If you’ve been to Sayulita, chances are you know what delicious goodness lies in wait, in the big haphazardly-built, blazing yellow building, fortified with wrought-iron signs, just off the square. Chairs, tables and old surf mags crammed into every single nook possible. In a town whose restaurants and businesses ebb and flow with the tides of the high and low tourist seasons, Sayulita Fish Taco is an integral part of Sayulita’s gilded prana. That is to say, Sayulita would not be the same without it.
Albert is the proprietor behind the famous yellow building and the delicious, distinctly traditional mexican fare. Always a smile and a good word, I’ve encountered him enumerable times out in the line-up, at ‘Rubber Dingies’ and ‘Enchiladas’, trimming his brains out with the ‘alma’ of an overgrown kid.
With a nice, twisted, sun-burnt sense of humor, Albert is the kinda guy with the ingenuity to rig up a user-controllable webcam so you can check out the front of his restaurant, never mind the ‘Mexican Waikiki’ otherwise known as Sayulita beach, just three blocks away, who’d want a webcam to check that out? He winks and says (and I’m paraphrasing, here) “Aw Yeah, it’s great. You can control the webcam and sometimes I move it to the other side of the pole, so you can see the big fiestas they throw in the town square”. The irony isn’t lost on Albert, that’s just the kinda guy he is.
Long after the snowbirds have all flown home, during the heart of the humidity riddled rainy season, you can still see Albert slogging in today’s catch as he sets his shop up for another day of fish tacos and cerveza. Albert has gone native.
A few weeks back, I was out scavenging the northern Bahia de Banderas coast for anything that looked like ridable waves. My tour of the local breaks brought me to Punta Mita, where I caught a few good ankle biters and then managed to snap off a few good shots.
As I was shooting the bevy of longboarders from the tip of a breakwater jetty, I caught the attention of a group of visiting “old dude” surfers throwing shakas my way (through my 100-400mm lens) as they were hanging out in the shade, on the beach. As I finished up and made my way over to the group, I was greeted by a guy by the name of Joe Doggett. It turns out Joe and his buddies return year after year, to Punta Mita, the ‘Mexican Malibu’ as he called it. We exchanged local surf break information and traded horror stories of how the area is rapidly changing due to spiralling out-of-control development. Joe mentioned that he had been a writer for the Houston Chronicle.
We eventually came around to the history of surfing in the area and how Punta Mita was discovered. Joe related parts of a September 1965 Surfer Magazine article, written by Bill Cleary, about his feral surf expedition on the hunt for “Mexico’s Malibu” as discovered by a screenwriter named Peter Viertel who found the fabled break while daytripping through the bay’s several breaks while his wife, actress Deborah Kerr, filmed her scenes in Night of the Iguana (the movie that literally put Vallarta on the map).
Joe Doggett’s stories and impressive knowledge of surf history, had me kicking my own teeth in, after I said goodbye to Joe and the crew without asking for his contact info or email address. A few days after I posted the photos from that day, flickr user Rex Enigma commented on Joe’s photo above, asking if it was indeed thee “Joe Doggett” and today Rex hipped me to a recent article in The Houston Chronicle, where Joe goes briefly in to Cleary’s 1965 Surfer Mag article and than continues on with his own long and varied history of visiting Mazatlan and Vallarta in search of surf breaks and the “Mexican Malibu”:
Other spots were excellent, but the Mexican Malibu was a no-show not enough swell, wrong angle, wrong tide, wrong week, wrong season, on and on over dispirited bottles of Pacifico beer at the cantina overlooking the beach.
Nirvana, at last
Then, as if in a dream, it was there. Last year, we pulled the board-racked vehicle to a stop and watched in disbelief as ruler-edged powder-green walls brushed by straight offshore wind peeled into the cove. We caught the Mexican Malibu for six consecutive days, with the swell peaking at 2 to 3 feet overhead. This spring, our trip was highlighted by three days of Mexican Malibu, with shoulder- to head-high sets each session. This literal groundswell of riches only can support the virtues of patience and confidence.
It’s an amazing story and a great read. I flipped out, as I read it and thought back to my conversation with Joe. Understanding the history behind this place I live in and how it fits in to the larger surf cannon never really even occurred to me, until my talk with Joe and his boys. I’d like to send a big, cosmic, shaka bra thank you, out there to Joe for unfolding a lesson and sparking a light in a new corner of my consciousness. I’m in his debt.
