ZIPOLITE, Mexico — Before the nudists and the hippies, there were a few families who called this strip of sand home. Long before that, pirates came to the area for refuge, and may have left some buried treasure. Long before that, the great Zapotec culture would bring their revered dead here for ceremonial burials on the shores.
So it remains known as Zipolite (pronounced Zee-poh-LEE-tay), or The Beach of the Dead, in the Zapotec tongue. Don’t let the name or the strong riptide scare you, though, it’s a stoner’s paradise in southern Mexico, where you can freely smoke your doobies while the city’s two-man “police force” rides by on an ATV. Dinner options are whittled down mostly to seafood, Mexican classics or pizza, as there’s been a heavy influx of Italian immigrants in the area since the 80s.
From the Bay Area, you take a four-hour plane ride to Mexico City then hop another 90-minute flight to the Oaxacan coast. You can cruise along the Pacific from Puerto Escondido or whip through the mountains from Huatulco before hopping out at the southern end of Avenida Roca Blanca, the small but bustling main street full of shops, restaurants and nic-nacs walked by shirtless and shoeless beach folk.
Stroll down a short alley to the beach, towards the sound of the crashing waves, and to your left you’ll find a humble 14-room posada, Ballelita. And one of the biggest 49ers in Mexico, hotel owner Alex Cordoba.
Ballelita Hotel in ZipoliteAlex Espinoza/95.7 The Game
I checked in to Alex’s spot about two weeks before the Monday night game at Estadio Azteca between the 49ers and Cardinals. A few sunsoaked hours later, I came back to the front desk, which is actually just a covered bar in the middle of the sandy shores. The wifi networks were called “Alex’s Chill Pad 49ers” and “Ballelita 49” so I asked his co-worker, Chilo, if Alex was a big Niners fan.
“Bro, you have no idea,” Chilo said. “He’s obsessed.”
A 49ers superfan here, of all places? I had to learn more.
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If you zip up the Eastern coast of Mexico from the city of Tampico, you can get to McAllen, Texas, a small border town just across the Rio Grande, in about six hours. Back in the 1970s, Alex’s uncle, Eduardo Garza, would make the pilgrimage every Sunday when the Dallas Cowboys were playing, since the games weren’t broadcast in Mexico yet. Eventually he started running into another Mexican Cowboys fan named Luis de la Cuesta, who made his own trip across the border on Sundays. Garza and de La Cuesta were part of the first legion of NFL fans in Mexico, who became wrapped up with the sport as it was taking off after the 1970 merger.
According to the NFL, there are 46 million Mexican fans today, making it the league’s biggest market outside of the United States. The NFL estimates that 14 million those fans are “avid” and pay close attention to the league. Count Alex among them.
To this day, the Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers, the teams of the 70s, remain among the most popular franchises. The Raiders have a following, too, along with the game’s latest dynasty, the New England Patriots. Given their location in California, and their dynastic run of the late 80s and early 90s, the Niners are wildly popular, too.
Through the love of Alex’s uncle, his whole family became Cowboys fans. As a youngster growing up in Tampico, Alex was once gifted a Niners hat. He liked the red and gold colors enough. Once he found out that the 49ers were the Cowboys’ biggest rival, and he could talk smack to his older brother, Jose Eduardo, Alex was hooked on the franchise.
“I loved the colors and then when I started watching the games and saw that that team that would give grief to the Cowboys, I was like, this team’s fucking cool,” Alex said. “And the Cowboys, they would talk so much about the glory of them. I was like, ‘Nahhh.’”
Alex, a bearded free thinker who is shirtless and wearing sunglasses in his natural state, remains an outlier in his fandom. By his estimations, the sport’s popularity has seemed to have a trickle down effect from the North to the South. The closer to the border, the more the interest, so he’s a rare football fan in southern Mexico, where nature is king. Alex said he can’t find enough people in Zipolite to start a fantasy league, but that he’d like to do it one day. For now, he’s got leagues on the internet to keep him occupied and/or irrational.
He said Monterrey could be the next Mexican city to host a regular season game, as it’s become a hotbed for NFL fans and once hosted a Chiefs-Cowboys preseason game in 1996. To date, the NFL has held seven preseason games in Mexico, the first in 1978. There have been five regular season games, with the 49ers’ 38-10 win over the Cardinals in Week 11 as the most recent one.
