Quality Peoples

About 15 minutes north of Bucerias, there is a little surf spot called “Punta de Burros.” Locals don’t talk about Burros very much because they don’t want you going there. Fortunately for them, Burros is a point that is not easily accessible. Just to the south there is a gated housing development, you have to have connections to get in. At one point I had tried to gain entry by dropping the name of someone who lives inside. The security guard informed me that I’d to have the person I know, call down to the gates to let me in. No dice.

To the north of Burros is an all inclusive resort, called the Palladium, that will not let you use their parking lot. I had made friends with one of the security guards one day and he had let me park in the employee parking lot to walk down to the ocean using the lot next door that the resort was expanding into. That day there were no waves. I’ve heard many good things about Burros, but most notably that when the swell dies down, there are always waves at Burros. It’s simply the most reliable place to surf and the least crowded. In the two months that I have been here, it’s become my mission to get in to Burros. My initiation into being a local.

Yesterday, I had gone up to Sayulita, and there was not a respectable wave to be had. So I took the slow, bumpy, back-road shortcut to Punta Mita and headed 5 minutes south to Burros to see if I could get in. At the Palladium, the guard (a different guy) told me I couldn’t park there, but that there was another road and the turn off was right before the entrance to the hotel, so I turned around and found the little road. I took it until I came upon a dead end, at a house with a huge entry gate and ominous looking motion detectors. So I turned around and headed back to the guard. He then told me that I should jump the fence, that people did it all the time. So once again I followed the road until the end and parked in a clearing just shy of the lone entry gate. Sure enough there seemed to be a cleared pathway and a fence that had seen better days. I decided to leave my board in the truck, in case there weren’t any waves and I didn’t exactly know what I was getting myself into.

The path worked it’s way down an over grown slope until it intersected a dried up river bed. I followed the river to a barbed wire fence and then up another hill to the left, over some large rocks and then along a fence that marked the boundaries of the properties. At about the five minute mark, I was sure that I was on a wild goose chase. The pathway seemed to be going parallel to the beach and I was almost positive I was going to end up on the highway (or what passes for a highway in Nayarit). I said “screw it” and trudged on. Just after this point the jungle leveled out and I started to hear the waves breaking not far away and my little journey became an adventure. I was determined to make it into Burros without the help of other surfers, I was determined to do it myself. The pathway sloped down a little and re-connected with river bed and through a clearing I saw the beach, pure and unmarked, nestled into the hip of a 50 foot cliff. As I came down to the beach I saw two lone long-board surfers trying to ride the small waves. I was mildly disappointed, but I was just happy to have found a reliable way in. I took in the the beautiful spot and watched how the surfers navigated the waves and the terrain (always important to notice what kind of terrain you are surfing on). I had accomplished my goal of getting into Burros and found paradise along the way.

Pictures to come, in the near future!