Incidentally, if there are any surf-memorabilia pack rats out there, that might just have the Sept ‘65 Surfer Mag squirreled away somewhere, I’d give my first born for a scanned pdf of the Cleary ‘Mexican Malibu’ article. My first born or some newly minted gold bullion. your choice.
I tried to stop in at Pools/Albercas, one of my favorite breaks - that only works with the summer storm systems, to check the access situation (there’s been rumors) and much to my dismay, there is a new security gate that denied me access to the road that passes near the break. I was under the impression that A. The road is built on top of a river bed, what would be designated as “Federal Zone” (hence illegal to put in a gate or deny access without laborious and costly, federal permits - which I highly doubt they have) and B. The road itself was not deeded property of the condominium association that owns the Punta Del Burro property, so it would be illegal for the association to deny access to the road. We’ll have to do some due diligence.
This gets to the heart of a serious problem happening all up and down the coast between La Cruz and Punta Mita and one that I’ve been reticent to write about. Access to our handful of surf breaks is slowly being choked off one by one, as is the access to each of the local swimming beaches. People point fingers and say that it’s the Gringos, but I don’t think it’s that simple.
The past four years has seen an explosion of land development along this coast. Land exchanged hands, plans drawn up, permits filed and now building is starting to happen everywhere. Relatively rapidly, access to sacred surf breaks are being choked off by developers and homeowners associations, who don’t want people accessing the beaches from what usually amounts to lot boundary lines and semi-dry riverbeds.
This is a heavy and laborious subject and requires more than a simple post, so I guess I’m committing myself to a series of posts that will in all likeliness just graze the surface of the unintended problems real estate development is creating, in the bay.
For now, I’ll point you to Vida Cadu Cada, the blog of a recently enacted local civil association whose raison d’etre is to work with local, state and national authorities to secure access for surfers to these sites. I’ve kinda signed on, to help with the english speaking contingent.
Roberto + Barbara - two kids that own a local Bucerias surf shop
Call me a noob, but I had no idea you could still custom order boards from Gerry Lopez. I was in the water yesterday, talking to Lobo and that’s exactly what he did. He’s riding a sweet 7′6″ Cheetah with a serene light blue-green tint. super tight.
We spent last weekend in Quintana Roo and came back to stories of people seeing sharks at La Lancha on Saturday. Whoa.
We’re jumping straight from winter in to summer. The water has warmed at least 3 degrees (c) in the past 2 weeks. No need for full wetsuit anymore and all of the accumulated seaweed is dying in vast groves and washing up on the beaches. gonna start smelling real nice in a week or so.
Rode the 9′0″ San Miguel, yesterday, and I can’t seem to get up to the nose. but did grab a head high peeler. very fast and about 2 feet back from the nose, both feet pointed forward. Still got the ropey hands over the head steez though. can’t keep the hands from going up.
I get tons of great ideas, floating out there looking at the horizon, the problem is that I forget all those good ideas, the minute I sit back in front of this computer. It’s a problem.
I hit a small deer last night on the way home. She jumped out ran along with the car for a split second and then collided with my fog light. she bounced off and tumbled. I went back to see if she was hurt but she had gotten away. I feel terrible. but I guess it comes with the (rural) territory.
Last Sunday we got a wild hair to get out of the house. What better way to spend Sunday morning than a trip to the local Bucerias tianguis (flea market). It’s been a year or so since our last visit and the flea market has been growing odd tentacles in to each of the neighboring side streets. Dusty as ever and full of typical bucerian characters. The Tuba was off the hook.
Large construction site at “used to be a virgin beach, now it’s a large condo project that feigns being into conservation and protecting the sea turtles”. you can notice the corduroy lined up in the background. yum yum.
I went sleep last night to the sound of some nice crashers, hoping I’d wake to the same sound. But no luck. I knew today would be a good longboard day so I slogged the 9′6″er out to “used to be Alejandro Fernandez’s house, now it’s gonna be a big giant condominium and they’re gonna cut off access to the beach” break. You see, you can’t just put up a barbed wire fence and expect the locals to not cut a large hole in it, especially if you have no permits or legally binding documents to show that you have the right to put up said fence. [ed- get to the point]
I made it out to the relatively light lineup just in time for the mid-day winds, but still managed to greet some beautiful water hills. I’ve been studiously studying T.Adler’s Ron Church Surf Contest book and today I practiced my foot work. Trying to let go of my unconscious need to inch up the board like a lead-foot hopscotcher. The modus operandi was to try a fluid foot over foot maneuver towards the nose and back. up and back. up and back. A few larger sets rolled through, somewhere in the shoulder to head size, giving up some really nice rides, fin firmly planted in the hill and feet together pointing forward a foot behind the nose, sitting position, hands in the air, bow of the wave breaking over the feet. heaven.
