 West 57th St., New York 10019.