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And Then There Were 5
By admin | October 13, 2007
E Paine signing on…..I took off for the weekend of September 21st to try to get away from the 3 caguama guzzling, American fast-food scouring maniacs in exchange for a visit to Guanajuato and San Miguel del Allende. In the meantime, per Senor Boyd, “Sean, Bill and Kevin checked out Punta Mita & Sayulita. They had a great weekend surfing an epic right-hand pointbreak called Veneros. At night, they roamed the streets of Sayulita, explored the shops and showed the locals what Feral Green means.  Sean & Bill played soccer with the locals, while Kevin dangled his worm, fishing on the beach. They spent their free time during the weekend scouring the town for precious used vegetable oil. They made their way into the more than accomodating Four Seasons Resort of Punta Mita and scored over 10 gallons of usable veg oil for the truck. From there, they headed out to Puerto Vallarta for the day. As Sean & Kevin were walking down the street to eat Carl’s Jr., a truck hit a stoplight and it came inches from crushing both of them. No worries, they continued on and each got a $6 burger that got all over the place and definitely belonged in their face. They changed the motor oil, washed their clothes and ate some delicious Costco pizza before hitting the road to pick me up in Manzanillo.â€
I must say my experience with the Mexican bus system was stupendous – the bus schedule had departures around the clock and the buses were fast, comfortable, and punctual. I rolled into Guanajuato around midnight and took a stroll around before locating a hostel to hole up in. With a warm shower and real bed I was in heaven. I spent the next day cruisin’ Guanajuato - checking out the museums, gente, and devouring local fare at the market. The next day I met up with Hana in San Miguel de Allende and spent 2 days hiking around and eating great food. Hana was working on the interior design install of a sick, huge colonial house in the middle of San Miguel. Both Guanajuato and San Miguel reminded me of Europe, having small cobble-stone streets winding up the hills and vibrantly colored buildings – something I wasn’t expecting to see in Mexico. The third afternoon I headed out for Manzanillo (via bus through Guadalajara) where the guys would [hopefully] pick me up at the central de autobuses.Â
After a long ride all night, with a bus change and hour layover in Guadalajara, I arrived in Manzanillo around 6:30am. I sent a text to the guys and heard back about 45 minutes later that they were 30 minutes out. That was a relief since I was naturally assuming they wouldn’t be up so early. I passed about 2 hours of time reading the Mexican anthology book that I had brought with me.. Next I heard from the guys they were trying to find the bus station. I left and got a quick bite to eat at a dingy little café next to the station. When I made it back to the station and walked in to ask the woman I had befriended whether she had seen any gringos looking for someone, she answered no. I headed back to the seating area to chill out for a while longer, and then the savior Guillermo entered the scene explaining that once they had reached Manzanillo they spent 2 and a half hours driving in large, not so concentric, circles in an heroic effort to find me.
Once in the truck we headed South for Pascuales to hopefully find some hollow barrels. We walked out front quickly, anxious to see what the hype was all about and hoping that the viento del mar (on-shore wind) hadn’t destroyed the surf. The surf was thumping and vibrations could be felt through your feet when sets crashed. Unfortunately, after watching and walking down the beach we realized that a paddle out was probably not worth it since it was disorganized and enormous, with not one person out. The waves were definitely throwing drive-through pits, but few were makeable. We walked the strip of cabanas and small restaurants and sat down for 15 minutes to talk to some surfers who were under a palapa next to a couple of skis. This was part of the San Diego contingent that we had heard about – oddball surfers who basically lived at Pascuales and had been surfing the break hiding out for 10 years. They recently got into using the ski to do hop offs (as opposed to towing in with a rope) and they gave us the scoop on the break, the area, the current conditions, etc. They said that that morning, although thriving with swell, the surf was messy for some reason and it was wasn’t a good day for the beast. They said the surf was averaging
We decided to move on down to La Ticla, another famous break know for being an ultra-long and hollow, left hand pointbreak. Dang, we pulled into Ticla after seeing carload after carload of surfboards on the highway most likely heading back home at the end of the weekend and providing us hope that we would have empty waves, and Ticla was chaotic also, not even sure if it was surfable. We were, however, determined to get some surf in and decided that we would camp at Ticla for the night and surf that afternoon. We waxed up and after asking where to paddle out we paddled across the river and heading toward the famous point. I had the Biofoam mini-gun and everyone else their typical boards with them. Bill and Kevin paddled out first and Sean and I went to school on their experience, noting that they were swept, almost violently, to the North. We walked South a little ways and jumped in. The paddle out was brutal, relentless sets rolling in and choppy. We paddled and paddled and finally made it out, or at least almost out but Bill and Kevin were no longer in sight. We were probably
After the run we headed into the small town of Placita to see if there was anything going on. Town was quiet, with the typical, quaint, communal jardin or public plaza and a couple food stalls, except that as we approached a small internet café we heard some dance music and saw a mora (chick) dancing in front of a house in a most-provocative manner. As our course altered slightly to see what the haps was, the dancer slowly retreated into a house or bar, but continued to freak the large pillars of wood holding up the porch roof on her way in. Kevin was lured closer by the medusal beauty. As we got close the masculine stature of the scantily clad she-male was readily apparent and an abrupt ‘abort mission’ was in order. We reeled in laughter as we peeled out and took turns using the painstakingly slow internet and walking around the square.Â
With absolutely no establishments in sight to help end our hunger we asked around and, as usual, were pointed down the dark highway. After a walk down the highway with fireflies lighting up all over we ended up at a couple small restaurants with semi-trucks around – a Mexican trucker stop.  We ordered quesadillas, tacos, etc. and tempted Kevin to hunt down a gecko that was chilling up on a beam, barking and eating a boat-load of bugs – the perfect pet for our camper. Kevin’s agility was no match for the gecko’s uncanny ability to crawl into small holes and we left gecko-less. It goes without saying that at dinner we also solved the daily sleeping arrangement dilemma with a quite exhilarating RPS tournament. Sean and I rose victorious (as we become further wisened the strategies of the throws are becoming more and more complex - edge of the seat excitement).
