Sayulita, Baby! - Dave Lilliot

Sayulita, baby! What a town. Just around the point at Punta Mita above Puerto Vallarta. Very nice spot to be for the winter NW swells, even if it was only for 10 days. Sayulita itself had consistent surf every day, at least chest high to just overhead. And to alleviate the post Christmas crowds of incoming wannabes and surfers from mostly inner Mexico, we ventured to isolated spots around the area and enjoyed some ultra fun conditions. Plus, it didn’t hurt to be staying with locals, so that you got to immediately know some of the other locals, and instantly got props and placement in the sometimes crowded line-ups. For a good ol’ Texas boy, it was fun on the run.

Three of us (Dave Lilliott, Paul Rodriguez and Tank Dodson) left Houston for the border right after work, packing my Echo (or what is now commonly called the "green go-cart") full to the brim on the Friday a few days prior to Christmas. We soon realized it was not the brightest idea to do so. Everyone and their dog drove through Laredo into Nuevo Laredo that night. We thought we’d be smart by sneaking in around 3 a.m. Not so. It took us nearly 6 hours to get our tourist papers and my vehicle sticker. We were planning on driving straight through to Sayulita, hoping to arrive in the early evening on Saturday, taking turns amongst the three of us, driving and sleeping. We only made it to a small town outside Guadalajara at around 11 p.m. We shacked up in a cheap motel, had our car locked behind gates and were on the road before dawn on Sunday morning.

We arrived quite stoked in Sayulita late Sunday morning, after the arduous drive through very mountainous and curvaceous highways (more like barely paved lineless roads, being constantly stuck behind long caravans of vehicles stuck behind some slow moving vehicle or having to deal with the constant machismo of those brave enough to pass without knowing what was around the bend- we did get caught in one traffic jam caused by a head on collision caused by one such macho man, who paid dearly with his life). You definitely know you are in a different country. "We’ll be there in a Mexican five minutes," usually means a couple of hours. Even one of the crossed alters on the side of the road marking the death of one such unlucky motorist was adorned with a Corona insignia painted on it. It was like, "our cerveza es muy bien, bien enough to kill you!"

We lucked out and immediately ran into our Texan friends (Carolyn, Steve, Erin and Travis Ostin), who had driven down a week before us (sans tourist paperwork and vehicle stickers- major huevos rancheros) down in front of the Left. Sayulita has a river mouth that spills out into a small bay, right in the center of town, facing towards the NW, which breaks both right and left, separated only by the rocky reef in the middle which only produces massive close outs. I really felt for Carolyn. She has a heart of gold and puts out the best karma, but a cloud of bad luck seems to follow her. With her first step onto the sand at Sayulita, she was stung by a scorpion. Then she caught the flu and was stuck in bed for almost five days without any surfing. Then on the second to last day, she was run over by a neophyte logger who’s fin gashed her ankle, causing her to have to go into town to get three stitches on her tendon and eight on top. And to top it off, their car broke down at the border on the way back, and all her surfboards and the car is still stuck in Mexico, where they will hopefully still be when she gets the soonest chance to retrieve it (yeah, right). Soooooo, we quickly got a room in the hotel where they were staying (150 pesos, 50 pesos each, almost $5 a night), which was one block away from the Left, with the knowledge that we were all going to be kicked out on the 26th when two busloads of rich Mexicans were to take over the entire hotel.

So the first day, all three of us went out at the Right, and had the immediate pleasure of surfing long, peeling overhead waves that would put you right down onto the beach after a jacked up inside section that gave us the pleasure of some nice cover-ups (we just caught the end of a fairly nice swell). All three of us also enjoyed having our longboards with us (which was the main reason we drove and didn’t take the bus or plane because of the board length restrictions), as we could catch the waves way outside and hopefully not get dropped in on by the awaiting shortboarders or the occasional newbie who had yet to learn proper wave etiquette. It was definitely a nice way to start our eventful trip.

After a very long first afternoon session, we hooked up with the infamous friendliest crazy local gringo, Steve Methias, who lives just up the hill in a four story white casa that has a breath taking view of the entire bay. He even has a "surf shop" on the bottom level, where he repairs boards and sells boards to the many vendors distributing sticks to those who didn’t bring their own, or to the many who wanna surf like those guys out in the ocean, eh? (lotsa Canadians down there). This is where I was to stay the remainder of the trip, while my two buds opted to stay in Camarones, the surf camp situated directly in front of the Left.

