located on the Pacific coast of southwestern Mexico, about 500 miles from Mexico City, likes Huatulco – my second stop in the wonderful country of Mexico.

According to The Huffington Post, Huatulco has ‘ 9 bays, 36 sandy beaches, 22 miles of coastline and 330 days of sunshine.’

What was once a poor and sparsely populated area was taken under the wing of Mexico’s National Trust Fund for Tourism Development in the mid 1980’s and turned into tourist paradise.

So understandably the minute you walk off the dock you are bombarded with people selling coconuts and guacamole, day tours and taxi offers and ‘very cheap’ beach umbrella rental… At a ‘special price for you my friend’.

We skipped the salespeople and had an overpriced refreshment by the beach before we met up with Ryan’s local ‘guy’ who had agreed to drive us out to a short hiking spot so we could hunt down our own private beach spot for the day.

There were four of us and we managed to squeeze into the car of Ryan’s ‘guy’. He drove us only about 15 minutes out of town and directed us into a seedy-looking forest that he assured us would lead to the best beach.

We hiked through the sweaty little forest, climbing around the dangerous-looking branches and avoiding nasty-looking spiders.

We were all secretly hoping to find some big mysterious Mexican-jungle creatures but we were also pretty keen to get the the sea, that we could hear was getting louder and louder.

Eventually the forest cleared and the sand appeared. Followed by a perfectly blue sea. We had made it.

I didn’t realise how desperate I was to cool off until I saw the water and my inner beach-bum Australian stripped off her dress and ran into the waves. It had been a while since I had been at a beach and I was honestly thrilled to be thrown around in the (unexpectedly) strong water.

Eventually I joined my beach buddies further down the shore where they had played out towels and were applying a generous layout of sunscreen.

We enjoyed our private beach and the sparkling turquoise waters all afternoon and eventually we were all beached out and followed the little forest path back to civilisation.

We celebrated a fun afternoon of sea and sand overdosing with a very local feast featuring the best tasting guacamole I had ever devoured.