Pops is now an official switcher. After 30 odd years attached to a PC, he is now using a Mac, with Aperture no less: “I feel like I just got rid of my old clunker dodge with the AM radio and got a Prius.”
We’re now officially an all-Mac family. Each person with their own rig. When we’re together, we don’t sit in front of the TV, we sit around the living room with laptops, each in his/her own world. Marcia and Mom on their 12″ PBs, Mom playing Bridge games, Marcia tweaking speadsheets (and checking Perez Hilton). Dad, Beth and I on our 15″ MBPs in Aperture tweaking photos. And all of us emailing political/economic articles back and forth.
Yesterday I dragged the girls up to Sayulita to give them surfing lessons in the shallow break to the side of the beach towards Villa Amor. Each of the girls braved the cold water and got up on the board enough to claim bragging writes for when they get back home. Bella did particularly well and had good sense of balance.
Sayulita was bananas. Semana Santa in full effect. The most crowded I have ever seen it. Maybe 100 boards in the water. And not a single local in site. There wasn’t much swell to speak of but the ocean was broiling with wind generated white-cappers.
Today is the official start of Semana Santa, but the coast has been clogged with inland mexican vacationers since Friday. Semana Santa is Mexico’s Spring Break, Fourth of July and Labor Day all rolled into one. The entire country takes off, packs up and goes to the beach. Anything even remotely inflatable can be used as a floatation device and beaches look like hodge-pod terry cloth patchworks. The highway that runs through Bucerias is a virtual parking lot and every restaurant and corner store is jammed with gente. Going anywhere is a problem. But it’s also one of the best times of the year to be here. Our sleepy little beach town is alive and well.
Lilah is the resident myspace fiend of the family. The kid spends all day writing messages on the social networking teet. Hooked I tell ya. The above pose is her typical rebellious anti-camera pose and as soon as the camera comes out, the hands come up to the face and the hair becomes a flowing dirty blonde shield. Lilah is 13 going on 21, I’ve never met a smarter, more mature 13 year old in my life.
Bella is the aspiring actor/model of the family. Her personality has the perfect mix of Miranda July’s frank observation of human minutiae and Michel Gondry’s inventive curiosity. This child is eleven and studies Mandarin Chinese. The classes at her school were not so good, so she opted for her own tutor. Bella will probably grow up to be a world-class mathematician with a fierce dedication to fashion. She’s got brains, creativity and style.
This is Claire’s favorite animal pose, an elephant. It also happens to be her signature “don’t take my picture” face sans elephant ear hair braids. You might remember Claire from this photo from awhile back. Claire no longer goes by Claire. You must now call her Coolio. This child is strange. She knows who Coolio is but she doesn’t know what Star Wars is. What is the world coming to?
My little cousins are here visiting us from New Hope, PA. and we’ve been hanging out this past weekend. They are beyond photogenic and my camera seems to love taking their picture.
I was rummaging around a friend’s site and I stumbled on to the photography of flickr user Kelco. His photos are slammin. pin-point focus. definitely heavy pshop. but really strong vision. I was clicking through his photostream when I landed on the above photo and nearly ate my tongue.
This is Lex. He’s from Santa Cruz. A killer surfer. He’s in a rock band (who’s name I can’t remember). And while he worked for Adobe, he hired me for a project or two and hung out in our home office and cracked the whip for a few days. Lex is probably one of the nicest, most intelligent, most tatted up persons I know. It gave me a big smile to run across his portrait, in this vast sea of ones and zeros. One of these days, I hope to see his big ol’ smile out in the line-up.
Vice has a pretty cool internet-based video site thingy called VBS.tv and it has tons of content. I’d love to be watching this stuff from the comfy confines of my couch, apple remote, front row and my flat-screen. Hook it up Vice Peoples.
