Nicaragua...or BUST!!!

six weeks in the books, one more to write still. and the plans are changed. nick doesnt want to leave mexico yet and i have a plane ticket for a week from today out of guatemala city. so here is the plan. i will travel 1-alone. and 2-by bus. both new to me so it is certain to not go smoothly.
so to recap, we left escondido and drive south to hautulco. there is an awesome surf break to the south another 30-40 minutes called barra de la cruz. literally a world class point break. when the waves are big it attracts some amazing surfers. luck for us the swell has not been huge. in fact its been a little too small at times, but we have fun, and are still learning a lot. so we have been at this spot for almost a week now. we just met a cool guy from switzerland. his name is marcelo and he is now traveling alone as his travel partners have all returned home. we actually invited him to travel with us for a few days and he will accompany us until saturday when we all go out separate ways.
here is the plan. we will remain here outside huatulco for another day and a half and on friday drive back north to puerto escondido. we will stay the night there friday and have out last big party together. maybe a beer or two. saturday we may put i may get my final surf in the morning then i hang in pto. escondido for the day. nick will be off toward acopulco, to meet a friend of his from mexico city who will accompany him into the big big city. i will be getting on a bus that evening to tapachula, a town near the boarder of guatemala. the next morning i get a bus to antigua, gt. this city should be very cool and i will hang out there for two nights before i make my exit, and return on wednesday the 25th.
so thats about all i have. surf surf surf. cheers.
-justin

yeah, that is right...the most beautiful wave that I have ever seen! Keep it a bit of a secret, but it is true! Some of the people here have indicated the same, and they have definitely seen their share of good waves!

We have been chillin' in Barra for the past week or so, basically JUST surfing. I have put in daily-double sessions for the past week, and have actually come a long way, as has Justin. We are both riding green water with ease, catching head-high waves from time-to-time, and having a blast. I would like to say that I am "slashing" off the top of the wave, which was my goal at Barra, but I didn't quite make it there...but I am close!

We are now back in Puerto Escondido for a couple of nights of partying before we part ways. Justin will be heading south (east) to Guatemala City, and I will be heading north to Districto Federal. I will spend a week or so in DF visiting friends, and trying to sort things out for the rest of the adventure. From DF, I will probably return to the coast so that I can once again hit the epic waves of the west coast before I head down south and finally leave Mexico.

McKenzie is still in good health, and loving life. She has become quite a wanderer at night (one brush with a near-loss situation), so I have really cracked down on her and even tie her up at night to keep her from wandering off. She LOVES the beach, and is really mellowing out about me being in the water when I am surfing. I think that she even was calm enough the other day to take a quick nap!

All for now. Much love and more to come.

Nick

puerto escondido. that is where we have been for the better part of 3 days now. very cool surf town of roughly 40,000 people is famous for the zicatela surf break. this beach is also known as the mexican pipeline, for its resemblance to the famous pipeline of hawaii. without further explanation i will share that i did not attempt to surf this. we did however find good surf, oh yes, i almost forgot... i am surfing again! ribs mostly healed up i am out on the water. and doing alright. this is a tough sport. the biggest challenge seems to be location. be in the right place at the right time. see the sets roll in and get where you need to be. its a learning game. i like short sentences. cheers.
anyway, from where i left of last, saladita, we drove to this very remote little fishing town called puerto maldanado. i dont think they see gringos here very often. we were sort of a spectacle but everyone was friendly as we stuck around for a couple nights. most interestingly this area has a pretty good african influence so many of the mexicans are not of the usual brown skin color but actually black. just a interesting thing as once we left this area and traveled south a couple of hours this african influence is not really seen.
so that gets us back to puerto escondido. like i said, cool place, i like it a lot. met some canadians right of who turned us onto a rv camp spot right in the kind of touristy part of town for about $3 a person per night. a small price to pay for a shower. so that night we decided to go out for a drink or seven. straight off we met 3 aussie girls. really nice girls all 23 years old who have completed law school in australia and are now doing some traveling before returning home to careers. they actually just got done with winter resort jobs in vail, co. got me thinking about snow again. i miss it. but who can really complain about a cold night being 72 degrees. so while nick was shopping for a new, shorter, surfboard we also got to meet a local shaper who has been repairing boards in the area for many years now. his name is miguel rodriguez and his is right up there and one of the coolest people i have met. very laid back, but also energetic. just a local ripping surfer turned boardshop owner/ board shaper. to date he claims to have repaired over 40,000 boards. incredible. so cool thing is this guy made nick a deal on a brand new board for 3400 pesos, or about 320 usd. this board would probably sell for 500 back home. so he is stoked. i bought a shirt. 150 pesos well spent.
so after days of saying we are leaving here and not, today is the day. we have some tips on some good surf spots south and we will hit the road. 13 days remain. i hate to count down like that, its just how my brain works. i plan to make the most of it. at this point we are still making surfing the priority. so the coast may be where we stay. i will try the catch us to ya´ll in another 5 to 7. now get out there and enjoy whatever weather you may have.
out.
justin.

