is a great place. e-j tried not to look too hard at the surfer
dudes and mg was honestly ogling at something in the distance behind the
surfer chicks. great scene, great beaches and great surf. the
famous surfing beach is called zicatela and there we sat in front of the
deafeningly loud x-games stand to watch a great competition. we all
know surfers have their own cool lingo, but the commentator on this day took
things to a new level. forget narli and forget dude - so 90's... "AND
YOU
GUYS MAY BE THINKING THE WAVES OUT THERE RIGHT NOW ARE ON THE SMALL SIDE BUT
NICK OUT ON THE JET SKI JUST RADIO'ED ME AND HE SAYS HE CAN SEE THE BIG
WAVES COMING. THE HORIIIIIIZON IS RIIIIISINGGGG!!!" at which point a bunch
of spectators rasied a hand in the air and gave it some more surf signs.
when the surfers got going in earnest, it was very impressive... "AN
ALMIGHTY TUBE RIDE BUT SO UNFORTUNATE TO GET CLIPPED BY THE DOGGY LIP" or...
"NOW THAT WAS A SUPER FLOATER!! hold on...I'M BEING TOLD IF WE WERE IN
FRANCE THAT WOULD BE CALLED A [french accent here: ]'FLOATER SUPER'.
AWESOME!". more hand signs...
CAMPING
we found a lovely spot at a campground on the La Punta beach, 5 minutes drive from zicatela. for $9 we could erect our tent and lay on our mattress on the roof and watch the stars at night, listen to the waves lapping on the shore and feel that cool northerly breeze coming up off the sea. after faffing around with various roof tent settings and showering in unhealthy doses of mosquito repellent, at about 9.30pm we climbed up the ladder and layed down. hot and sticky from the heat, we figured the temperature would drop into the night and remaining motionless under the breeze we would soon cool down. incorrect. not more than 10 minutes in the 'lying on my back don't touch me it's too hot position', the wind died. the palm leaves moved marginally slower than the decreasingly romantic stars above. mg checked the temperature on his Suunto watch. still 33°C. adjusting sleeping position revealed deep patches of sweat on pillow and mattress. even the crickets were too hot to sing. silence was intermittently broken with "are you still awake? yes." conversations, and at 11pm we climbed down to take a cold shower. despite our neighbouring campers, mg started the engine and moved the car slightly so that the tent would receive more breeze if it were to pick up again. we climbed back up and the handheld fan which we'd tied to the roof tent ran out of batteries. the breeze never recovered. while devising ways of pumping air conditioned air from the inside of the car through some kind of tubing up into the tent, we finally asleep around midnight.
at 12.30am an almighty thunder clap welcomed on stage the Opening of the Heavens and suddenly our tent was the loudest place on earth. unfortunately it kept us dry. e-j worried that lightning would strike us and mg resigned himself to no sleep. Suunto read a slowly falling temperature and the stress of the whole situation tired us out enough to fall asleep around 1am.
the next day we moved camping spots to one up the hill hoping for a cooler night's sleep. here we met 4 different groups, all en route to panama. they were good fun and we exchanged travel stories and tips. one group was three chilled out american surfers who were driving down the pacific coast the whole way, catching the best waves as they went along. we talked about the competition and they offered us copies of their 1980's pull-out back issues of Surfer World which showed in great detail the best waves from here down to panama. mg promptly went to the photocopy store and spent an hour copying all 100 pages. we now had unused trendy rash guards, 'maui babe' sun-tan lotion used by pro-surfers round the world, gold dust guides to the best waves in central america, and although e-j was making slow but steady progress, mg still couldn't get up on the board. 'all the gear and no idea' ringing loud again...
we checked out their vehicles and although impressive, they were relatively poorly equipped for the journey compared to us. almost kitted out to the point of embarassment, we reconciled our level of preparation by concluding that they were doing a road trip but we were in fact doing a Vehicle Dependent Overland Expedition. so there.