One of the VBS channels is a surf culture oriented, documentary-style series called Hi Shredability* and if you’re a surfer connected to the internet, chances are you’ve already seen it. If not, it’s a pretty good source of non-commercial surf-docu content and interviews. Episodes almost always feature underdog surf culture luminaries like Alex Knost, Mike Cunningham, Robin Kegal, Kassia Meador, Dan Malloy etc…
VBS just posted the final 3rd installment of the Thomas Cambell series and I’ve been waiting for it to go up to post this (as i’m not much of the cliffhanger kinda guy). What I really took away from his series was how surfing, art making and filmmaking are essentially the same thing, there are no distinctions for him. It’s all really just about: doin’ your own thing. and just trusting that it’s all gonna come together in the end. For Thomas it always seems to.
Hi Shredability host Tyler Manson on Thomas Campbell’s working process:
The state of Thomas Campbell’s desk says a lot about his work habits. It is covered in scrapes of paper, paint, photos, leaves, pieces of thread, books, doodles, and cups full of brushes, pens, and pencils. The pile is six inches deep and covers the entire desk, spilling onto the walls and floor and growing by a factor of 12.5 percent every day (we guestimate). He is working on so many different projects all at once we’re not sure how he keeps it all straight. Some end up getting finished, framed, and hung on a white wall, while others are dropped to the floor and maybe picked up days or years later and turned into something totally new.
Thomas Campbell episodes: 1 | 2 | 3 | his website
– *with a name like “Hi Shredability” the series creators must have a well-placed sense of irony
Here, presented to you, the viewer, 40+ photos from last week’s trip to the mexican coastal state of Quintana Roo, nestled on the Caribbean side. Photos taken in Puerto Aventuras, Akumal, Playa del Carmen and Cozumel above and below water.
I got the chance to put the new Canon G9 through it’s paces with the underwater housing. Overall, it’s just really nice to be able to bring a camera into that underwater environment. Getting in to the water at Akumal, for a snorkel, wondering to myself why I had brought the camera and being presently surprised at the site of 10-12 sea turtles, huge schools of fish and 3-4 different kinds of manta rays. In Cozumel, we dove two amazing spots off of chankanab reef in the columbia area. Huge coral formations with spacious swim-throughs and rolling underwater sand dunes.
I have a few ideas floating around my head on the theme of tourists. you can see the beginnings of this project in the photos above. enjoy!
Marcia and I have been on a circus vibe lately, that’s kinda how our minds work. Get on a theme and learn/discover/investigate. A few weeks ago, we got into the circus thing starting with Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen which marks a perfect jumping off point for historically accurate circus mythology dripping with Great Depression era magic and tragedy. If this book were ever made in to a movie, I’m sure the Coen Brothers would be directing.
Next, at the urging of everyone in my family, we read Geek Love. This book has been floating around my parents’ extensive book collection since it was published in ‘89. Geek Love’s emergency orange cover is burned into my memory. Never knowing quite what it was about, I was delighted to find a heart-breaking story about a traveling family of circus freaks and their eventual demise. I’d love to see Geek Love as a movie, although to be honest I spent most of the book wanted to choke the shit of the narrator, an albino hunchback dwarf with an obsessive, psychotically misplaced loyalty. In short, I loved it. A quick check at Wikipedia tells me that Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam and Johnny Depp have all expressed interest in making Geek Love into a film. good crowd.
Making it a triumvirate of circus/freak culture, I introduced Marcia to Tod Browning’s Freaks. This movie is practically in my family canon, first showed to me when I was a kid by my uncle Tim, who managed to get a pirate copy on VHS. It was never officially released on VHS and didn’t make it to DVD until 2005 so for years Freaks enjoyed a cult-classic mythology surrounding it’s bombed release and subsequent burial by MGM. If you saw Freaks, you were privileged or at the very least, had a family member obsessed enough to seek out an elicit copy, long before the holy trinity of ebay, youtube and bit torrent. Unfortunately the versions floating around bt don’t have spanish subtitles and there are some spoken parts, not even I can understand. So my advice is get the DVD. It’s worth it. The signature line from the family of circus freaks shown in the film is “gooble gobble, one of us, one of us”, usually done in chanting style. This is sort of like an unconscious running line in our family that silently unifies us and always gets a smile from all, around the dinner table. I could be wrong, but I think that my entire family were circus freaks, in our last lives.
