The thought that I was actually going to surf for a week made me shake with excitement. I had been 8 months here in Ecuador and hadn't even dipped a toe in the Pacific Ocean. It had slowly been killing me. When I got permission to go from my exchange program I was ecstatic, running around my house telling any one who would listen.
The plan was to meet a guide, an Ecuadorian named Evelio, in Guayaquil. Guayaquil is the largest city in Ecuador, Quito being a close second, and is located about half an hour from the coast. From there we were to meet two Americans who would also be coming with us and then set off on our surfing adventure!
The flight was about 20 minutes, it was that or an 8 hour bus ride. The freeways here seem like they were designed by throwing spaghetti at a map, going anywhere takes forever. I met Evelio in the airport. Right away I felt comfortable with him, just a really friendly guy. He speaks fluent English, so we kept switching back and forth with was novel. About 2 hours later the two Californians arrived. Now, I am used to feeling tall here, but when this 6' 7'' Dad, Dave, and his 6' 4'' son, Chris, introduced themselves, I felt like a shrimp. I can't even imagine what the Ecuadorians at the airport thought. They brought their owns boards with them. They had a hard plastic case, about 8 feet long, protecting them. It looked like some kind of futuristic coffin, needless to say we got strange looks putting that on the roof of Evelio's car.
So After we all got aquatinted we had a decision to make. Should we go the beaches about 45 minutes form the city, which meant we could surf that day, or head farther north where there would be fewer people and hopefully better waves. We all decided quality over quantity and got ready for a 3 hour ride up the coast.
It felt to be so good to be back at sea level, I felt like I could hold my breath for ages. The air was so warm, I couldn't help but just stick my head out the window when we were on the highway, letting the wind flow over shaven head. I must have come off quite odd to Dave and Chris who hailed from warm Southern California.
The freeway to the coast was an exception to the spaghetti rule, it looked like some American Super highway stretching westward off into the setting sun. I craned my neck at every hill we went over to see if I would find the sea in all its shimmering glory on the other side. Eventually we could all smell the salt in the air and we knew we were close. I had bored of looking over every hill and was watching the desert scenery pass by out the window when someone raised the alarm and pointed out to ocean of in the distance.
However, the sight was short lived. Evelio announced that we were going to take a shortcut back through the desert, which would cut off about 45 minutes from our journey.
We arrived at our hotel at about 7 PM. Starving, we threw our bags in our rooms, and just left the boards strapped to the roof. After a delicious seafood dinner, I went to sleep listening to the waves crash against the sand, not 15 meters from my room.
I woke with a knock on my door at about 7 and Evelio telling me to get up so we can surf before breakfast. Half asleep I rolled out of bed and into a pair of board-shorts, stuffing some water, sunscreen and my camera into a bag. The idea of wearing a shirt of something on my feet never really dawned on me. These are my favorite kind of days.
A 10 minute drive south found us at a tiny beach village called Las Tunas. We parked along the seawall and watched the waves coming in for a while, trying to figure out where the channel was to paddle out and where the peaks were. I had a good long stretch, getting hurt on the morning of the first day would be infuriating. Lathered up in the strongest sunscreen I could find (the sun here stronger than almost anywhere in the world) and stretched out I walked to the water with the others.
I started to paddle out and it was like I had reunited with a long lost friend. All the feelings and motions came rushing back all at once. Effortlessly diving under the massive walls of white water that rushed towards me I felt alive. Upon getting outside I sat floating on my board taking it all in. Surfing in board-shorts was such an alien feeling. I am used to 5 millimeters of rubber, gloves, boots, and a hood separating me from the biting cold, but not here.
