The history of Lo Cósmico
Lo Cósmico is an essential piece of the history of Zipolite, and especially of the roots of the local expat community. This place has been a local landmark for almost half a century! It was born when Zipolite was still an untouched beach, without running water or electricity. Our first kitchen was completely made out of wood and only lit by candles and flares. Even our famous crepes were made on a fire stove at the beginning. However, this tiny restaurant grew to what would be the ultimate meeting point, often with people improvising music under the starry night, and other nights with dances to music out of battery radios.
Antonio arrived in town for the first time to observe a solar eclipse in March 1970 and fell in love with the place. The first house on the hill was built in 1976, and has since been the home of the “Cosmic Family”. As off-the-beaten-track travelers arrived in town over the years, they found Antonio and his little house atop the hill, and he started offering them not only hour-long conversations about history and life but also a spot to spend the night, often in hammocks under the starry sky. Some of those first visitors have become lifelong friends, and it is, up until now, the people who set foot on our grounds and leave their prints what recharges the cosmic energy of this place.
Among those adventurous backpackers was Regula, who came from Switzerland with her best friend to explore the coast of Oaxaca in 1982, and landed at Antonio’s place like many other tourists. It wasn’t her first time here, since she had already visited in the early 70s when she was living in Mexico City. Like many other stories later over the years, she became one of the first foreigners to fall in love and settle here. After that short stay in 1982, she returned to Switzerland but never forgot about the house atop the hill and the man who lived in it. One year later, she decided to leave all the comforts she enjoyed back home and moved with her 7-year-old daughter Natalia to rejoin her newfound love in Zipolite. She traded a stable job, a beautiful house, a cat, and a solid group of friends for a little cabin atop a hill on Zipolite beach, with no water, no electricity, and no assurances. She traded everything for a dream, for a love story, for the possibility of a different type of life.
Together, Regula and Antonio started to develop the land they lived on, building a couple more cabins, and opening the restaurant that sold the first-ever crepes in the region. Lo Cósmico was born under this name in February 1984.
Lo Cósmico started to grow, as they built more and more huts around the little hill, each one unique in its construction and interiors, all made out of natural materials like mud and palm leaves. In 1988, the next generation of the Lo Cósmico Family, Violeta, came to this world and is now helping run the place with her Chinese husband Ikal.
Over the years, Lo Cósmico has endured not one but four devastating hurricanes and has been reborn from the ground every single time. In 1997 hurricane Paulina hit us for the first time, and we had to start from scratch. Recently, in 2022, hurricane Agatha hit us hard again, and we lost some of our best cabins. However, we are actively working on rebuilding and fixing everything, and are fully operational as of today. Only the restaurant will remain closed until later this year.
Come and become a part of the history of Lo Cósmico!