We’ve been in Puerto Aventuras, Quintana Roo (an hour south of Cancun) for the past few days, visiting Marcia’s mom. Vacation for Marcia, and for me, a half-hearted working trip. who can work with the caribbean just out your window. Today I’m hoping to get in some scuba diving, we went to Akumal the day before yesterday and saw about ten to twelve sea turtles and three manta rays just while snorkeling in about ten feet of water.
The quality of light here is amazing. It must be the white sands and the ultra blue-green water, but something makes the ‘light’ so freakin yummy. my camera eats this stuff up, like waffles with butter n surp.
My parents were here as well, meeting with up the their consuegrita. We went out to dinner last night in Playa del Carmen and I was knocked back by Playa’s strange mix of mexican tchotchke stores, high-end retail and eurodisco cafes. We ate at a lebanese joint and I gotta say, the food was wickedly good. tabouli, hummus, falafel, greek salad, lebna. all super good. I was pretty impressed.
Yesterday. Burros. I’m finally getting my ‘form’ back and riding the blue fish gave me just enough extra push to grab a few excellent rides. 2 hours and I’m fried. Back to the beach and back to black. I wake up from a long sun-burnt siesta. waiting too long for my friend to get out of the water so we can go home. you know that friend, the one who stays in the water, surfing, after you got out 2 hours ago and you have a million things to do. yeah him. I wake from my fiery nap and look out at the waves and the line-up and the sun directly behind. i’m sour, grinchy, complaining to myself and ready to go home. and then it hits me…
I’m the luckiest idiot on this planet.
80 degrees with a killer golden hour approaching. waves rolling up. slightly too many people in the line-up (but even that I can handle). the sun is on full blast with waves and surfers in silhouette. little fluffy clouds. the scene is better then perfect. and for 10 minutes I just jump out of my thick skin and enjoy every second of that moment.
We just got back from a micro-trip to Guadalajara. Jetted out of town mid-day yesterday (fri) and returned this afternoon (sat). Your author had to go to Guadalajara for allergy studies. Turns out I have polyps in my nose and an on-going sinus infection caused apparently by house dust and dust mites. I had to endure a cat scan so that the doc could see if the polyps have spread to my deeper sinus cavities (possibly necessitating surgery). If you can’t tell, I get overly doom-and-gloomy when it comes to health related issues. While I had my noggin jammed into the big donut of death, listening to the nasty/horrible/scary sounds cat scans make, I had a strike of utter brilliance. I thought to myself, why doesn’t someone learn from Apple and create/design medical equipment that has apple-esque attention to detail, design and user-experience. #1 on that list would be not scaring the fuck out of the patient. So I’m now in the process of redesigning all major medical equipment to be more user friendly. and I’m patenting the designs. so back off, copy cat.
The upside to a cat scan in Mexico? The price tag: $150 bones. schwing!
While in the big city we hit up Funicula, our favorite pizza joint. I’m surprised to admit that it wasn’t as good as it usually is. The pizza had too much cheese, not enough tomato sauce and the crust wasn’t as delicious. I’ll reserve judgement til next time… Marcia’s family were out of town so we didn’t really want to hang around GDL for too long. hence the short trip. I can now do the 3 1/2 hour drive between Vallarta and Guadalajara in my sleep, facile.
Other random observations: of the two Apple certified repair shops in Guadalajara neither carry the slim/metal keyboard (bluetooth or otherwise) nor Sata I or II internal drives. I thought Cloverfield was great. If the camera work had been a little more stable, the movie would have been brilliant. I’m gonna call it and say that Cloverfield redefined the monster movie category. Now, let’s see someone make the same movie, where the audience doesn’t end up getting seasick.
Had a particularly emotional morning. Woke up to a comment submitted to this site, worst flaming I have ever gotten, turned everything I’ve been trying to do with site on its head. and made me seriously think about sticking to daily links and taking my personality completely out of the equation. Turns out I personally know the commenter. and s/he promptly apologized (don’t troll blogs while drinking, kids, it’s a no no). I’ve been sitting here staring at this monitor for far too long now. I grabbed the blue fish and headed up to Burros for some afternoon sliding. Another heavy truck had over-turned on the curve in La Cruz, up by Real del Mar. and so I had to turn around and come home, or take the long way around via Sayulita. I chose to schlump it home. And so here I sit in front of the glowing internet tubes. wishing today never happened.
I got one thing going for me today, though: chocolatefuckincake, you are all mine.