We camped on the side of the road going down to the Ticla break as the quorum was unwilling to part with pesos to camp on someone’s property if we could be
After La Ticla we headed to Maruata – a beach that was supposed to have a right point break and some hollow beach break. Per the guide the point was typically small unless having a solid swell and the water was clear and good for snorkeling. We rolled into town, which was little more than a plaza and a couple markets serving the local gente – clearly we were in the middle of la temporada baja (the low season) because it was a ghost town down at the beach. When we pulled up we parked the car and took a stroll down the beach to the Southern point where the beachbreak was purportedly good. The beachbreak had some potential but at that time was closing out – looked like some fun bodysurf to take barrels on the head but little else.Â
We all ran back in the sand, working up a healthy, tropical sweat and then swam for a minute before reparking the truck on a vacant lot to prep up. After purchasing some peanuts from a local peanut picker we were stopped by the ‘owner’ of the empty lot that we were parked in and a vigilant negotiation struck up between him and me. With the old man starting at 40 pesos per person and me at 10 we had a sizeable disagreement. Seeing how he had no services other than palapas across the street and a single lightbulb – which would cause both Kevin and I to take minor electrocution injuries before turning on – Feral had some leverage. A couple minutes into the deal Guillermo swooped in as my wingman and the man acquiesced to 10 pesos per person. We moved the truck to the other side of the dirt road to take advantage of the hammock hanging opportunity and the sombra (shade). We got the quiver picked apart and headed out for a surf. The wave ended up being a lot of fun and had a quirky take off where the rock island that was considered the point was. Basically swell would roll in and would disconnect because of the island and then reconnect after the island a form a wedge that would jack up and shoot you down the line after a steep takeoff. The first day of surf Sean hit a rock with his board and tore a skag out and had to head in to find a suitable replacement. When he was at the truck he was stopped by a group after being recognized by Valerie from
When we pulled into town (which is up above the beach and inland a couple of hundred yards) we hunted around for a restaurant and found the one and only that was open (it was 1pm in the afternoon and the locals were feeling slightly lazy that day). The only place open was a torta shop with chicken tortas and nothing else, except for Cocos Frios (refrigerated whole coconuts that are chopped open with a machete and penetrated with a straw for extraction of the cold coconut water) which made my day twice over. We ate, drank, and were merry before heading off for the beach to check the surf. We took a hike for a half hour – I continued down after the others had satisfied their curiosities to see if the left point was breaking. While I was rummaging around the beach the guys met a group of 7 surfers who were checking out the break and turns out that one of the guys is Craig Satcher and somehow it comes up that he knows me as his family business was contracted by Pacer in nearly all of Pacer’s communities. We headed out for a surf and took turns shooting with the Canon Rebel. The surf was pumping, at least for our experience to date, and barrels were taken on the head. I sustained a minor injury from a brush with the rocks and still have the open wounds on my ankle and knee – a nice battle scar. Everyone had some sick waves and afterwards a refreshing bath in the rivermouth – the luxury of cool, fresh water is rarely available but always enjoyed. We stayed the night in Huahua after moving around from site to site in search of a suitable staging area and eventually ending back by the beach.Â
The next morning after a surf check that failed to meet Muster we agreed to hit up Nexpa. We got on the road heading South.  Later that morning, shortly before noon we rolled on into Nexpa and the chill out vibe was omnipresent with mellow palapa roof cabanas, reggae tapestries, etc. We stopped and asked some bro (Karl from Montana) what the surf was like and the break in general and he said that it had cleaned up in the last day but was only waist high – disappointing news to say the least. We decided to pull in and park to check out the area and the surf ourselves. We had read in the surfer’s guide to Mexico about the family that owns the majority if not all of the land at Rio Nexpa and we parked at Chicho’s place. He was one of the brothers that jointly owns the land. We took a look from his restaurant and the break appeared to be working – it was a long, long left point break and had at least some size – it appeared to be head high from our vantage. It was noon or so and we were jonesing for a surf and the wind hadn’t picked up yet.Â