I let several good waves pass under me, feeling them out little by little. The were big and powerful, about 2 or 3 feet over my head. Dropping in wasn't as hard as it appeared, the face was quite mellow before the wave actually broke, but then all hell let loose. I paddled hard into my first wave of the trip, I felt my self slipping over the back and gave it 3 more stokes with all the power my arms could muster. I was in. Up until this point everything was going smoothly. I got up perfectly, which was a surprise after 8 months, but then I'm not really sure what happened. I remember falling down, down, down, then smacking the water on my side, the watching the lip of the wave raise up, pause, then plummet, smashing me almost to the bottom. I felt the very familiar sensation of being in a big salty washing machine, all sense of direction is lost, up could be anywhere. In this situation one can only stay calm and not struggle so as to conserve oxygen. I wait and wait until some higher power turns the washing machine off. I feel my leash tugging on my ankle and swim towards my board which is floating calmly on the surface, as if to say, "what the hell were you doing down there so long!?"
I climb back on and paddle back out to where I was. Pelicans fly overhead and ride the air currents that come off the waves. Their wings are literally inches from the face of the wave, one wrong move and they would be in a similar situation that I just was. A part of me really wants to see pelican go "over the falls", sadly it never happens.
A set approaches out of the deep water. "Alright" I think to myself, "how about you don't blow this one?"
Its the same routine. I paddle hard, feel the mass of water take me like a twig in a river, and I jump up. Success! I turn left and start heading down the face of the wave. The sheer speed I am getting is unbelievable. I head down the face, turning sharply at the bottom, shooting myself back up to the top of the wave and then back down. I can't get over how fast I am going, I can feel all the power of the wave pushing me forward. Looking further down the line, I see the wave has broken ahead of me and I am heading towards the whitewater. The face in front of me starts getting steeper and steeper as it prepares to break all at once. I make my exit. I turn hard and shoot up towards the lip, with a huge push from my legs I am air-born and flying over the back of the wave. My board separates from my feet and its like I am floating, spinning through the air gravity takes hold once again. A massive splash and I am once again in the water.
I have the biggest smile on my face. I had been waiting for the moment since I landed in Quito on the 31st of August, 2008.
The waves are so plentiful and perfect, great size, and peeling for a long time in both directions before closing out.
I catch a big right hand wave which kind of throws me off. I am on a much bigger board than I am used to. Its 6'3'' , thick and it has a large picture of Garfield the cat on it. I have my back to the wave, is which the more unnatural position for most surfers, I can't get as much speed as when i was going left so I try to do some turns instead. Back home on my 5'10'' board, which Dave described as a "potato chip", I can turn in whatever direction and the board, being so small, follows effortlessly. I know this is a much bigger board so I am going to need more force to turn it, but when I try, literally nothing happens. I try again, jamming my back foot hard into the tail and turning my shoulders, it follows ever so slowly. I am making progress, sort of. I am going to need to change the way I surf to fit this board, Garfield doesn't seem to be very accommodating to my style...
I surf for about an hour and a half, oblivious of where Evelio and the other two are. I get several more good waves and of course, I have a few more hard falls. I always think of falling as a nice reminder that when you are in big waves, you are not in charge, nor in control of anything but yourself.
Eventually Evelio waves me in from the beach. I let the whitewash take me in as I lie on my board, reflecting on an amazing session.
Over a huge breakfast of fruit, eggs, ham, and eggs Evelio explains to us how a big storm just passed by bringing great waves, so swell is still coming of the tail end of that storm but things should start to get smaller later in the week. Therefore we have to make the most of the waves we have at the moment.
Our hotel was situated in a cove, probably about a mile wide with sandy beach running the entire length. The main building which was the office and dining room was built right on the beach, sand floors and everything. The rooms were on a grassy hill about 20 meters up the beach. On each side of the cove there were big rocky points. The waves broke along both of them which meant we could literally surf from out hotel. And we did.
After breakfast we walked out along the southern point and jumped right of the rocks into the breaking waves, saving us a lot of paddling. The wave was a left, meaning that it only broke in one direction due to the point. The strange thing was that it looked like it was about to break, but then it held back as it frozen but still moving forward. This meant that we had to catch them much later than we thought. It was difficult sitting in the water watching waves that looked like they were about to crush me, I always had the urge to sprint towards them and dive under before they broke. Though sure enough Evelio was right, if you just waited you could get fantastic lefts. Again I had that sensation that I was just flying along the wave, I think the length of the board certainly helped me get so much speed. We had a great session, a much more social one too. the waves only broke in one place which meant all four of us had to sit together on the same peak.