So, we left Saladita (bad decision at first) a few days ago, and have been heading south again. Truth be known, we are heading east now, as Mexico really starts to bend to the east down this far. Our journey after Saladita took us south to a little village on the border of the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca called Puerto Maldonado. We showed up on Saturday, which was basically the biggest day of Semana Santa. By some incredible stroke of luck, we were able to find a place to park the rig, and a bar to chill in for a couple coldies. As we were the only two white faces in town, we definitely received loads of looks from the locals as to what the hell we were doing there! Everyone was super nice, though, so all worked out well.

The following day, with Semana Santa finally over, we were able to have a peaceful day on the beach, without the crowds that we had been fighting for the past week. We surfed the left point at Maldonado, which was decent, but really nothing to write home about due to onshore winds that kicked up in the afternoon. We decided to stick around another night in hopes of an EPIC dawn patrol session that never actually happened. The swell in the morning changed direction completely, so the point was in no shape for surfing that day. With the surf blown out, we decided to make some tracks down the the infamous Puerto Escondido. With reports of big swell arriving, we were excited to get to Escondido to see some rippers on the "Mexican Pipeline" which is apparently the fastest wave in the world.

Monday found us bumping around Escondido, getting out legs under us, trying to find a suitable place to stay. As luck would have it, we bumped into a Canadian couple that were camping right around the corner from the internet shop where we were stationed. The spot was perfect, and right off of Playa Zicatel, which is pipeline. We heard reports almost immediately that there were pro surfers and their entorage (sp?) of photographers in town that would be hitting the MONSTER waves in the morning that were pounding Zicatela that afternoon.

After boon-docking it for a while, Justin and I were pretty excited for a night out. We met three Ausi girls at dinner on our way out, and ended up partying with them 'till the wee hours of the morning Monday night. Apparently the day of the week has no consequence for partying here in Escondido! What luck! Yesterday started a bit slow as we didn't make it to bed until after 3, but eventually, we found our way down to the beach and watched some of the surfers at Pipeline doin' their thing! Pretty amazing shit, to say the least.

With plenty of motivation from the pros, we spent the afternoon at Playa Carrizalillo (yeah, that's a mouthful even for the locals) surfing and hangin' in the sun. Kenzie got a bath last night after surfing, so she is like a new pooch, and has really taken to her new nickname, Kooke! For those of you unfamiliar with surfing, a kooke is the equivalent of a gaper in the skiing world, which is essentially a shitty skier. I decided that I would call Kenzie Kooke until I am actually not a kooke.

Today, we started with a dawn patrol session at Carrizalillo, but the swell was less than favorable, so we are all packed up and heading down the road. Next stop east of here is supposed to be a wicked little right point break called Zipolite, and something like that.

Cheers and peace!!!

Nick

hello and welcome, and thanks for reading. so we spent a couple days in this tiny village outside of puerto vallarta called yelapa. this village is only accessible via water taxi as there are no roads in. they have only gotten power in the last 4 years. very interesting. so after our stay there we moved down the coast through a couple little surf spots only to find incredibly huge waves. far to big for our intermediate skills. while staying the night at a surf camp called nexpa, we met a couple from colorado who had a similar camper/truck set up and had been traveling for the past 10 months. good advice came in the form of a surf spot a little further south called saladita. this place is a dream spot for surfers. unfortunately i had taken a tumble surfing a couple days prior and banged up my ribs. pretty good too. so this past 3 days i have only been able to view the great surf, not partake. pretty bummed. make that really bummed. i tried to go our the other day but the pain was a little more than i could stand. so here i am reading maxim and soaking up the sun, while taking in a few beers. last night nick and i went out for a little night life. though none was to be had. we found a little bar with ping pong and as nick went to get the ball he got tagged by a scorpion. this little guy got him right in the foot. the local woman assured that he would be okay, that it is just painful. the venom made its way up his leg causing significant pain through the night and into today. enough that he skipped his morning surf. so neither of us are surfing this morning thus we are going to pack up and go south again. this time its to the southern end of acapulco. hopefully my ribs allow me to surf again in the next few days.
for those who dont know yet, i am coming home. its offical. i bought the ticket a couple days ago. april 25th out of guatemala city. i know i know. thats not nicaragua. but i cant stay away the time that would be required to get there. our agenda is very up in the air and i dont even know what i will see in the last 19 days of this trip, but what i can count on is that i will be in guatemala by the time my flight leaves.
so that is all my friends. take it easy, i am.
cheers-