DAY FIVE: San Luis Potosi, SLP to Puebla, Puebla

Last night's hotel choice was bad.  The entire floor, hallway and room, was tile and the hallway ceiling was rounded out for EXCELLENT acoustics.  I found out they were training the Federales cadets here and while they could've been much worse, they were a little gnarly.  I'd be drifting off to beautiful sleep when I'd hear them laughing clear as day, being able to hear every word of their conversation and go into an undeserved rage.  For a split second I fantasized about going out there to shush them but I immediately thought better of it.  It wasn't they who designed the hotel so as to make it as loud as possible.

They had me sign a piece of paper just for the dog, the highlight of which was that the dog wasn't allowed on the bed.  I signed it and paid an extra 150 pesos for the privilege of their allowing him into the room, then set up a thick blanket on the bed as his chill spot.  I wrapped him up in a nest, set the AC ambitiously for 18 C and tried to sleep.  I got a little cold, so when the dog decided to get under the covers and flop his warm derriere onto me, I didn't protest.  I figured I'd slap any shedding off the white sheets with a towel.

I woke up just shy of two am and drifted in an out a light sleep.  At about five, I took my shower and started getting ready to go so as to get the hell out of this place asap.  The shedding was out of control and I started to suspect some of it wasn't from Chucho (unlikely, I know).  I spent about ten minutes meticulously combing hair out with my fingers, then plucking until I finally gave up.  I left a 20 peso note for the housekeeper with the hope she would keep the hair under wraps...

A little hard to see, but those are all Federal Police pick-up trucks in the parking lot.  Two Federales were posted at the entrance of the hotel all night.

The Drive

I had a five-and-a-half hour drive, my longest in Mexico thus far, ahead of me.  My uncle who has spent a lot of time in Mexico and is a citizen, told me Puebla was a beautiful place and I was looking forward to seeing it for the first time.

Google betrayed me for the first time about an hour into the drive.  I heard it chirp to exit right and I glanced down to the phone which appeared to tell me to continue straight.  The app then froze in Rerouting mode and I was forced to use what was left of my cunning to get back on track.  

I did so without incident and the rest of the drive was beautiful.  I'd seen goats on the side of the road up north but today I saw only sheep in their place, grazing along the side of the highway, always with an attentive shepherd nearby.

The desert landscape was giving way to greener hills and accompanying vegetation and some really nice cumulonimbus clouds, but no rain.

I was less than twenty minutes from my hotel and approaching a toll booth.  I had a feeling I shouldn't get on the toll road being this close but Google had me continuing.  At first, I was amped on trusting Google as I was on an elevated highway.  Google then told me to turn right where no right turn existed.  I scanned below and saw what was my turn-off, inaccessible to me from this high up. 

I kept going and considered my options.  If memory served, Cordoba was my next stop-gap and less than three hours away, achievable before nightfall.  The next exit appeared to be closed due to construction, so I mentally made Cordoba my next stop (keep in mind I didn't have an idea as to which hotel would take Chucho or if they had room for us).  The construction cones broke and I saw daylight to the exit.  I took it and was dropped on the outskirts of downtown Puebla and quite the logjam.  It took me twenty-five minutes to go one kilometer.  Google couldn't or wouldn't reroute me, but at least did me a solid by pointing out where I was and a dot for my destination. 

Memories of my youth sporadically danced through my head as I caught my first whiff of the quaint smell of raw sewage.  I s l o w l y found my way to the vicinity of my destination after being veered off in directions I would've preferred not going.  I had no way of knowing where to turn as my only options in the proximity were veering to the right or going up what seemed like a solid (read: not short) bridge.  The turn-off to the right lost favor due to the line of cars (and going in seemingly the wrong direction).  I went up and to my massive dismay I realized I was overshooting my turn to the left by being on the bridge.  While stuck on the bridge I took the time to try and spot the hotel from my vantage point to no avail.  I flipped a bitch, unsure if it was legal for me to do so and headed back. 

Eventually, I turned right and the arrow representing the phone and the dot representing my hotel grew closer.  I passed a Wal-mart and continued.  I kept looking back to see if the turn-off was there and then realized I was over the river, past my destination.  I veered right hoping there was a back entrance accessible but natch.  I pulled over, parked, then went on foot to an eatery nearby.  I asked for directions and was given a blank look by a woman. Her male companion told me where it was. 

I flipped another quasi-legal bitch, turned left and saw a sign for my hotel! But it was on the other side of the road with no way to get to it.  I continued on, opting for the nice clear lane with the sapos separating it from traffic.  I remembered driving through Soyapango and they used the sapos to separate general traffic from the bus lane.  

Once I realized what was going on, I merged out of it at my earliest opportunity, but not before quizzical looks from some poblanos (?).  Had I stayed in the easy cruising bus lane I would've met a cop stationed there around a curve a block later.  