After about 2 hours we all got out and walked back up the beach for lunch at the hotel. The set up was great. we would walk through the dining room, dripping wet and still carrying our boards, we would order our lunch then head up to the rooms to put the boards in their bags and rinse the salt off. When we went back to the dining room 10 minutes later everything was ready and waiting.
The lunches were really delicious. We basically had the choice of seafood or chicken. Obviously seeing as the seafood was so fresh we ate tons of that. There is one dish in particular that I love. Its called Ceviche and is typical of the costal regions of Columbia, Ecuador and Chile. It is a seafood soup, with lots of tomato onions and vinegar. As far as seafood, well they just throw as much as they can into the soup. They is usually some kind of fish, shrimp, octopus, and assorted shellfish. One of the interesting things through, is that it is served at room temperature or sometimes colder. Very refreshing on a hot day.
After lunch we had a bit of a rest then headed back to Las Tunas for an evening surf, for the winds die down after about 5 or 6 meaning that the surface is like glass.
I went to bed at about 9 that night and was instantly asleep. 6 hours of surfing really takes it out of you.
The next morning we surfed at Las Tunas again, this would so become one of our go-to spots due to its consistency and how close it was. Afterwards we drove about 20 minutes north, past our hotel to a port city called Puerto Lopez. Nestled inside a cove about 3 miles wide, Puerto Lopez is a fishing center as well as a tourist destination. We had breakfast in a really great Columbian restaurant. I swear Evelio knows everyone. We were sitting at an outside table and so many people shouted "Hey!" to him, a few local surfers stopped in to talk as well as some smaller kids about 10 or 11 who are learning to surf. Evelio loves kids. The thing is a lot of people know him, but he doesn't necessarily know everyone's name. We ended up calling lots of people, especially the children, "surfer" when we passed them in the car, it was really funny and no one seemed to mind.
We picked up a local surfer about 19 or 20 and brought him back with us to the hotel to surf the point. Quickly after building the hotel, the owner realized that he was sitting on a prime surfing location, so he put up and gate and he charges $2 for surfers to get in. We never paid because, well, Evelio has been surfing the Ecuadorian coast since the 1970s. He is such a laid back guy and so nice, but he gets respect where ever he goes. While we were surfing that day at the hotel, I heard two guys, who must have paid to get in, talking. One said to the other, "Hey look, its the old guardian of the Ecuadorian coast". Yeah, thats Evelio.
I had so much fun that afternoon surfing at the hotel. It seemed like I was always in the right place at the right time, getting all the best waves. I even got some compliments from the locals and some surfers from Venezuela. I think that was my best session of the entire week. I remember walking back to the hotel from the rocky point. On the beach there are thousands of these small red crabs, I mean, they are everywhere. When you walk along the beach the crabs in your way all scuttle up to the high tide line, then wait, and once you have passed, they go back down to the wet sand. It looks like the entire beach is moving, like some kind of biblical parting of the red crabs.
I was so happy, the sun was shining, all I could think of was the delicious lunch I was about to have and where we were going to surf that evening. Then my sub-conscience spoke out loud, to no one in particular, I asked, "why doesn't everyone live in South America?". I laughed at myself and kept walking.
The next day found us at Las Tunas in the morning again. Then off to puerto Lopez for breakfast, again. Everything was going according to out unwritten schedule. Then, over breakfast, Evelio suggested a change. He told us about a secret point he knew of that is only accessible by boat. You can see it from the coast road, but it is about 2 miles away so you have to use binoculars to see if the waves are breaking there. We decided that it would be fun to take a boat ride and agreed to check it out. At about mid afternoon Evelio went and found one of his fisherman buddies who said he would take us out to the point.