I grabbed this video at Bucerias Days ‘08. A young girl doing a dance routine to the soundtrack of the tattooine cantina bar scene from Star Wars: A New Hope. total classic! When the music came on, it was a clash of cultures, very surreal.
On our way through Los Angeles, I had to sort out a storage locker full of crap from my pre-mexico life. Including but not limited to years of collecting graphic design books, magazines, art, interior decorations, my entire artistic career - every last thing I ever drew/painted/designed/photographed and last but not least 1500+ records. 10+ years of daily crate digging. Countless trips to the Pasadena City College swap meet and many long nights after work, digging through dusty crates in run down record stores across L.A. Every genre you could possibly think of, equal parts early-mid 90’s hip-hop, early reggae/ska/dub and funk/jazz/soul records.
My vinyl weighed a ton and after years of figuring out how to get the bulk of it to mexico, I came to the conclusion that this dream would never pass. So with weary eyes pointed to the ground, I trucked my 15 boxes of records down to Amoeba Records and said my goodbyes. Back whence they came, to light up other people’s faces. Better then a most certain death, south of the border, to heat, humidity and no second-hand market.
The upside? Ya see, the rub is this: I didn’t own the records, they owned me. I was their guardian and once I found them a new, good home. I was free. I did end up saving about 150 of them. The really good ones. The ones that will never make it to CD or even MP3, ever. Plus the ones that are really good on record. One Technique 1200, a Griffin iMic 2 and WireTap Studio Pro and I’m all set up to listen to my surviving collection directly from my computer. Ahh, techmology.
Ok, so I haven’t updated in a while, I know you’re all asking yourselves what’s up with Ed, what happened in Bali, did he kook out* on the surf scene, where have I been and why aren’t I updating per usual. quick update:
Bali was incredible. I took about 3000 photos over the course of the trip and I’ve been slowly editing them down to a viewable mass. I’ll probably write more about the trip as the photos make their way on to Flickr. We fell in love with Ubud, Bali’s cultural center, all over again. We’re totally addicted to Legong dances now, going so far as to know the names of each different dance troupe and recognizing their main players. We literally ate our way through Ubud, I think I gained five pounds on this part of our trip. I’m gonna learn me a good Mie Goreng recipe.
Surfing was simultaneously wicked awesome and frustrating at the same time. I totally kooked out. The first four days we stayed at Nick’s Place in Bingin and the ladies there took very good care of us, I gained another five pounds eating their home cooked feasts. Nick’s is the perfect setup, right over the main break. First coupla days I borrowed the longboard for Bingin and caught a moto ride down to Uluwatu (with this bloke from Cornwall, England) to catch some three footers with my shortboard. Everyone talking about a six foot swell on its way. Met an aussie couple and we did a day trip over to Nusa Dua, a lagoon/reef break (half a mile out) you grab a boat to get to. Locals were calling it 2-3 feet, I called it 6-7 with outside sets of 8-9 feet. Totally hollow, fast, powerful and getting bigger. Nusa Dua kicked my ass, royally. My indo-reef-break cherry was popped in no uncertain terms. When I wasn’t fighting the current dragging me down the reef, I was fighting to avoid getting pummeled by the never-ending incoming crushers lined up 10-15 deep like corduroy, to whupp that ass. We stayed on at Nick’s for an extra day in hopes of catching the big swell and when it never came, we headed out to Candidasa on Bali’s eastern end, to enjoy some diving. Big mistake. The waves started to hit later that day and by nightfall I could tell the swell had begun. At this point we were two weeks into the trip and we both simultaneously came up with the idea to cut the trip short by a few days, for logistical reasons having to do with crap we had to get done in LA and just a general feeling that we were over the beach scene and needed some big city vibe. So we cut out of Candidasa the next day and spent our last two days in the Kuta/Legian area. The swell had definitely arrived and Kuta was playing host to 6 foot hollow shore dump. Heavy. We could see Kuta reef break, in the distance, easily overhead to double overhead and after my experience with Nusa Dua, I decided to stay on the beach. The following morning I followed an Adonis looking old guy with the big log, up the beach to Legian’s beach break. Easily overhead and heavy. Didn’t catch a single wave and spent an hour just trying to get back out of the water. Way past my experience level. In fact, that’s kinda what sums up my experience, when Indonesia is big, it’s way above my experience level. I had a ton of fun and surfed some great waves, but I was definitely humbled. IMHO, if you decide to go seeking waves in Indo, go with your surf homies. Be careful and be safe.