I was getting no legal chances at a left turn (all stoplights allowed for passage through only), so I thought I'd turn right and then flip a third and hopefully last bitch.  I looked and found a right turn, then quickly flipped back in to traffic as it was an unmarked one-way street.  I cursed the Puebla traffic circulation gods and continued straight and farther away from my hotel.  

In the distance, hope!  A roundabout seemed to be at the top of the bridge.  I waited for the green, then went.  As I made my way around, I spotted a poorly angled red light.  I couldn't tell if it was for me and made the split-second decision to continue.  I was immediately made aware of my infraction by a barrage of horn honks from one guy, so I sped up to be as little in his way as possible.

I eventually made it back down and into my hotel, my detour into Puebla proper taking me an extra ninety minutes.  Chucho had been panting and rebuffed my attempts  at giving him water.  When we arrived in our room he practically fellated his water dish.

DAY FOUR: Saltillo, Coahuila to San Luis Potosi, SLP

We had the luxury of not being able to check in to our hotel at our destination until three, so we hung out until ten.  The breakfast buffet was excellent and they had professional coed wrestling playing on TV.  I feasted on both with the intention of skipping lunch to gorge at dinnertime.

Apparently I hadn't entered Saltillo when I pulled into the Sheraton.  As we departed I was whisked through a maze of over and underpasses.  I had my first close call of a missed turn since entering Mexico and ran over a couple of round 'sapos' as they're called in El Salvador, big metal protrusions designed to discourage trespassing (in this case, a last-second merge in either direction).

Opie didn't groan in protest so we were all good.

I then spotted my first incognito 'tope' or speed bump of the trip about fifty feet before impact.  That was a nasty couple of bumps but nevertheless, Opie persisted.  Luckily, I was out of metropolitan Saltillo and I got on the 57/57D, which alternated between toll and libre (free).  I went through quite a few elevation changes and my ears popped more than once.

All was well for four hours until we started entering the outskirts of San Luis Potosí.  The lane count went up by half while traffic quadrupled.  I then hit a succession of double topes/single tope every hundred meters or so.  This was really annoying, as the first set wasn't marked which sapped my and Opie's mojo.  I gauged the Opie's tail-end sway after every bump and tried to gauge as to whether his posterior was drooping more than before and convinced it had.

We got into SLP proper and the city, as much of it as I could see, was beautiful.  I stole glances at my surroundings while scanning the lanes in front of me for cars and my lane itself for progress-robbing potholes.

I pulled into the hotel I'd reserved for the evening and walked in with the dog.  Opie was in the sun and I didn't want Chucho to fry in the car.  The lady had a sourpuss on when I walked up.  I told her about my reservation and gave her my last name.  She dutifully looked me up and said they had 'normas' regarding pets.  I said 'normas?' (a word seldom used in Spanish, hence my question).  She nodded and said they had to be under fifteen kilos which Chucho was over by easily five kilos.  She kept going down the list and I stopped her and said if he didn't satisfy the first rule, we don't need to go through the rest of them (in as nice a way as possible).  She agreed and was helpful in pointing me in the general direction of my second choice in hotels.

I drove another ten or so kilometers(which I'll be able to subtract from tomorrow's total) and pulled in and was greeted by a parking lot one-third populated by Federales trucks, so hopefully Opie will sleep safely...

Miles Driven: 285
Hours Traveled: ~5

DAY THREE: Laredo, TX to Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico

The Motel 6 in Laredo was a world apart from its Lubbock cousin.  The hot water lasted more than three minutes so that gives it an A in my book.

I have an itinerary I made up with possible stops along the way.  I opted for the closest one so I could give myself enough time to cross while minimizing the chance to have to drive at night.  The issue with this, of course, is if I am making good time and could conceivably go on my way a little farther, I am committed to the stop for the night.  This is probably the way I will do it from now on, so I know there is a place I can go to that is easily achievable barring a catastrophic setback and I know they will take Chucho AND I will have reserved the room.

We headed towards IHOP for breakfast.  I had Google Maps guide me and it had me taking a shortcut through Mexico to save time.  I remembered around where it was from my earlier sleuthing, had breakfast, and then I got on the road.  I filled up the tank in the US one last time and made my way on the 35 towards the Colombia Solidaridad bridge, one of several ways to cross from the greater Laredo area.

The crossing was interesting.  I was expecting having to wait in my car for an hour and the whole ordeal taking at least two hours but there was absolutely no line.They have you pay $3.50 and you cross into Mexico immediately.  THEN you deal with all of the border to-do's.  I asked the toll booth lady about buying pesos and she said she didn't know where I could buy pesos.  I figured, ok, surely I can score some at the border building.

I'd read on some Panamerican travel blogs (generally written by people who travel either the length or close to the length of the hemisphere) that if you write everything you're carrying with you in a manifest of sorts, you'll be in great shape.  Given our mainly haphazard packing and the fact that we're not just carrying travel supplies, I didn't have that at my disposal.