There could have been one more in 2018, but Shakira had to go and ruin it. Mexican football fans are still bitter, as the Rams beat the Chiefs 54-51 in one of the most memorable NFL regular season games ever.
“There was a Shakira concert that happened a few days before the game and the field was ripped,” Alex said. “It’s one of the best games I’ve ever seen, that game. And it coulda been in fucking Mexico. We were so pissed because the game was so insane.”
Eight days before the 49ers-Cardinals clash, Alex found out he’d be going, in something that caught him by complete surprise.
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The hippie origins of Zipolite are a bit hazy, as one would expect. Local legend has it that a bus full of 28 Oaxacans arrived in 1969 or 1970, along with Gloria Hope Johnson, AKA Gloria the Gringa from California. Either way, the energy from Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967 didn't take long to trickle down to this part of the world.
According to the late Hope Johnson’s hotel website (she passed away in 2021), Gloria actually arrived with her two kids and $300 in 1970 before setting up camp on the sand and falling in love with a local fisherman.
Another crucial event happened on March 7, 1970, when a total solar eclipse occurred and brought people from all over the world to the small Oaxacan mountain town of Miahuatlán, where you had the best view of the eclipse in the entire world. Magic Mushrooms were (and still are) popular in the nearby town of San Jose del Pacifico, so the hippie vibes permeated the region.
After the astrological event, school buses full of free-spirited hippies trickled down the ranges to the beaches, stripped off their clothes and set the tone for Mexico’s lone recognized nude beach today. Throughout the 70s, Hope Johnson helped lead the local fight to reclaim Zipolite lands as communal after attempts to sell them to private interests. Zipolite remains fierce in its independence and attitude and has since become known for its free-spirited ways.
Clothing is optional here, and so is knowing the time and day of the week. The sun’s up or it’s not, and that’s all you need to know.
That’s not to say it's all gravy in paradise, as hurricane season rips through in the summer months. In May, Hurricane Agatha ripped through the beachside town and decimated the thatched roofs, as cement ones are still uncommon here. The Associated Press reported that at least 11 people died and 20 people were lost in Southern Mexico in the immediate aftermath.
Alex remembers sitting with his back on the floor in front of his front door, sealing it shut while a wave tried to crash its way into his living room. Once the tin roof from the building next door collapsed loudly on to his roof, he had to make his way to a more secure location. He woke up the next morning to find the thatched palapas washed away and a lot of roofs to be fixed. Debris and mud filled the streets.
Outside of hurricane season, it’s a lot of rinse and repeat of heaven on earth. But every Sunday in the fall, Alex holes up in his living room, with his trusty projector and its crystal-clear stream that spans more than 15 feet across his wall. The other six days are for looking at the waves.
“This is like a lifehack,” Alex says on the couch, with the seafoam sizzling in the distance.
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“I think I’m going to buy him a ticket,” Louise said. “He’d go, right?”
“Hell yeah, he’d go!” I said.
It was a lazy Sunday morning and we were sitting on the beach, sharing a doobie, when she had her stroke of generosity. A sweetheart from England with sandy blonde hair and a big smile, Louise checked into the hotel a couple days earlier and hit it off with Alex. Every month, she wanted to do something nice, as she had paid for a couple to experience a temazcal hut ceremony earlier in the trip.
Though the tickets were over $200 USD after fees, she bought him the ticket in section 545 on the 50-yard line. We knocked on his door, giddy like kiddos, but Alex wasn’t awake yet. So we strolled through town, up a quiet dirt road for some breakfast before coming back to his mancave, NFL RedZone plastered on the wall in all its glory.
Louise showed him her phone with the tickets and it took Alex a second to realize what was happening.
“You … purchased … it?” Alex said, incredulously. “Holy shit!”
You could see the wheels spinning in Alex’s head, as he had to figure out who was gonna run the hotel while he was gone. Because he was going now, there was nothing stopping him. Doobie still alight in his mouth, Alex nearly sat on his open computer in a stupor after hugging Louise and trying to process what was happening.
He had been to three 49ers games before, and each time was an experience. They had never lost in those games, going a perfect 3-0.
The first time Alex saw the Niners in person was in 2009, when he painted his face gold and upper body red while watching them play their season opener against the Cardinals. His friends made him wash off his face and arms before getting into the parking lot after the game and they hopped in a car to Las Vegas.
Alex's first 49ers game in 2009Alex Cordoba
Then came the memorable 49ers-Seahawks game in 2013, the second-to-last game at Candlestick Park.
