Mexico, Finally

Travis has been trying to get me to go surfing in Mexico ever since we have been surfing (5+ years now). Well, this past weekend it finally happened. We drove down to Ensenada with our respective wives and kids and shared a rented house in Punta Banda, just south of Ensenada on the southern end of the bay.

Although the house was on the water, it was in the bay away from any break. So we loaded our longboards on the roof of my car and headed off in search of legendary Baja surf. We had second hand information that there was a spot at La Bufadora, at the end of the peninsula that formed the southern shore of Estero Bay. Since that was the closest spot that is where we headed. When we got there we found a tourist town with one major street lined with shops similar to TJ, but no surf. We turned back and after a short foray on a dirt road along the peninsula, we came to the conclusion that we had to go back to highway 1 and head south.

Next stop was the local Pemex, for gas because we were likely bound for the middle of nowhere and a map because we had no idea where we were actually going. Luckily for us the map we got had little surfers at all the surf spots along the coast. All gassed up and ready to go, we headed south. We drove half an hour along the windy highway until we came to the dirt road turnoff. The road was in pretty good condition and the Honda Passport made good time. We had switched to four wheel drive, not so much because we had to, but because it added to the experience and allowed faster cornering on the dirt road. We saw cows, dogs, lizards, squirrels, burros, horses, had to ford a stream that had pooled on the road about 15 feet long and a foot and a half deep. We had stopped to assess the fording possibilities and were considering a path around when some locals in there beat up old Toyota pickup drove up and just plowed through. A little sheepishly, we got back in the truck and drove through. We drove almost an hour on the dirt road to get to the coast, not seeing any turnoff that looked significant enough to be our turnoff, and finally reached the coast. There was a beach, but nothing worth surfing. We backtracked to the first "major" turnoff with a beat up old sign indicating it was the way to Punta China. Ten minutes on that road and we came to a guarded gate for CEMEX. We talked to the guard, who was cleaning a rattlesnake skin, and got him to let us in to get down to the cove we had found.

There we were, standing on the rocky beach of a deserted spot in Baja. The cove was pretty small and it was directly facing the swell, so there was a right coming from the north and a left breaking from the south. Since there were rocks to the right, we opted for the left. After watching for a few minutes for any signs of strong currents, we paddled out. The set waves were coming in head high. We were right at high tide, so they were a little soft, but we did just fine with the longboards. We surfed for about an hour, made quota and decided we should cut it short, since we were already overdue back at the house. On our way out, we tipped the guard to thank him and told him we would return the next day. The trip back seemed much shorter since we actually knew where we were going, and just to make the experience complete, we stopped for fish tacos at a little roadside stand.

The next day we decided to spend more time surfing and less time driving by going north. We were up at 5:00 and on the road. We stopped at San Miguel where there was a nice looking wave, but with the morning low tide it was right on the rocks. We saw it later on the way home and it looked fun. We continued up the coast to Salsipuedes where we payed our mandatory 50 pesos to park and hiked down the steep rocky trail to the rocky beach. Being north of Ensenada, we had to endure the crowd of six people vying for two peaks. We surfed until our arms gave out (at least mine did) then packed up and headed back to the house.

We spent the rest of our trip, relaxing, eating, sleeping and spending time with our families. The sun and the surf had taken its toll and we were happy to just kick back and get some rest.