SAYULITA Sunsets JUNE 2014
Six Packs, Sun Tans and Tourists from the States
I wonder what is the last thing you want to deal with after being on an overnight bus? I’ve had many opportunities to ponder this age old question and in conclusion I believe you could say ANYTHING at all and be quite accurate. But quite certainly I know some things that make the list: blaring sun on the side of a highway; a local bus ride with windows stuck closed; an empty water bottle and a full bladder without option to refill or empty either; (and most definitely) a steep climb up a hill with backpack and surfboard in hand. Definitely these things made the list when I jumped off the bus in Puerto Vallarta and embarked on the last leg towards Sayulita.
Because I planned to spend a couple of weeks here killing time before meeting the girls in Belize I tried out a couple of different hostels and campgrounds to get the best one. Now “best” is a very relative term, and in this instance I declared this mosquito den to be my “best” option because it was the cheapest and the least busy. This is an abode where if it rains outside it also rains inside, and thanks to the open-to-the-outside walls and windows on two sides I found that most other tourists were deterred either on arrival or after one night so I almost always had the room to myself. I set about to perform the usual explosion of belongings and tucked in my life saving mosquito net one more time. Home sweet home.
A funny thing I realised over my first month traveling down the coast is how often I had to wax my board. As a teenager growing up in a consistently cold climate (and not actually surfing very often) I think I could count on one hand the number of times I bought wax. Certainly not often – we thought “that shit is expensive” as we pushed the remaining blobs of wax around in to critical locations over the board. But this year going from the tropical Andaman Islands, to ice cold California, coolish Baja and Mazatlan back to tropical Sayulita I found myself on hands and knees for the umpteenth time completely re-waxing mi “tabla”. Wax on, wax off.
I had an amusing conversation with a 13 year old girl out in the surf (an American living in town with her family) after over hearing her ask her friend for some wax. Neither of them had any wax because their Dad’s usually bought it for them. If it was left to them they would take to combing the deck to avoid buying their own block “because that shit’s expensive” haha, yes, yes it is at 13. I pointed them to my bag on the beach and they confidently rubbed a few solid circles on their long boards and so began an odd friendship – especially solidified by the fact I looked like their friend from swim squad “except much older”, they made me laugh, you little ripper, we can definitely be friends. Besides the obliviously entertaining young teens I met in the surf I was initially a little traumatised by the other gorgeous tanned six-pack bearing chicks that walked around in their almost thong bikinis. Oh daaaaamn it. The hours not spent surfing were clearly spent tanning somewhere doing extreme yoga in small bikinis. Luckily without fail every person I met was (as always) generous and welcoming, all smiles, all warmth and love. Well how could it be otherwise if you've chosen to live in such a place!?
Besides surfing the small swell every day I served a short stint in Spanish School out the back of town. For those of you who’ve attempted to master a language and are familiar with the “immersion” technique you can imagine my trauma at attending school as a complete beginner, one on one because nobody else rocked up that week… without a word of English to sooth my transition. She appeared so friendly and cuddly as she welcomed me in with her big bosom leading her, seemingly buoyed by a large billowing skirt that bounced around her with a delightful riot of colours… but then my hopes plummeted and crashed as she rambled on about Spanish grammar, in Spanish, as I fumbled with my dictionary to decipher if we were talking about nouns or verbs or nothing of the sort, all the while wondering how to greet people or order tacos from the lady on the corner. Needless to say it wasn’t the most pleasant travel experience to date but if I throw it in the mix with ‘10 days silent meditation’ and ‘contracting dengue fever’ I suppose it wasn’t entirely the worst either.
My first week at Sayulita was hot. My second week was hot and wet. One night the skies truly opened up in such a way that I couldn’t sleep and spent a small portion of the wee morning hours fashioning a rain-deflector to keep my bed somewhat dry. Like I said - when it rains outside, it rains inside. On a positive note I discovered multiple Spanish apps and quickly learnt how to greet my hostel owner every morning when I would find him sweeping the flooded floors and making reference to the rain, so much rain. Si, Si… I soon opened every day with my three faithful phrases which I could use the whole way to the beach:
1) Good morning, how are you?
2) Lot’s of rain yeah?
3) I’m going to the beach, seeyah later.
