Winter surfing can be the pits, unless you are someplace sunny and warm. To achieve this, I decided to take a winter trip to Mexico; although I originally wanted to go to Puerto Escondido, Mexico, where the surf is incredible. However, my surf buddy, Robin, investigated it and discovered that the waves can be so huge and rough there that surfers' boards can be broken. She suggested somewhere a little more calm, and I had to agree. She found a place named Troncones that had excellent smaller surf. She also explored different inns and found us a quaint little one on the coast called the Inn at Manzanillo Bay. As is the case in any travel to Mexico, travelers have to be a little more careful and things can be slightly more primitive. But, as soon as we arrived we felt we had made the right choice.
Our taxi driver Able drove us the 20-miles to Troncones with a promise to pick us up on Sunday. Although there was surf on the beach of our hotel, it was part of a point break and inexperienced surfers would end up in the rocks that surrounded the beach. We watched a couple of more experienced surfers tackle the break, and it was definitely fun to watch, but we knew our limitations and point breaks were out of our league. We were able to hire a surf guide named Beto (short for Umberto) to drive us to a beach where the sets were more defined and designed for surfers of all levels, including beginners like Robin and me. The drive itself was always an adventure. Beto often had other plans for our drive. We also had to pass through a Federales check point. We made it through two days before we were stopped. Beto said they stopped us because he was driving two blonde Americans; I think it was more random than that since we had driven through without being stopped the previous two days. Beto's lessons were brief and, although we were glad we had him to drive us, his teaching skills probably needed a little more practice. Nevertheless, I really liked him. He let us use a couple of his boards and the board I had was fantastic. It was a 9'6", but was a little narrower than my board. After a couple of falls, I started to really like it, despite it being narrower. Of course, with consistent nice waves/sets, it's hard not to feel comfortable on any board. I had one of the longest rides of my life, as did Robin, catching it midway and riding it all the wave down the wave. Beto wanted us to follow him to the outside (beginning of the wave), but since several other more experienced surfers were out there, neither Robin nor I felt comfortable getting in the mix.
Beto was a jack of all trades. Not only could he teach surfing, he owned a surf board rental shop, served as a caretaker at a house, claimed to have massage-healing hands and also could show us real estate for rent/sale. All in all, though, he took care of us, drove us to the La Saladita beach and rented us good boards. Three cheers for Beto!
As a matter of fact, three cheers for Troncones, Mexico!