I got there and the woman interviewed me through my car window after I'd parked at customs.  When she learned I was a transmigrante, not a tourist, she had me get out of Opie for an extended interview.

She started telling me how I really should have a manifest detailing everything that's in the car.  She kept mentioning that I needed to go to the consulate or maybe even speak to a customs broker to really do it right.  She kept going on and on about a manifest and I said to her, "Well, sounds like this will delay my trip by a few days" and she agreed.  She said, "Every time you pass you're going to have to pay an import fee" and that's when it clicked.  I told her I was bringing only this, there wasn't going to be a second load.  She said, "Oh in that case we can do everything now".  Had I not spoken Spanish I'd have spent the day unloading, unpacking and laboriously cataloguing everything in Opie

She asked about my cargo and I told her what it was, various household goods.  She asked me if I had any alcohol, cigarettes, paint, or car batteries.  No questions about guns (illegal in Mexico), cash (when drugs go up, cash has to come down somehow) or other possible contraband.I told her about my desktop and laptop and not forty-five seconds into laying into my description she had reached an import duty amount: $192.

I then had to put a deposit of a little over $300 which I will get back so long as I leave Mexico in less than six months.  The lady who was handling that kept my driver's license but she didn't tell me to come back to collect it.  I remember when she snagged it but there were no instructions other than go pay for your temporary import permit.  I did so and then went back to where Chucho and Opie were waiting in the shade.  I had my passport, my paperwork, but I didn't remember her giving me my license back.  I checked my wallet and there was no license.  I went back and said that she had my license.  She said, "I told you to come back with the receipt".  I played it as though I'd forgotten so as to get on my way but that would have been a trip jeopardizer had I not checked my wallet.

I asked a guy at customs about buying pesos and he said I could do so inside.  Back inside I went and the cleaning lady said the pesos guy wasn't there yet.  Knowing he might never show I bailed back outside.  I asked the customs agent about getting pesos before getting on the toll road.  He grimaced and said that some will take dollars (so far, BS) and others will take credit cards.

I got back in Opie, clocked the border time at less than eighty-five minutes since having paid the toll and we shot south.  The road was abysmal.  I was doing the unweighting dance every quarter-mile and storm clouds began gathering over my optimism about Opie and his slightly cambering wheels making it down without stranding us.

After an eternity, I got on the cuota (toll road) and things were vastly better.  Inevitably, I got to the toll booth and a sign said Only national currency is accepted.  I greeted the lady (there were two in there for some reason) and handed her my card.  She asked if it was an American card and I said yes. She said no can do.  I said, "So what do we do now?" and she said to reverse (this is a highway, remember) and cross over the oncoming traffic lanes and see if the lady there will sell me pesos.  She did at a great rate for her (15p:1d when going rate is 17.5+), so she made some money off of me.  She only had enough pesos for a $20, though... I paid the cuota in pesos and was on my way.

I went through a military checkpoint.  I was given a very ambiguous wave; I didn't know if it was a "Have a great trip" wave or a "PULL OVER" wave.  The cannon of a rifle he was holding made me opt for the safe choice and he did an interview that lasted less than thirty seconds, skimmed my paperwork and bid me adieu.  Both guys were in full fatigues with only their eyes uncovered.

I was zooming south until I hit the city of Apodaca and I had my first and brutal encounter with Latin American driving.  Trucks merge without looking and/or without caring because whatever they hit will be pushed out of the way.  People in passenger cars also tend to zoom between lanes.  I don't believe I saw one intended turn signal.

At one point I was between an eighteen-wheeler and a bus and the lanes narrowed.  I had a death grip on Opie's wheel as my eyes darted between them for a not-so-good ten seconds.

I got on another toll road and once reaching the toll booth I once again suffered from insufficient pesos.  I asked where I could change pesos and the two guys (maybe it's training day?) told me there was nowhere to exchange currency.  I half-heartedly asked if they took credit and he, much to my surprise, replied in the affirmative.

I had passed one place that had a tiny half-sign that advertised an ATM but I saw it when I was even with it at ~110kph.  I'm definitely buying some pesos first thing tomorrow...

Prince Winston Chucho Eduardo celebrating his passage into Mexico with a few well-placed licks

DAY TWO: Lubbock, TX to Laredo, TX

This was a pretty uneventful day.  We drove about three minutes out of our way after leaving the motel and I had a Texas-sized breakfast of chicken biscuits in gravy, scrambled eggs, and home fries.  The first few bites especially were sheer ecstasy, aided in part by generous helpings of Tabasco.  Thanks to this massive meal I didn't feel the need to stop for lunch.  Our only stop was to get gas in one of many podunk towns through which we passed.

The day kind of flew by thanks in part to the lack of lower back pain.  Yesterday, I had about three hours of gnawing pain in my lower back but today I made sure I had my posterior slammed back into the seat so as to not give it any inroads.