“My brother saw how I was so sad all that season,” Alex said. “Because I wasn’t gonna see the home where all the magic happened with (Joe) Montana and Steve Young and I was really bummed out. That’s when he said, ‘Fuck it, man, I’ll buy you the tickets.' He went crazy and bought game tickets and plane tickets.”
At one point during the game, Alex got up to get beers and hot dogs. While he was waiting in line, a local guy offered him a joint and he was scared to smoke it, but the 49ers fan insisted he was fine. Then he bought Alex some beers and hot dogs. Then things got really crazy, as a girl became enamored with his luchador mask and 49ers cape.
“They paid for my beers, they paid for my hot dogs, they gave me weed,” Alex said. “And a girl that had a boyfriend kissed me. And the boyfriend high-fived me. And my brother was like, ‘What the fuck is happening with these people?’ I told him, ‘These are my people.’”
This wasn't the couple mentionedAlex Espinoza/95.7 The Game
A year later, Alex and his brother saw the 49ers and Cowboys duel at Jerry’s World in the season opener. Lil bro got bragging rights as the Niners won 28-17 with Colin Kaepernick leading the way.
Alex and his brother, Jose EduardoAlex Espinoza/95.7 The Game
Off the top of his head, Alex, 35, can only remember two times when he missed 49ers games on TV during the new millennium. The first came in 2000, when Jerry Rice’s career was coming to an end in San Francisco and they were playing the Bears, but he had to listen to the game on the radio as his family was driving back from Texas to Tampico. Then in 2017, when he missed the last few games of the season while moving to Zipolite.
During a 2019 trip to the North Pole to see the Northern Lights, Alex even brought an iPad, watching a game in France during his connection and then watching a couple more under the aurora borealis in 24 hours of darkness. He met a Polish guy at a bar that gave him enough hash for three joints and Alex got close to heaven, watching his Niners and lights dance in the sky.
“My bucket list, I told you, when I went to the North Pole to see the lights,” Alex said. “The only thing that’s on my bucket list, but it’s out of my control, is watching these fuckers win a Super Bowl. I saw when I was a kid, but I was so young. I need to savor it the way I could right now.”
A few months after that trip to the North Pole, the Niners actually made the Super Bowl against the Kansas City Chiefs. Back in Zipolite, Alex's internet cut out when the 49ers were leading by 10 in the fourth quarter. He still hasn't seen the Chiefs come back and he never will.
Alex had also been to Estadio Azteca for the 2000 preseason game between the Steelers and Indianapolis Colts, but never been back since. His main concern in 2022?
“I bet the bathrooms haven’t changed at all,” Alex said. “They were so bad, man.”
—
I’m glad to report that Mexican 49ers fans suffer just as much as American ones. Watching the Niners play the Los Angeles Chargers with Alex was quite an experience, especially after a brewski or twoski and a Sunday on the beach.
A typical day at BallelitaAlex Espinoza 95.7 The Game
As the sun set on another perfect day, Alex was already six hours deep into his NFL RedZone experience, but now was coming to the main event: his team in primetime. A 78-year-old Bay Area native named Marcus has spent nearly 100 weeks on-and-off at Ballelita over the years and become the resident chef when in town, and he would be cooking up some Mongolian beef for the special occasion.
For the most part, the biggest difference were the obscenities, as Alex unloaded a bunch of them in Spanish throughout the game.
It was, “¡No mames!” or “¡Puta verga!” when things went bad and “¡Bien, cabron!” when things got good.
Coach Kyle Shanahan certainly wasn’t above reproach.
“Shanahan had two fucking weeks to prepare for this fucking game,” Alex said. “They need to run the god damn ball. They’re running the ball and they’re doing better but the motherfucker doesn’t commit to the run and we don’t do good.”
As the Niners struggled to get their footing in the game, Alex clutched to his good-luck Dr. Pepper, while wearing his good luck George Kittle shirsey.
“They need to win this fucking game,” Alex said. “They need to win two games in a row. This game is fucking important.”
While Marcus was cooking, he also shared some stories from his six-plus decades of watching the Niners. His dad used to bring him to Kezar Stadium to watch Jim Brown when he came to town in the early 60s.
“49ers players would never take their helmets off,” Marcus said. “They would never take them off on the bench, they would never take them off when they were going to the locker room, because people were throwing whisky bottles at ‘em!”