We motored out of Puerto Lopez in a long, covered fishing boat. He took us past these big cliffs full of sea caves and thousands of birds. There were pelicans, frigate birds, and blue footed boobies. They somehow clung to the cliffs, with waves pounding against the rock not 3 meters below them. I couldn't get a really good photo which was a disappointment though.
We passed the cliffs and turned the point, heading south. The point was actually quite close, just on the far side of the next cove. From afar we couldn't see much, just some lines of whitewater rolling gently down the point. As we got closer and closer we could start to see the swell come out of the deep water, hit the the slab of rock on the bottom, all of a sudden they would get huge and then break. The lip would throw itself forward before smashing into the surface in an explosion of whitewater. We were about a quarter of a mile away from the point when I saw a massive dark blue wave rushing towards the point, it must have been the last wave of a set, it was the biggest one I had seen come through since getting to the point. The wave got closer and closer, it hit the slab and seemed to jump right out of the water. Right as it was about to break, the sun illuminated the wave from behind lighting it up in a flash of green. It was spectacular, it broke with such force. At that moment I was ready to just jump overboard with my board and paddle.
Evelio made the executive decision that the wave wasn't working as well as it should, personally I disagreed, but I knew he was much more knowledgeable. The plan was to go again the next morning so we could time the tide better.
Off to bed with the green wave breaking over and over in my mind.
Dave had eaten something that didn't quite agree with his stomach the night before and wasn't feeling like surfing the next morning. Really, none of of us were feeling so hot. Even Evelio was complaining about his stomach. But I just had to get back to that wave.
I could tell Evelio wanted to as well. So Chris, Evelio and I got our stuff together and headed to Puerto Lopez to get our boat organized. We went to a store front on the seawall where the family with the boat lived. The daughter, who was 17, had just had a son and so obviously Evelio had to stop and play for a while. We sat with them and talked playing with all the children who seemed to be running around. Then quite randomly, the daughter asked me if I would be her son's godfather. I didn't really know how serious she was so I turned to Evelio and asked him in English what was going on. He said that she was completely serious and that it was a great honor, obviously. Then I had to decide if I wanted an Ecuadorian godson. As cool as it would be, I realized that I might never even see him again. I explained this to the family and they were very disappointed but seemed to understand. It was really something to be asked to be a godfather, can't say that has ever happened before.
The father got back, we packed all out boards and bags into his boat and set off.
We got the point and it was breaking similarly to yesterday, but the peaks seemed a little off. Evelio and I were trying to figure out what had happened when we realized that there were some waves coming from the northwest, the storm system that had passed by the week before. Then there were some waves coming from the south west, precursors to a storm that would be arriving in about 4 or 5 days. This meant that the waves would break right on the rock slab most of the time, but then the occasional rouge wave would break way out to the right on a different rock reef. Those rights were kind of dangerous because it meant that we could be sitting in a place that was fine for getting the waves off the slab, then have to sprint out to dive under a wave to the right that had caught us by surprise.
We paddled out all the same. At first I went all the way out to where I had seen that perfect wave the evening before. However, when I got out there I looked down and saw through the crystal clear water that the slab was about one meter below the surface, falling here would mean cuts, bruises and damaged boards. I wasn't about to ruin a great surf trip or a board that wasn't even mine. I went back in a little to where Evelio and Chris were sitting. The waves were still breaking well there, but they seemed very few and far between. We had fun. I got thrown a few times, the wave was unexpectedly powerful but I learned pretty quickly. After about 45 minutes of not quite up-to-par waves we got back into the boat and called it a day.
That night we went out to dinner with a couple from Venezuela who were staying in the same hotel. We had surfed with them several times and given them some info about beaches and tides. They had driven all the way from Venezuela in an old Volkswagen truck. It had a double cabin and a flat cargo bed behind. Like someone had taken an old VW mini bus and chopped the back half off making it a pick-up truck. Very cool.