Opie is still rock-solid and seems pretty sturdy thus far.  I'm going to go ahead and power on and hope our luck continues.  The preceding sentence reads like what an explorer would write in his diary the day before tragedy strikes.

I don't know what the roads will be like in this part of Mexico but let's hope they're half as smooth as Texas and with easily visible speed bumps.

Miles traveled: 528.8
Hours traveled: ~8 including stop

DAY ONE: Lafayette, CO to Lubbock, TX

We had to take some stuff out of the van we've christened as Opie as it was too tight, but once we did so we were on our way.

My Garmin unit is loaded with maps for North and Central America.  It was telling me to go south on I-25 through New Mexico.  I had my heart on going through Oklahoma to Texas as I'd never been in Oklahoma.

Chucho was really cramped with all of the stuff around him and had a hard time laying down.  He's now been in seven states and should he live through this ordeal he will have been in six countries.  Not bad for a mutt from Pomona!

Opie made it without incident though the driver's side rear tire is riding a little low.  I'm going to shift the load from left to right and hope that helps stabilize things.  No problems on the ride, though!  I'm flirting with the idea of taking it to someone around here so I don't get stuck somewhere in the middle of Mexico with only my charm and Spanish to save me.

Miles traveled: 583.7
Hours traveled: ~11 including stops

The Big Reveal

Tomorrow I will be embarking on an expedition.  Chucho and I will be driving down to Nicaragua to explore the area as a possible landing spot for the next phase of our lives.  Chucho is very anxious and can't be crated.  We tried a couple of years ago and he bloodied himself breaking out of it on two occasions.  My fear was that he would wake up from being medicated under a plane and have no idea where he was, then possibly get out.  If he did make it alive, it's almost certain he would be scarred both physically and emotionally.

I looked into hitching a ride on a sail boat through findacrew.net.  I got a couple of firm maybes but the timing was extremely tricky due to the undefined day we could set sail which muddied the waters.  Plus there was a good chance I'd end up with some dude who just went naked all the time.

I looked into catching a ride on a container ship but they don't allow dogs.  I looked into catching a ride on a small plane but no one was headed in that direction on dates which might have worked for us.  I even looked into a small private plane but the quoted price of $65K was about 40x more than we were willing to pay.

So it was decided we would liquidate just about everything we own and I would drive down with Chucho.  Originally I was going to cross into Mexico at Brownsville, but the Reynosa area (as one enters Mexico) is pretty dangerous even during the day.  So I will be crossing at Laredo and taking the fastest route through the innards of Mainland Mexico.

After much research I realized a 4x4 isn't necessary, but it also pretty much bars me from stopping to surf.  The good news is that S swell season is almost over and it probably wouldn't be great.

I bought a Honda Odyssey van from two German girls who spent their summer driving from Vermont all the way to the west coast and then some.  I removed the middle seat and folded the back seat flat into the floor.  We crammed it full of our stuff and sold or gave away everything else.  There were many emotionally wrenching give-aways: my Rollerblades which were my pride and joy from ages 14-16 (which my Mom bought me for my 14th bday), my custom-made surfboard shaped wood desk, my sweet Les Paul (only an Epiphone, but still hurt) and amp were all given away or sold 😔

After spending hours figuring out how to load it most efficiently and  doing so, I realized I might have some trouble as the back wheels were cambering (leaning in) a bit from the weight.

I took it to a mechanic who recommended inserting spring spacers but couldn't do it because of liability issues.  I called around and found someone who would do it but couldn't have gotten me into until Thursday (tomorrow).  I eventually found a guy who would meet me at an Auto Zone for $70.  We went in, I bought $13 worth of parts and he for some reason decided to charge me only $40.

The wheels did straighten out a little, but not all of the way.  They will bounce a lot less so they should be fine.

Stay tuned...

BIG NEWS coming...!

This will be without question the biggest news in the history of this blog, stay tuned.  Pass the time with these well-written "passages" from STAB

"Is there anything more voluptuously alluring, more devastatingly pornographic to a surfer, than throbbing shorebreak barrels? Sweltering on land, the sky cloudless and blue, throngs of co-eds littering the beach as far as the eye could see, and head-high, flaring-wide dredgers wobbling north just fifty yards from shore."

Stab is not known for heady fare, but I dug the following paragraph.  It relates to the so-called tsunami generated from the earthquake near Chiapas:

"The term 'groundswell' is really quite silly. Typical waves, including the ones that become known as 'groundswell', stem from wind, which is definitively not born from earth or ocean but from sky. And because wind comes from the sky, it only stirs the surface of the ocean, which, if you've ever seen the "tip of the iceberg" phrase in photo from, implies that significantly more power lies beneath the surface than is visible above. So, if an actual below-surface power source existed, one might logically deduce that the ocean could create stronger waves from its depths than from its topwater."