From Bali, we flew back to Los Angeles and spent a few cold, rain soaked days consolidating a storage space full of my old crap from my pre-mexico days. Regrettably, I sold my entire record collection, 1500+, it was a hard decision but ultimately the right one. We packed what was left and a whole bunch of IKEA crap into the truck and lead-footed it back down to Mexico in time for the holidays.
We’ve been back for just under a month now and I have admittedly, only been surfing twice. We’re experiencing a crazy cold winter, probably some records broken I’m sure. I pulled out the spring suit but I still froze my bells off. My New Year’s resolution was to kick the RSS habit and my copy of NetNewsWire has been lonely ever since. I’m still checking up on a handful of blogs, mostly mac/surf/photo related. but for the most part, I’ve been keeping my recreational computer time to a minimum.
A few days after New Years our dog, Lola, was hit by a car and died in our arms. we buried her in a mango grove on an old road behind Bucerias. Her unexpected passing left us shaken and our home with a slight case of empty-nest syndrome. We still miss her like crazy. A few days later I started to get some heavy sinus trouble from allergies which developed into a nasty sinus infection. A trip to the ear, nose, throat doctor in Guadalajara and I’ve got polyps in my nasal cavities. A full month of anti-histamine treatment later, and a radiological exam and we’ll see if the polyps have spread to my deep sinuses… To top it all off, I’ve been working on spec house project in Sayulita for over a year now and it looks like it’s not going to happen, big bummer. Time for Ed to get a real job! [Ed, you're starting to depress me.]
Back in Bucerias, a big swell came through town earlier this week and I was too busy to get in the water. I’ve been helping my sister more and more each day and fussing around with some other stuff. I have a bunch of daily links posts I’ve been putting off, so hopefully in the next day or so I’ll get those out for your reading pleasure.
After a killer, relaxing trip to Bali and some pretty good holidays, 2008 started out on a real downer and things are totally in transition right now. Fluctuations usually lead to interesting opportunities, but they always make my guts churn with nervous energy. Here’s to a new and different 2008, optimistically, it can only get better.
Well, the secret is out. Yes, I’m an expat blogger with a keanu-style surf lingo writing style. This pretty interesting article comes by way of one of Mexico’s english-based rags The Guadalajara Reporter*. I was wondering why my hits had gone up two-fold this past tuesday, thank you cutnpaste…
Forget Lonely Planet and Fodors. Because at this moment, hundreds of English-speaking expatriates are not only enjoying new lives south of the border, but recording their ups and downs, travels and home life, good eats and unusual finds through digital journaling and photography posted on web logs for the world to browse. After a bit of web sifting, I’ve caught on to a few that really shine: the chosen expatriate blogs are easy on the eye, informative, and fun to read.
www.qualitypeoples.com
Ed Fladung lives and breathes surfing in Bucerias (just North of Vallarta) where he’s been, as his web/photoblog’s heading announces, on a “perpetual Mexican surf sabbatical” for the last four years. Fladung is about as güero as they come, with a shoulder length head of sun-bleached hair and a healthy beach glow. He occasionally appears in the vibrant, Technicolored shots of candid small-town Mexican life he posts — a click on the photography link in the upper right hand corner will send you to an online Flickr gallery which is like peering into a candy shop, sun-saturated rainbow colored pictures you could sort through for hours.
The photography is bright and entries light; his Keanu Reeves-esque surf lingo is endearing and readable. “OK, I’m off to go pre-book our hotels,” he writes in preparation for a surf trip to Bali. “Bummer, I was hoping to just roll up …” And of a boat captain’s suspiciously high fees, “I told dude that’s the gringo rate, that I live in Bucerias and I’d be willing to pay 300 pesos total. Dude said no.” Recent entries include movie reviews of a dozen or so films that passed through his “two horse town,” as well as an anti-Adobe Acrobat rant and several single photograph posts. Check the March 26, 2007 entry to learn how Mr. Fladung ran into members of The Whitest Boy Alive and Broken Social Scene at a local restaurant and witnessed an impromptu acoustic concert (with Leslie Feist on spoons and glasses).