After the first serious rain, the previously dry river bed that had been traversed by people and vehicles just 24 hours earlier, became a flowing brown river! Sayulita is an incredibly busy beach but that morning I found it vacant and drab under a cloudy sky, the swell weighed down heavy and brown with the mud from the river. No white wash today, just brown. Excellent! Nobody was out! One man with a long board commented on the potential rubbish and infections that were being flushed out by these first rains then jumped in to paddle out probably hoping he’d turned me off. Hmmm. Good points. But nobody was out and the swell had picked up so I followed him out. The visibility wasn’t even 1cm. It was like surfing a mudslide and I felt like we should have been in a quirky 2 second gap-filler in a surf movie. This was some seriously weird surfing conditions!
The storms continued to come daily with little regard to the hoards of US tourists that had come for a sunny surf holiday. With a little luck the storms stayed confined to the moonlit hours providing incredible lightning shows. Although if we were given reprieve to enjoy our sunshine by day then we were paying with our sleep that night, our earplugs competing with explosive clapping thunder and for me at least a little sideways rain and stray debris from overhanging trees.
Because of the forgiving conditions at Sayulita it seems to have developed in to a little grommet nursery. Along with few other towns around the world this place boasts all the necessary supportive elements for groms to thrive: a local professional surfer as inspiration and mentor; a local economy that thrives and depends on surf tourism; and a beginner wave tickling the towns’ doorstep. Some of the young ones are in their teens but there’s a whole group under ten that are ripping. Attempting to imitate the older surfers doing 360’s and the like. I suppose it’s not hard to enjoy even the smallest surf when you’re only 4ft tall, every set wave is going to be overhead with room to carve. One little surf rat is the son of a café owner and we got chatting over breakfast. She had a special tiny board custom made for him but he’s still too small to comfortably catch waves on his own so Dad goes out to push him in then he does the rest. Speaking to his dad in the surf he says half the time he doesn’t see the sets coming because he’s busy looking at the fish in the reef. Sure enough he points to his son, bum in the air, face down blowing bubbles with his board drifting at the end of its tether. How very adorable!
I met so many great people during my time in Sayulita, not the least being this young man, “you can call me River”. I was walking to check the surf during a lunch break from school one day and I overheard a guitar and two solid voices wailing out a tune behind the fence of one of my ex-hostels. I wandered in to find this gorgeous young lad (who I would soon call "River"), and two other backpackers sharing one last song before they continued south on their journey. I’m not sure what his real world name is but I gather he named the traveling version of himself “River”. With “you can call me River” and a few other short term best friends we embarked on a couple of big nights out testing the weekend party scene I had until that point avoided. He might have flailed a little hopelessly in the surf but he more than made up for that with his ability to drink beer, tequila, and still coordinate himself enough to sing and play guitar. A most excellent young Australian wanderer.
Next on the list of excellent people I became short term best friends with is Rach and Em from the US. Both spoke Spanish as fluently as they spoke English and completely inspired me to break out of my trusty three phrase combo. A funny thing about these two is they landed in Sayulita a month earlier as a start point for a rapid adventure journey around Mexico… however as testament to Sayulita’s magnetic easy vibe I found these girls still stuck in the Sayulita vortex a month after their arrival. They were speaking of plans to gather funds in the US and return to the vortex indefinitely. And why not.
Another couple of surfista chicas who were ridiculously fluent in Spanish were Milka and Katri from Finalnd who I met at one of the board rental shacks. We bonded at the shack with a cute little puppy at our feet and then in the surf sharing a rare passing swell. Besides their excellent Spanish they were inspiring surfers. Not the best by far, but most improved for sure. That’s the basis of my current journey, to improve, and there they were improving noticeably every day, changing boards, accepting advice with sincerity and practicing to no end. Nothing beats the grin of someone paddling back out after mastering their first few solid turns. These girls were deserving grinners!
I was in full swing of saying farewell to all the people who I’d come to call good friends and starting to think it was time to move on when, to my delight, I met this cheeky boy’s smile out in the surf, followed shortly after by his wife’s cheeky smile on the beach! Brilliant timing and what a surprising duo! I often find myself thinking in stereotypes because people too willingly fit in those conventional boxes BUT these are two US citizens that broke the mold and won my heart. I love a good surprise and I love to share cold beers so obviously I fell in love with this couple. Over the days surfing together and sharing cold beers on the beach I gradually came to know them as one of the most well-travelled, curious, adventurous, entertaining US couples I’ve had the pleasure of hanging with. Together we reminisced about Africa and Asia and shared and compared our bucket list of travel destinations and dive sights.
The time eventually came when I had to meet all the girls on the east coast for a birthday catch up with my twinny so I booked a flight and packed my bags in the usual carefree disorganised manner that left multiple items unaccounted for and many people wondering where I'd gone.