20 Years

Today marks 20 years since I started surfing.  My dad had bought a house and the sellers from whom he purchased were leaving for New Jersey.  They left behind a blue board that was about 6'8".  I eventually bought a spring suit at Costco and decided to paddle out at Moonlight beach.

On my very first wave, I stood up on greenwater and did an exaggerated bottom turn and then fell.  I came up and a little kid said, "You're good!".  I replied saying that was my first wave ever.  The lifeguards then told me to skedaddle as I was in the middle of the blackball.  I had no idea what that meant, but I got out of the water.  I was then told I had to walk past the flags and paddled back out.

I remember I got one wave on which I gingerly went up, then down over and over again.  I was hooked from that point on.

The very next day, I had an early shift at Burger King so I got to Moonlight really early. I was paddling for a wave and something went wrong and I pulled on my leash.  My finger somehow found its way into the leash string loop and it got YANKED as the wave broke and hit the board.  I was getting really frustrated dropping into my first non-reform waves and I couldn't confidently do it for about eight sessions or so in steeper waves.

My first surf buddy was my friend from Video class, Jon Walton.  He lived on Coast in Del Mar at the time.  I ended up selling him my first board for $10 (WHOOPS) after I had upgraded.

Glucosamine saved me from Premature old-Man Syndrome (PoMS)

In 2004, my right knee started bugging it me. It slowly got progressively worse.  By 2009, I was in so much pain it was affecting me every time I sat down.  If I sat down with my knee at all bent, pressure would slowly build up and within five minutes I would be in excruciating pain.  I would then have to stop whatever I'm doing and violently kick it out.  If I did it correctly, my knee would crack (similar to the sound knuckles make when cracked) and the pressure would be immediately relieved.

You can imagine how distracting this got.  Desk work would be constantly interrupted.  Driving was uncomfortable and unsafe with me trying to extend my leg out to relieve at least some pressure until I was able to get out and kick.  Air travel was excruciating if I didn't get an aisle seat on the left side of the airplane so I could kick at will.

My clearest memory of one of my kicks was sitting next to my dad at The Beatles Love show in Vegas.  I was holding my knee at a 90-degree angle for most of the show.  About two-thirds of the way through I couldn't take it any more.  I slouched down and explosively high-kicked while in my seat.  I missed my dad's face by more than a foot, but he was surprised at how bad it had gotten that I HAD to do it so urgently.

I went to the doctor and he said the cartilage wear in my right knee was consistent with someone in his 50s.  I had fluid on the inside of my knee cap.  He put pressure on it with his finger and you could see it react.  He told me they could drain it but it would just fill up again.  They could operate but there was a ten percent chance I would be sidelined for a year or worse.

By chance, my uncle Tom and aunt Claudia came to Orange County from El Salvador.  She saw me kicking my knee out and asked me why I did it.  I explained what the doctor said, and told her I was going to get a second opinion.  She told me to try "Glucosamina".  I did some research on the internet and found out it was shellfish-based and it could help.  I invested ~$10 in a bottle of Costco's version.

I diligently took two pills a day and within a month, POOF!  The knee pain was almost completely gone.  It's definitely still there somewhat but I have 90% mobility.  I'm still scared to try weighted squats but other than the odd ache here and there I have no signs of the previous issues.

If you suffer from joint pain and are considering surgery, try Glucosamine.  You may get your life back.

Nightmare at Playa Yankee "Paradise" aka Casa Pablo aka "Beautiful Sunsets" (Airbnb)

Please see updates at very bottom!

This is the place I'm referring to: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/11571330  Stay anywhere but here!

I'd been eyeing this place as a possible vacation spot since I had started planning over a year ago.  We had originally intended it to be a ten-day vacation but I splurged and extended it specifically so we could stay here. We stayed at the great Casa Las Mareas in Encanto del Sur, just north of San Juan del Sur and, as good as our stay was while there, we were excited to come here.  I'd had visions of teaching our eldest daughter to swim in the pool here while my wife enjoyed the view with our younger daughter.

We got there on a Wednesday.  The view to the water was spectacular but was immediately marred by the sight of the green pool; hornets swarming in the shallow area as well as some elsewhere in the pool.  My daughter was understandably freaked out.  I asked Gilberto, the caretaker, about it and he said (translated quote), "It's an open area, there's nothing you can do about them".  I thought back to our stay at Casa Las Mareas and its pristine pool, also in an open area.  I let the idea of asking him to put out wasp traps slide after I realized I didn't want to dip my head in a pool that looked like this:

The first time the power went out was before 11PM our very first night. My wife and I woke up within five minutes of one another, sweating and wondering why.  The fan, our sole source of ventilation, had turned off.  We chalked this outage to the planned power outage the entire San Juan del Sur area goes through on Thursday, figuring maybe they were getting an early start.  We had our girls (three years old, seven months old) with us in bed and sweltered through the rest of the night.