Apparently, the article will fall behind a pay wall, after the issue leaves news stands**, so here’s a link to the full article, posted by Jillian and Malcolm from Dropped In, two firebrand ex-new york hipsters in overly designed eyewear (like myself) who’ve set up shop in the Yucatan.
I gotta say and the author is dead-on about the interesting phenomenon of dialed-in expats dropping out of the american fast lane, especially the twenty and thirtysomethings. There are some really killer blogs I keep noticing, Jillian and Malcom’s being one of the hippest, if for nothing else for their liberal use of dirty words.
and you know i love dem dirty words.
Edit: It turns out Meredith Veto, the article author, is a young expat herself and she has a blog. Go check her out, she has the beginnings of very cool blog and obviously well written.
– * no links in the article text?! tsk tsk ** way to go for luddite business plans!
We spent New Year’s Eve 07-08 hanging out with some friends in La Cruz (is it nye 07 or nye 08? i’m not quite sure). It was a mellow house party kinda thing with a bonfire on the beach that never could quite make it to actual bonfire status. The fire was a tad bit impotent and kept extinguishing itself.
After making it back down to Mexico in time for the holidays, we happened to arrive in the midst of what most people are saying is the coldest it’s been here in the last 10 years or so. A temperature check says that we endured lows in the low 50’s. To us, it was freezing. Obviously, not quite freezing, but temperature is a relative concept. It took us a few days to figure out that we should pull out that winter clothing (packed away for trips up north). Until we got into the “mexico is actually cold” vibe, we froze our tukusas off. Once acclimated, being able to bundle up in a light jacket or sweater, some jeans and shoes (with socks!), it was so wonderful, one night I was even able to see my breathe hanging in the air. It was like our version of being stuck in a three foot snow storm in Wisconsin. I’m surprised the kids didn’t get off from school. It’s still pretty cold and I feel for all the xmas gringos walking around in shortsnteeshirts, seeing pink gringos suntanning on the beach while I’m dipping my toes in the ocean with jeans, tee and long-sleeve button down shirt, it just ain’t right.
As for surfing, I haven’t been able to drag myself out into the freezing water just quite yet. It’s a huge temperature change from that of Bali, gonna be a shock for sure. I have a spring suit ready to go, but right about now I’m wishing I had bought a .5mm full suit (do they even make .5mm full suits? one can dream, can’t they?!) I have a few newtoys i’m dying to try out though, so I’ll have to bite the bullet sooner then later.
Happy New Years to you all. Marcia and I wish everyone a healthy, happy, spiritually wealthy ‘08 filled with tons of good waves. Feliz Año!
Well, we’re finally back in Vallarta after a grueling 5 days in Los Angeles, sorting out 95% of the junk I had in storage, while slogging through horrible LA holiday traffic and rain. Not a memorable experience, although it was wonderful to check in with most of my LA peeps and to eat myself silly, putting on at least 5 pounds.
The road trip back to Vallarta took two full days of 15 hour driving, xterra loaded to the gills with books, records, family photos and an ass-load of ikea furniture (what can I say, i’m a sucker for cheap, well designed, poorly manufactured, wannabe-modernist disposable furniture). The trip was uneventful, except for the fact that we got better gas milage on the way back down, loaded down and bottoming-out with crapola doing 60 mph, then we did on the way up to LA, with nothing but a few suitcases, doing 100 mph. who’d a thunk it.
We’re now at my parents’ new joint in the hills overlooking Vallarta. Last night (xmas eve) was super party night and I have never heard such a raucous party town like I did last night. It was like New Years Eve in NYC x 1000. Cherry Bombs on every block, whistler bottle rockets, block parties complete with DJs. all night long. The four dogs in the house with us were freaking out, hiding under beds and running for cover. I finally nodded off to sleep around 2:30 or so and woke at 7:00am, to the sound of the roosters and chickens and the last of the parties closing down save for a handful that to this very moment, are still blasting the ranchero tunes. Mexicans know how to party.
Happy Holidays to all. and thank you all for putting up with my random blatherings and rants. Here’s to a happy/merry/wicked awesome New Year.
Hi, my name is Ed Fladung, I'm a recovering web-designer who moved to Mexico about 4 years ago. Learned to surf, got married and bought a nice camera. This is my weblog/photoblog. It covers broad subjects like becoming an ex-pat, surfing, photography, graphic design, music, art, architecture, living in mexico, all things Apple and WordPress related, etc... You can find more about me here. I hope you enjoy.
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