The next morning, we awoke at daybreak as Methias pulled up in his busily painted VW bug, which had to be push started every time he wanted to go anywhere. With his silver tongue, he soon had us all packed up into the green go-cart and we were off for Burros, a spot around Punta Mita that had another nice protected right breaking point. But little to our knowledge, until it was too late, the hike just to get to the point was a journey in itself. Burros is located right in front of a giant cliff escarpment and the resort compound called Viva Vallarta. The guard wouldn’t let us take the easy path, even after we tried to grease him, so we had to take the hike around the giant green cyclone fence enclosing the resort, through the jungle, up and over rocks and deep brush. Finally we came out upon the beach and saw only three shortboarders out, a great reprise from the crowds at Sayulita. We immediately paddled out and took over the spot, as the shortboarders had to go in because they were unable to catch anything because we picked off all the good ones from outside with our longboards. Oh well. Unfortunately, the nice shoulder high waves died off an hour later after the tide changed. Back through the jungle to my car and off for Sayulita for another busy afternoon session at the Right.

The next few days were pretty much the same. Surf the Right or the Left for a few sessions a day, drink lotsa cerveza, look at all the people, say "Feliz Navidad" a lot, and go out to whatever party was going on that night put on by one young Mexican local or another. We were all on Mexican time. Slow and low, that was the tempo. It was just really nice to meet all these new people through crazy Methias. All the local surf talent treated us as if we were one of their own. Most of them spoke broken English, as we spoke broken Spanish (Spanglish), so there was never really a language barrier. Very nice people. Everybody was nice. Sayulita has such a laid back vibe that it made it very hard for us to have to leave.

Christmas came and went with really not too much fanfare. Christmas morning, all the children of the village were out with their new toys, all the senoritas had their new dresses on, and we just surfed and said "Feliz Navidad" a lot. But as soon as Christmas came, so did the crowds. Hordes of them. Bussed in or in their cars, them came in masses. Camarones, or "Tent City" as we liked to call it, went from about 15 tents to 60 in a matter of hours. And so grew the already crowded line-up. At one point, we counted 33 people out at the Right. We would just wait until there were only a few that were picking some waves off on the outside, and then paddle out. But every wave was like an obstacle course. You’d take off and have to twist and turn around all sorts of people. There were lotsa dangerous situations, but no one got hurt. Maybe a few dinged boards and a few words exchanged, but I really saw no true angst out in the line-up.

So we decided to head around Punta Mita to another "secret" spot, with Mark Robson, another Texas surfer who arrived later than us, and what a good choice it was. We went to a spot, that I am not at the liberty of naming, but you can only take a boat ride to it or make the long, long trek over a pointy rock beach just to get there. And it was well worth it. I understand now why the locals don’t want this spot publicized. When we got there, it was something straight out of a surf mag. The waves peeled off the point and reeled for almost 500 yards. There were two guys out, and they had nailed two set waves, one after the other, with the sun shining through the light green, just overhead barrels. It looked like a small Jeffrey’s Bay, but with warm water! You could only surf the spot during high tide, as the reef it breaks over is covered with sea urchins and is exposed during extreme low tides. We paddled out and went way to the outside, where the wave started huge, but slightly mushy, making for a very easy take off on a longboard. It would jack up at least three times during a ride, creating perfect little barrels. The sun was coming down, the full moon was coming up, the sky was a bright pink, you could see the reef right under you as you rode and we had it basically all to ourselves. The image in my mind from that session is something this Texas boy will never forget.

Unfortunately, that was the day before we had to leave the next day. I wish we were turned on to the spot before, as we probably would have spent every day there. It was still something I will not soon forget. There’s always next time. The next morning, the surf had dropped a bit and I didn’t even go out, as I had to pack and ready the green go-cart for the journey back. Plus, I wanted to have that last session stuck in my mind as the last waves I rode on my latest trek south of the border. We were on the road by 10 a.m., tired and spent, but totally stoked to the bone. No hassles on the way back, only 45 minutes at the border and we were home in Houston in 24 hours. It was a short but sweet vacation that will always stick in my mind. I recommend Sayulita to anyone who wants to travel south of the border for a nice all around surf trip, including great winter surf, super nice people and an atmosphere that rivals the best. They say, whoever they are, that Sayulita is one of the safest places to be in case of some sort of nuclear holocaust (whatever that means). Try and get friendly with the locals and find out where the uncrowded, hard to get to spots are. I hope everyone had a great holiday season, and got to catch as many waves as I did. Pura vida!