The following morning, the power came back on briefly, then went out again after about thirty minutes.  We (my wife, our two little girls, my uncle and I) took a day trip that day and came back to the house.  The power stayed on for a little over one hour this time, just enough to give us hope that the power issues were behind us.  The power went out again and we settled in for another sweltering night.

I arose before sunrise and walked outside.  The houses below (known as Beach House Beauty when it was listed on the market) and Casa Alta both had power.  A five-minute walk in the opposite direction revealed Casa Monet had power as did Orquídea del Sur.

The next day I spoke to the caretaker at length about the issues.  I asked him why we were having power issues if we had a solar power system (after I heard the humming and spotted the batteries and put two and two together). He explained to me that the "solar system" had broken six months ago and the panels had been removed.  The main power appears to be inexplicably running through the solar power inverter and more than likely through the batteries, as they were humming.

I asked him if the owner was aware of this and he eventually admitted that the owner was in fact aware of the issue with the power going down constantly.  It was on this day, our second-to-last full day of our time here, we were told there was a generator available for us.

At this point we still weren't sure if the power issues would continue.  My wife and I thought about the sound of the generator and how it would decimate the sound of the ocean way down below, but at least we'd have power.  I asked him to please set it up and he agreed to do so.  Ten minutes later I heard an engine start and unfortunately for us it was his motorcycle's and not the house's generator.  Gilberto took off and I didn't see him again until the next day.  My wife tallied our time without electricity and including a three-hour spurt, we had four hours of power/communication (no cell phone reception at the house, no wi-fi without electricity).  We ignored the groceries we had purchased and placed in the refrigerator for fear of letting out whatever cold air may have been left and spoiling our perishables (these ended up spoiling anyways).  We reluctantly went out to dinner again, one-hour round trip into town, so my uncle and I could get wi-fi and communicate with our respective jobs and clients.

I grew up in El Salvador both during and after its civil war and it was a rare day that the power didn't go out.  I am well aware of the fragility of the power grid in this part of the world. So you can imagine my frustration when EVERY house in the vicinity has power except for ours.  This is a COMPLETELY preventable issue of which the owner is absolutely aware, according to the caretaker. 

The next day, Saturday, the caretaker was there and I asked him again, more urgently, to please set up the generator.  We even discussed the best place to situate it.  He said, "Como usted quiera" (As you wish).  Not five minutes later, I heard his motorcycle start and by the time I got out there all I saw was the dust rooster tail that disintegrated before my frustrated eyes.  That dust cloud would be the last sign of Gilberto for the duration of our trip.

Rather than enjoy our last vacation day, we planned our first of what would turn into THREE trips into town (one-hour round trip down a VERY bumpy long stretch of dirt/rock road).  We had to go there because the next day was our last day, and we had to confirm our trip to the Liberia airport in Costa Rica and we had no way of communicating from the house because of the power issues.  We didn't know when/if/for how long the power would come back so we got ahead of the issue and drove into San Juan del Sur.  We were able to message the shuttle company, the rental car pick-up person, and the surf shop from which I'd rented my surfboard to coordinate.  We didn't get to confirm with everyone, so another trip was necessary before our last trip in the evening to ensure nothing had changed for the next day and get dinner (more unnecessary gas and food costs we could have avoided had the owner cared).  The power was out when we got back all three times, but came on for about  four hours total again.

We never saw Gilberto again.  We left the keys hanging by the door hoping they'd make it back to him without issues.  We never got any guidance on what to do with our trash/spoiled groceries.  The shuttle came and we were relieved to be gone.  How terrible does one's experience have to be when they can't wait to get home from vacation?  We were absolutely blissful at our first rental and are completely angry with the owners/managers for what amounts to fraud.

The crystalline pool shown in the VRBO ad was so inviting and we arrive to a hornet-blanketed science experiment.

Lack of power to only this house meant stress for everyone involved.  I couldn't get in touch with work clients until I went into town.  My uncle was dealing with an intricate project which he dealt with as best he could the little time we had power and our too-frequent trips to San Juan del Sur

This was supposed to be the absolute climax of our trip and it was an absolute nightmare.  The pool was unusable (the owner did offer to have it "cleaned" our last afternoon there even though I'd sent him pictures where chemicals and time were clearly needed).

Here are a couple of our exchanges. The first one is from March 31st, our first full day there (the previous day we left for Ometepe) with the realization that the power outages were not a cause of the Nicaraguan power grid but of internal issues of which the owners are fully aware, according to the caretaker.

The second-to-last sentence touches on our indecision to turn it on, not knowing if we were unlucky with the power issues.  We ended up asking Gilberto to turn it on about ten minutes after I sent this email (the power went off AGAIN).

So in case you didn't catch it, the owner's response was that because they have a generator for outages, there will be no talk of refunds.  Never mind that we never saw the generator and asked for it to be turned on several times.  Man, did we get bamboozled...

