Puerto Escondido has long been known to the world’s top surfers. That’s because it’s home to the famous Mexican Pipeline—a towering and expansive wave that curls into a formidable tube off of Playa Zicatela. Historically, this powerful beach break along the town’s main mile-long stretch of sandy shore beckoned only a niche class of traveler. As other parts of Mexico, like Cancun and Tulum, became commercialized tourist attractions, the warm and clear waters of Puerto remained largely undisturbed, save for the thunderous crashing of swell year after year. Of course, a gorgeous location, offering year-round warm weather and cheap living, cannot be kept secret forever. Over the past decade, Puerto has seen massive growth in tourism, not nearly to the scale of Mexico’s beach resort cities, but enough that it has begun altering the way of life and surfing culture. As backpackers caught wind of an undeveloped beach paradise, hotels started rising from the sand. I needed to get a glimpse of the real Puerto before tourism’s greedy hands strangled out the remaining breaths of authenticity. Landing at the quaint oceanside airport, I was immediately hit with a humid yet charming embrace that captured my affection and never let go. Relieved to find that Puerto is still far from touristic, my aspirations were swimming in joyous fulfillment. But it was clear that rapid change is underway—tiki bars and bamboo beach clubs line a once-vacant strip as a foreboding sign of the spring-break-themed development to come. Willing to overlook these terrestrial renovations, local surfers are less inclined to relinquish their claim to the ocean. This is expressed at La Punta, the renowned surf spot on the point of Zicatela, which boasts consistently rideable waves. Just because the waves are rideable, however, doesn’t mean you’ll get to ride them, as newly arriving surfers quickly learn. There’s a strict hierarchy enforced by the locals out among the waves. Barring the exception that you’re an elite surfer capable of earning a spot in the exclusive lineup, new arrivals will find themselves predominantly waveless. Talking to an Australian surfer on holiday while waiting for the next set to roll in at Carrizalillo—a smaller, still crowded though less intense, beach break a few miles north of La Punta—he explained how the locals, with their in-depth knowledge of the underwater contours, float farther offshore where the good waves break, leaving everyone else to “pick up the scraps.” Trying to insert yourself into the lineup results in “real abuse,” he explained, having experienced so himself. With heightened tourism putting more people in the water, not only do surfers have to contend with local hostilities—which I was told can extend beyond verbal threats to being tackled from waves and even fights on the beach—they also have to compete for the few waves that slide through with a crowd of beginners getting lessons. Worsening matters, instructors have a privileged status that allows them to push their students into waves with little regard for the lineup, ultimately ensuring scarce opportunity to surf. Luckily, I met a fellow novice surfer who had been similarly frustrated. “I want some nice waves to myself,” I told him, and was introduced to his surf guide, José—a sure-footed, darkly tanned Puerto native who grew up surfing the local breaks. Days later, I was sitting in a sun-and-salt-weathered jeep, surf boards strapped to the roof, headed half an hour out of town. On the way, José shared his feelings about the expansion of tourism: “On one hand, the waves get crowded—but my surf shop is doing great and my house, wow, is that worth a lot more!” His ambivalence became strained, however, as we drove past a construction zone. The new government-sponsored highway from Oaxaca City to Puerto Escondido is almost done, he warned. When it’s completed next year, a six-hour journey through winding rural roads will become a straight shot to the beach in two hours. Thinking of the countless more tourists this will usher in, I worried that the Puerto I had come to know and love really was in its final days. Though, as we pulled up to the secret beachfront, my concerns momentarily drifted away, as did I, into untouched, mesmeric swell.