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We all blocked up, with some Zinka accent for flare and figured out where to paddle out. The way the area is set up there is a large river mouth the flows out onto large cobblestones and forms a far out breaking point. You paddle out at the river mouth and the current sweeps you to the North as you work to punch through the sets and inevitably get swept to the North side of the break and then paddle back to the South. It’s a solid 20 minutes to get out. Once we got out Bill and I went out to the outermost peak and Sean picked off the insides, avoiding the lineup. Needless to say I was in heaven with this 250 yard long left point that was decent speed and at the outermost peak was a couple feet overhead. On the paddle out I conversed with a chick from Lafayette,
We spent 3 nights in Nexpa (September 26, 27, & 28) – two nights camping and the third night we got hooked up by Laura and were able to stay in the big Rio Nexpa house. The Texans had left early and had already paid for the entire week. Amy and Dave, a couple from
Al fin we pulled into Zihuatenajo and found a sweet parking spot near the main drag of the lively, beachtown – another night of city camping in the sweat-inducing tropics. Amy and Dave took us to a margarita place they highly recommended that was on the bay. Gorgeous view and cocktails in hand we shot the shit for a while before heading back to their hostel/hotel where we finagled showers (at least a couple of us did). We hit up another spot they knew of for dinner and had a delicious dinner and heckled the local camareras. Bill delved into a plate of awesome Mole Negro with chicken – a national dish/sauce that originated in Oaxaca and has an incredibly rich taste do to the unique ingredients, including chocolate. At dinner we saw the Texans cruise by on the sidewalk and we drug them into the restaurant so we could expand our numbers. After dinner the Texans stayed with us and we had a group of 10 or so tilting back cold cervezas at a local bar. After being accosted for trying to change their laptop to play some better music we took off and divided into teams – Bill and I, Sean and Kevin – Amy and Dave went back to their hotel and the Texans tried to shovel us into a cab that they paid for to take us to the local cabaret. We vehemently refused until the Texans disappeared and the cab driver bailed, giving us back the money the Texans had paid him – not a bad deal. Bill and I hit up the Gente that night for a taste of the local color. The start was in a bar where we played a tournament of Bones (dominoes) with 3 locals, who refused to wager anything on the games due to the intimidation factor diffused by Guillermo. From there we hit up the local discotheque after juking the bouncer in order to skate the cover charge. We took a couple laps, split a caguama, and blew out of there. A nightcap of quesadillas led into bedtime. Sean and Kevin had also hit up a local disco and busted a couple of their patented moves to the pounding beats.Â
Upon waking up the next morning (I was the first one stirring) I set off on a mission to find the local market for a jugo. Luck be two old ladies walking down the street to whom I offered my company in exchange for them directing me to the market. They were so enthralled they walked me all the way to the jugueria – I was deep in the Corazon of the market, sitting shoulder to shoulder with the juice drinking gente. After ordering and thoroughly enjoying a licuado of papaya, platano, orange juice, and extra hielo (ice) I headed back to the truck to rouse up anyone that remaining to take them on a tour of the market. Doug was the only one remaining and I got him out of the camper and took him to the market for a jugo and an order of hotcakes – outstanding.Â
We spent the next hour and a half gathering everyone together and getting the rig ready for blast off so we could get Amy & Dave to the airport on time. Amy insisted that she wanted to come visit us for the Nicaragua leg, and possibly beyond, and do some video work to document the Feral Green experience. We’d be stoked to have her down and, as a professional videographer, she’d hook us up with a Feral video. Plus, she could probably give us a surf lesson or three since she ripped much harder than us. After getting them to the airport we headed South (naturally) with the destination of Acapulco in mind. A couple hours into our drive, in the town of (we´, we noticed a hitchhiker on the side of the road and I motioned for us to pick him up – a motion seconded by Sean and passed on through Parliament. We stopped a couple hundred yards after him and he ran frantically towards the truck. After letting him and all of his belongings (a blanket, small satchel, and straw hat) squeeze into the back middle seat we went through introductions and gave him the stage to deliver his coming to being story about how and why he was on the side of the road. This rolled into a saga that was enthralling to say the least. His name is Richard (AKA Don Ricardo or Don Aventon – Aventon being the word for hitchhiker)……
Topics: Mexico |
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