Don't be fooled by the following misleading claims in the ad, taken straight from their VRBO ad:

Nicaragua is blessed with an almost constant wind thanks to Lake Nicaragua.  Many houses are shrewdly built to take advantage of the natural ventilation possibilities.  The roof eaves at Casa Pablo were short-sightedly dropped down to cover the ventilation holes throughout the house, including those facing the predominant wind direction.  This means you won't get the natural cooling effect as described above.  And if you have power issues approaching our MASSIVE power outage issues, you will be soaking in sweat at night.

Ouch, this one hurts to read after the fact.  Here is where they admit that reliable internet (not to mention communication for checking in on clients, sub-contractors, family members) is important.  They, and this is straight from their caretaker Gilberto, knew the house had major power issues and still rent it out at full price.  Looking at their ad now reveals NO mention of the issues we confronted and is still promising an idyllic experience.


Here's a video of our last night:

 Here's a video of what we tried to do when the power went out, as instructed by the caretaker

UPDATE: The owner wrote me to say I was lying about the generator.  He said Gilberto told him he had hooked it up for us.  He told me he had seen the above videos (presumably tipped off by VRBO when I submitted a review) and he still insisted I was lying.  Why would I write to him our second full day of our stay and complain if the generator was going and all was well?  Why is there no power in the above videos?  Why isn't there the loud sound generators make in the video?

SECOND UPDATE: The owner pulled his listing off VRBO.  Good!  Hopefully this will save people from ruining their vacations here.  It's still up on Airbnb as of this writing.

THIRD UPDATE: My uncle, bless his heart, wrote up his review about what he experienced during his terrible stay at this "vacation" rental.  The link is as follows: http://playayankeevacationrental.blogspot.com/

TALK STORY: The Infamous Cabo Trip, August 2007

My buddy Tim is a German national and had to leave and re-enter the country so as to renew his visa.  He invited me to go to Cabo with him.  I wasn't too excited about Cabo, so I suggested we go to Puerto Escondido, in Oaxaca, which is about 5/6ths of the way to El Salvador.

He mulled it over and decided he didn't want to "shit his pants while getting slammed by closeouts".  He also said, "My buddy just got back from there and he said it was the best surf trip of his life".  I looked at the SurfLie forecast for Cabo and it said it would be between 2-4' and 3-5' with fair to good conditions.  I booked my ticket, a little bummed we weren't going to Puerto.

On the way to our hotel, we spotted the famous Costa Azul Surf Shop, which you may be familiar with if you're an avid reader of bumper stickers like me.  We went in there and rented boards.  I spoke Spanish to the girl who worked there and tried to charm her into a lower price but it didn't work.  She said I was the first person from El Salvador to visit the surf shop, at least that she knew of.  That's really not an interesting factoid considering Cabo is not really a surf destination and El Salvador's waves are WAY better.

We checked into the hotel and made plans to scour the area for waves the next day.  We passed by a spot that reminded me of a zippier version of El Recodo in El Salvador, but the sets were maybe 2'.  After getting lost and having to ask for directions multiple times, we found our way to Shipwrecks, a fickle but great-when-it's-working point break after over an hour on washboard roads.  It was about as flat as could be.

We came ALL the way back around the cape and surfed El Tule, the aforementioned El Recodo-ish wave.  It was more fun than expected, but our hopes were so low that it was still a C- session.  The best part was that we had surfed it to ourselves.

Upon returning I logged on to check what the conditions were at Puerto Escondido, just to torture myself.  The surf report revealed my worst fears.  Puerto Escondido: 8-10' EPIC.  I had never seen Surfline assign this adjective to any day before and I have yet to see it again.  I showed it to Tim with a pissed off look on my face and he was really sweet about it.  He said, "Whatever dude, like you would've charged it".  I assured him I absolutely would have.

The next day we drove up the other side of the coast, on the Pacific side to a spot called Los Cerritos.  There were waves there, probably chest-high on the sets.  It was crowded, but we were getting waves.  The water was FREEZING and we were out in boardshorts.  We lasted as long as we could and went in to enjoy lunch.  Lunch wasn't great thanks to a squadron of flies that dogged us and our burgers throughout our meal.

We kept driving up the coast and exploring with very little sense of the surf.  We drove down several washboard roads that seemed to lead to the ocean.  On one of these, the angle of our approach was such that we were rocked violently from side to side very quickly, leading us to laugh our asses off.

We kept driving towards Cabo and saw a dilapidated sign that read "San Pedro RV Park".  We pulled off and went to explore what remained of someone's dream.  It was like visiting the rotting corpse of a business.  The windows had been smashed and the building while still standing, would not be for long. 
While there, inspiration struck because I leapt into a Madonna lyric "Last night I dreamt of San Pedro (RV Park)...".  There was a great set-up out front for waves and we could see fading murals of the wave in its day, doing its thing.  No waves on this day, though.

