Paradise

"Should we go or should we not go? The Internet said the town was closed so I don't know. And I don't know how long the drive into town is." Town was supposedly closed but things had mellowed so much here in Mexico with respect to the flu and the fact that it was completely blown out of proportion by basically the entire planet that there was a chance the town would be open. So we decided to ask the three old ladies at the bus stop - "Esta abierto el pueblo?...Si, el pueblo esta abierto y pueden manejar por aca...Pues, podemos surfear?...No, no pueden surfiar porque la playa esta cerrado." But we decided that even though the beach was supposedly closed to visitors we would go anyway. We almost drove past the turn off and back to Puerto Escondido but thought we would check it out. Everybody had been kicked out of the town (all the tourists/surfers/vistors) so we weren't sure if someone was going to stop us and tell us to leave or what. We drove into town until we hit a locked gate (the road to the beach) and asked in the little store if the beach was closed. They said that it was but that we could walk (I guess our car might be contaminated). We got down to the beach and the waves were perfect. Only the locals were out and I had no board. But the day was beautiful and the water was warm. We met a fisherman named Leo and I talked to him as I helped him pull in his nets. He rented rooms and his wife cooked and he offered us a place to stay. We bought fresh tuna from another passing fisherman (Leo mostly catches sardines) and walked back to his house with him. He cut up the sardines and and he made ceviche with them....wow, unreal. A couple hours later his wife cooked up the tuna and served it with tomatoes, onions, frijoles, and homemade tortillas. I washed it down with seven or eight Coronas and knew we had come to the right place.

Before I got to the place, my brother told me to ask for a kid named Chocho because my brother had left a surfboard with him five years ago because the kid wanted to learn to surf. All the boards in town are donated by visiting surfers because none of the local kids can afford them. Anyway, I couldn't find Chocho but Leo had a couple of boards that he rented. If you know Mexico, you will appreciate this next part. I woke up the next day and was waiting for this guy Joel who was an American who lived there. He showed up and I grabbed the board I wanted to use. It only had two fins so we had to find a third. We walked around the village looking for a fin - one guy had a left fin but not a right, one guy had a right fin but it was the wrong fin system. Finally we found the correct fin but we didn't have screws. We found screws but we didn't have a fin tool. We found a fin tool but the screws were stripped. We were so close. Where could we get screws? I saw the light go on in Joel's head - the sign for the restaurant was a painted surfboard. It used to be his and it had FCS fins and he thought they left the screws in. We pulled down the sign and sure enough, there were the screws. We put the fin on my board, they opened the road to the beach at 10 and we drove down to the point. There were about eight guys in the water when we got there. We paddled out and I was having trouble figuring out where to take off because it's next to a big rock. I paddled around for about an hour and then everyone left. Just me and a perfect, head high point break. I surfed it alone for the next three hours until my arms were about to fall off. I caught what turned out to be my last wave and lost the fin we had replaced. I was done anyway. I saw some kid catch a nice yellowtail from the rocks and I bought it from him from the water. I had found Chocho - he's the best surfer in town now.

The next two days were solid double overhead. Too big for a lot of people, especially with the current. Including (or especially) me. I didn't have a board anyway. But I had just had the best day of surfing in years. I was happy to watch people get barrelled for two days and bodysurf the inside section, eat fresh fish, and throw coconuts for Shakira the Wonder Dog.

So it was off to Puerto.