So Evelio told us about this tiny Italian restaurant in Puerto Lopez that was owned and run by an elderly husband and wife from Italy. That sounded good to everyone so we got cleaned up and left. When we arrived at the restaurant it looked like we were going to someone's house, and we were. He went around the back of the house to a garden with a large patio. There were probably about 5 tables in total. We put two together and sat down. At once a man, who looked like he had eaten a lot Italian food in his time, came and introduced himself as the owner, waiter, husband, and cook. He explained to us that all the pasta was homemade and they only used the best ingredients. We ordered a huge mix of food, salad and wine. When everything came out it was unbelievable. The best pasta I have ever eaten without a doubt (sorry Mum, your's is a close second.) It was such a strange atmosphere, eating delicious Italian food outside in the warm evening air, with reggae music floating lazily on the breeze. When we had finished everything on the table, our friend came out again and insisted that we try their homemade ice cream desserts. We all looked at each other and knew that we couldn't NOT try them. All I can say is that it was the most heavenly thing I have ever tasted. We left absolutely stuffed.
The next day we went to check another semi-secret spot that Evelio knew of. It was a rocky point in front of a tiny fishing village. We had to go down a huge hill to get there. Evelio told us of the days long before the road down was paved and how if it stared raining, they could get stuck there for days because their cars couldn't make it up the steep muddy hill. The waves weren't breaking very well, this mixed swell that was coming through wasn't good for much. We went back to Las Tunas and surfed there until breakfast. The plan was to see how the point at the hotel was working but by the time we got back at about midday all I wanted to do was sleep, so I did. A pretty uneventful day.
Getting up the next morning we went to check the same rocky point again, however no luck. We surfed that morning at a beach called Ayampe. The waves there weren't great but the had a lot of power. I ended up getting hit in the the back of the head by my board and decided that it was a good indicator that it was time to get out. Dave, Chris and Evelio came out shortly and we were all feeling a bit down about the waves. Like he always did, Evelio knew the best rememdy. He said we were going to breakfast at a place just down the beach he knew of. He didn't say much more than that, he let the "place" speak for itself.
We pulled up in the car and saw a stone pathway going up a hill to a big building made of bamboo. He all got out and someone greeted us on the path. I couldn't tell if he was the owner, a guest, or what, either way he was super friendly. We walked onto the open foundation / basement of the building, there were boards lying everywhere and a few tents had been pitched right on the concrete. He said that the only rule was that no shoes were allowed. I smiled, looking at my already bare feet, thinking to myself "I like this place". We walked up the stairs and into a huge open planned dining room / kitchen / board storage area with hammocks and old beaten up sofas everywhere. The whole place was built of bamboo with the exception of the foundations and two brick pillars which had to be added for support. The cook and waiter, who introduced himself as Mauricio, explained to me, "he was a great architect, but not a very good engineer." The whole hotel leaned way to the right. We sat down and had an amazing home made breakfast of pancakes, eggs and delicious fruit juice, banana-passiont fruit. After breakfast Mauricio told us we were welcome to stay as long as we liked. Evelio ran into some old friends who happened to stop into the hotel, so we stayed. I grabbed a surf magazine of a big table full of them and settled down in a hammock. I read the thing cover to cover, before I knew it we had been there for 2 hours. That morning I think we all got lost somewhere between the amazing breakfast, the creaking bamboo, the warm breeze that flowed freely throughout the entire house and the gentle reggae music that played from speakers somewhere in the ceiling. It was truly an amazing place. Mauricio told me that lots of guests come for 4 days and end up staying 4 weeks. Apparently a guy had come all the way from Alaska and ended up staying for 10 weeks. He didn't have the money to pay so Mauricio told him he could just leave his board and his tent to settle the debt. There was a woman staying in the hotel who was from The Outer Hebrides, it was very nice to hear a familiar accent. Eventually our stay, which had been some 5 or 6 odd hours, had to come to an end.