A green-eyed Scottish firecracker who was staying at the hotel, Anne, was fascinated by the spectacle of American football, but for other reasons.
“There’s so many headsets,” Anne said. “What’s up with all the headsets? I’m getting Britney Spears vibes. … Man, look at his leg. It’s the size of my torso!”
Eventually, Alex sweated out the game with the spicy Mongolian beef, as the Niners claimed a 22-16 win over Justin Herbert and the Bolts.
Alex still can’t believe he’ll be at Estadio Azteca the following week to see the Niners with his own eyes.
“It’s surreal,” he said.
—
I got Alex’s ticket mailed to my AirBNB in Mexico City and protected it like a small child for a few days before he came into town.
“That ticket is my life man!” he texted me.
A few days earlier I asked him to articulate why the Niners are so important to him.
“My team was always there for me so that’s why I feel the need to be always there for them,” Alex said. “I found out when they sucked ass from that stretch from 2003-11, that it probably didn’t matter how much they sucked, that I would still watch the games. Even if I know they’re gonna lose, I still watched.”
His love for the sport has become infectious to the ones close to him. Alex’s ex-girlfriend, from France, knew that dating him also meant dating the Niners, and the NFL at large. A couple years into their relationship, she was yelling at the TV just like him.
Ditto for the locals who help out at his hotel.
“I became a fan of the 49ers because of him,” said Olin, a long-haired, laid-back employee. “He’s special. I started to watch football with him and now we have our inside jokes. There’s still a lot of things I don’t understand.”
So when Alex arrived in CDMX a day before the game, he had to pinch himself and put the ticket in the chest pocket of his jacket, never too far from his heart. Upon his arrival to Estadio Azteca, he made quick fans with a solo traveling Niners fan from Texas, let’s call her T, who was wearing a Kaepernick jersey.
Alex at Estadio AztecaAlex Cordoba
Alex reveled in the pregame atmosphere surrounded by such a pro-Niners crowd of 78,000-plus fans on that special Monday night in Mexico City. You could tell before the game that Kyler Murray was public enemy No. 1, as the Cardinals quarterback got booed every time he was on the big screen, even though he wasn’t playing. Alex and the Niners fans went wild every time Kittle, Nick Bosa and Jimmy Garoppolo were put on the screen. The ladies love Jimmy G, in Mexico too, as he got Beatles-like squeals out of the crowd every time.
Once the game started, Alex was a bit nervous as the Cardinals took a 3-0 lead after the first quarter. Then came the 49ers onslaught, led by Alex’s favorite player, Kittle, who caught two of Jimmy G’s four touchdowns. Kittle also serenaded the crowd during the classic song “Cielito Lindo” during a break, hitting that “Canta y no llores” line hard. Alex can’t get enough of Kittle’s passion, which has made his No. 85 the second-best selling jersey in Mexico.
“When you see him play, he puts his heart out,” Alex said. “That’s why Marcus calls him ‘Balls Out Kittle.’ He plays with his balls out on every play. He doesn’t know how to save energy on a play. If you’re a fan, you love that shit.”
Making things even sweeter? Alex’s fantasy team, loaded with 49ers, won by a single point.
“In the fantasy groups, I sent a photo of me in the stadium saying, ‘Nothing is sweeter than watching your favorite player on your fantasy team and your real life team taking you to victory.'” Alex said. “It doesn’t get any sweeter. They saved my ass live. I needed every single point.”
Perhaps his greatest feat happened in the second half. All the drunk people sitting around him complained loudly about wanting to smoke cigarettes. A local Chilango from Mexico City assured him security wouldn't do anything, so he handed out about 10 cigs then used the smokescreen to light up a joint he rolled.
As a cherry on top, Alex got a free ride home with T, who had hired a private driver that was waiting outside the stadium. He didn’t have to deal with the messy maze of a postgame Uber or bus. In other words, things couldn’t have gone better for Alex.
A couple days later, he hopped back on a plane to his slice of paradise in Zipolite. He plans to build a second story on top of his house for a new mancave, complete with a 49ers trophy case and a sunset ocean view. Kittle and the 49ers have an open invitation. Well, almost everybody.
“The only one is Jaquiski Tartt,” Alex said. “Besides him, anybody can come whenever the fuck they want. You can tell them it’s a humble place, but they’ll be treated like kings. That’s what they are for me. They’re my heroes.”