Our last Friday of the trip, we rolled up to Monuments, just outside of Cabo San Lucas.  I'd salivated over its pics as it was a meaty left point, but both times we'd checked it had sucked; tiny and/or unsurfable. Well, our final check revealed racetrack lefts coming down the short point and only spongers on it! 

We headed back to the car and our boards and then back out to the point.  We paddled out and I noticed there weren't enough waves for all of us.  There were maybe two spongers now and they were sitting deeper than us.  As one caught a wave, I decided to go deeper than his remaining counterpart.

I was almost immediately rewarded with the undisputed best wave of the trip.  I gingerly drew lines up and down the face with a very side-to-side approach, careful not to ruin the first great wave I'd had all trip.

I buzzed upon kick-out.  My lust for more seemed to increase with each paddle stroke.  I set up outside both spongers this time and within five minutes another set wave came.  I had to pull back on this one as it seemed to section off right where I was.  I paddled in a little more so I would be inside the sectioning bit but still outside the remaining sponger. 

A nice-sized wave came and I was all over it.  I had great positioning on it, maybe even a little early.  I paddled my ass off, slid up and descended straight.  I was about to start shifting my weight towards my toes when I went FLYING over the nose of my board. 

Instincts kicked in and I threw my arms out to protect me from whatever impact there may be.  I hit only water, thankfully, but my board was ominously laying two misaligned fins up. NOOOOOOOOO!  Mere seconds before, it had been a three-fin thruster.

I paddled the maimed board out of the danger zone and went in.  Tim had already gone in and asked me what happened.  I mentioned there had been an incident and flipped the board over.  Most of the tail had been delaminated revealing fresh white foam.  One side fin was torn off completely, its escape route etched into the board by the missing foam.

The center fin was poking through the deck of the board, about a fifth of it was showing through.  The third fin was undisturbed.  As I finished my mental assessment of the damage, Tim was in full cackle. He gleefully shrieked, "You're so fucked, dude! You're paying for that board.".  I, at my most optimistic (and unrealistic, I thought, as I uttered the following spoken thought), said "Nah , it'll probably be, maybe, eighty bucks".

We went back to Costa Azul and my first of many prayers was answered when the girl who'd rented our boards was behind the counter.  I came in, board and hat in hand, and flipped it over in front of her after saying there had been an incident.  She gasped, "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee! (English Onomatopoeic approximation)".

I chose my words carefully, saying it would obviously need two new fins and a pretty major patch job in the tail's rail and deck.  I admitted I would obviously have to pay a fair amount for the repairs.  She said, "You're going to have to pay for this board, $250".  I grimaced mournfully, respectfully disagreed, and went for another round about how the repairs would have to go.  She did another lap on my having to pay for the board, this time at half-effort, and I did my puppy-dog eyes routine and told her that the board wasn't totaled and was easily salvageable.

She started laughing and told me she was messing with me.  She surveyed the damage up close and after a flurry of Matt-Damon-at-the-chalkboard-in-Good-Will-Hunting type calculations, she showed me a handwritten receipt on which the final damage was $80.  I signed the credit card receipt, returned the board and ecstatically power-walked to the car where Tim was waiting.  I shoved the receipt practically in his face and screamed, "EIGHTY BUCKS, MOTHERFUCKER!".

4.1.17 How does one score Empty Playa Yankee?

We had suffered through our third of four sweltering nights in our terrible vacation rental (Casa Pablo aka Playa Yankee "Paradise") due to power issues at the house, every other house in the neighborhood had power (as evidenced by their exterior/facade lighting).  It was really frustrating when all of the San Juan del Sur has power, except your house (for which you paid a pretty penny.  Full post coming soon...

Apparently, the trick to scoring empty Playa Yankee is to go in the morning, before the hostel/surf school shuttles show.  Our trip's mornings didn't coincide with the high tide, so at the size of the waves we got while there, it was only really surfable at mid- to high tide.  My uncle and I headed down there; I to surf, and he to body-surf. 

We must have caught it right at mid because the waves kept coming.  I had a great time picking and choosing my waves. 

On my first wave, I did a sick top turn on which I was squatting inches from the water as I descended back down the wave, but I ended up falling on my nutsack.  Some guys have a masochistic scrotal pain fetish but I seem to be missing that gene as this confirmed it for the umpteenth time.

I  surfaced and kicked my legs around to stimulate movement and maybe blood flow to the affected testicle and it stopped aching after less than thirty seconds.  I paddled back out and perched again.

I did a couple of pump to oblivion waves and tried for airs on both end sections, the offshore wind IMMEDIATELY removing the board from my feet.  Go for a grab you may say, but how can you go for a grab if you've left and re-entered the water before your fingers touch foam? 😖😔

My uncle made it about an hour before he was over it and I joined up with him after one last wave on which I got my weekly pump quota in ten seconds.

We headed back to the Element and up to our what turned out to be an expensive campsite ($200+/night for four hours of fans, electricity, internet per day and an algae-ridden pool).