It was our last day and the swell wasn't exactly cooperating. So didn't had anything to do, so we brainstormed. Someone suggested as a joke, "why don't we see how far north we can drive in a day, do you think Colombia is do-able?". Colombia was too far, unfortunately, but we decided that we had nothing better to do than fill up the car with gas and drive.
We stopped in at a national park called Los Friales which was a big beautiful cove with sea so blue it looked like someone had dyed the water. We continued north and turned onto a beach where we would drive the car on the sand. So we flew along the wet sand at probably 40-50 mph, big smiles all around. We got to a section where there were large boulders all over the beach and a bit of the dune that jutted out towards the sea. Evelio explained that it had once been a point with a river that ran along the side. The sediment from the river built up about 20 meters off shore and makes for some spectacular waves. However all we saw that day were whitecaps and tiny waves breaking on the shore.
At a sign that said "Ice Cold Coconuts" we made a quick pit stop, as you can probably guess Evelio knew the owner, a woman, probably 30, and her kids. He explained the woman had some kind of infection but that she kept getting sicker. Being a doctor, Dave sprang into action and asked to see all the pills she had been prescribed and what the doctors had said. It turned out she had jut been given a bunch of pain killers and anti-inflamatory medicines but nothing for the infection. So Dave and Evelio made the decision to drive up to Manta, one of the bigger cities on the coast, to get her some proper medicine.
From there we kept going north, passing through a place called Puerto Cayo where Dave was determined that he was going to buy a house and live half of each year. Evelio pulled the car over at a wooden building built on a bluff overlooking the road and the beach. It turned out to be a sort of restaurant / surf retreat. Chris and I stayed there to eat lunch and hang out with some of the local guys while Dave and Evelio continued up to Manta. We kept the boards with us in case the wind died down, for up further north there were still decent waves coming in. We had lunch and watched all the other guys go out to surf. They didn't seem to be getting anything particularly good though. They must have failed to see the great right hand wave that was breaking about another quarter mile north. So Chris and I decided that we wanted to go out to the empty peak we had been watching from the restaurant. It was at that moment we realized that neither of us had board-shorts, and that Evelio had taken the leash off my board. So we made do with what he had. Chris wore two pair of boxer shorts and I wore some basketball shorts he had which were about 10 sizes too big. As for the leash, well I asked one of the fisherman at the restaurant if I could borrow some rope, we laughed at my idea but helped me construct a make shift leash all the same. We looked fairly odd to say the least but we didn't care.
The waves ended up being much harder than they looked, isn't always the case? They were powerful too. You could catch them when they broke and ride them into the shore, as it got shallower the wave would start picking up lots of sand and barreling. I got absolutely destroyed on one occasion, falling on my side and getting slammed into the bottom. Sand found its way in every place imaginable but I couldn't help but laugh at my blunder.
After about 45 minutes of surfing we saw Evelio's car stopped on the side of the road above the beach. He honked and we got out.
It was about 5 PM so we packed everything up and I gave the borrowed rope back to the fisherman.
We passed by the coconut stand again and gave the woman her new medicine with instructions from Dave. She was so moved I thought she was going to cry. She insisted that we take some of the beautiful seashells that she was selling from a wooden table. It was a really feel-good moment.
Eventually we made it back to the hotel and started the sad ritual that is packing. One final seafood supper. One last night listening to the waves.
It was a truly amazing week. I made such good friends in Dave, Chris and Evelio. Great companions and people I will never forget.
I cannot say enough about Evelio and his genuine knowledge. He is undoubtedly the best surf guide in Ecuador.
Please contact me for any information regarding the hotels we stayed at, the restaurants or Evelio. I would be glad to help anyone have the amazing experience I had.
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Puerto Lopez from the south.
Sun sets over the fishing boats at Puerto Lopez.
A father and son un-tangle fishing nets at the end of the day.
You couldn't wipe that smile off my face if you tried.
Looking out at La Rinconada. Sadly, not quite big enough to surf.
Me on one of the smaller days at Las Tunas.
Evelio, the best surf guide in Ecuador.
Chris and Dave relaxing at Los Friales National Park.
