We well and truly settled into Sayulita beach life…once we had recovered from our Tequila hangovers that is! The weather was perfect, all of the dogs just doing their own thing on the beach are friendly, the horses running up and down the surf don’t trample you and the surf looks absolutely great.
Alex has been desperate to have a go and where better to do it!I’ll let him tell you all about it!

As I understand it now, my surfing experience is similar to quite a few other people. No less horrific for that information but at least I am not alone. It started with a recommendation from one of the girls we met on our Tequila fueled night. Alisson told me how the instructor was great and that they took it easy and she managed to get up on the board etc. I headed out the next morning with my hang over to seek out this guy. My luck was in full force and I ran into the girls on the beach who took me to the surf shop. OK it was $45 and the guy wasn’t budging. I said yes and arranged to go back later that day once my hangover had calmed down a bit.

On the way back down to beach I enquired with a few other places and the price was around $40 so I resigned myself to the cost. Just before I stepped off the beach a local guy grabbed me and said he could teach me to surf for $20! I chatted with him for a bit and was sold. My hangover didnt reside and it was the next day before I felt up to it. I wandered down and found my guy relaxing, coconut in hand with a straw sticking out the top. He introduced me to my teacher and away we went.

First things first. I laid on the board on the beach and learn to get up. I was shown once then practiced for a minute and got up 10 times. “that will do” he said and we headed into the deep end so to speak. All the ameatures practiced at the far end of the beach with the 3 foot swells but we headed straight into the 6 ft swells…. I should have started to worry at this point but what do you do? The guy is the instructor and what do I know. He said if…and only if I fall off to make sure I fell on my back VERY FLAT as there are rocks in the deep end…. again I should have questioned this whole idea.

We swam out and I instantly got wiped out by a 6 ft wave. Rolling under the water, rocks scraping my back I really should have been asking questions. I was then shown how to pull off an emergency roll if that happened again, basically flip the board upside down and hide underneath it. Finally we got out and I pointed toward the beach. “Paddle, Paddle, Paddle” was screamed at me, suddenly I was been rocketed towards the beach and I figure I should get up. It kind of went like a goal keeper diving to stop the ball in a game of football. Mid air I recalled in my mind “land on your back, flat” So it then turned into a backwards belly flop. Boom! the wave still behind me it rolled me over and over until I finally got up for air. As I surfaced the second and third wave hit me just as hard. My instuctor had forgotten to mention the waves come in three’s. Now surfacing again and almost back on the beach I could hear ” Paddle, Paddle, Paddle”. The trick now I guessed was to get back behing the crashing waves before the triple waves build up momentum again. I guessed I had about 30 seconds. Mouth, eyes, nose and ears full of salt water I clambered back onto the board tentativeley paying attention to my footing on the sharp rocks below. Probably through adrenalin and fear of been triple wave slammed again I made it back to my ever smiling instuctor. “Did you get up?” he asked. Before I could answer he shouted “Paddle, Paddle, Paddle”. This experience was repeated no less than 10 times before I physically couldn’t paddle, see or breath properly. I clambered onto the beach through the rocks to see the look on Lisa’s face. It was the look of fear and anxiety. “You OK” she asked in a faint voice.

I turned to see through blood shot eyes another surf instrutor grabbing my instructor and giving him hell. I dont know what he was saying but it wasn’t good. Lisa ran off to grab some water and I paced up the beach to return my surf board. No body at the surf shop even looked at me and I had made it back down the beach before the two intuctors had finished their dicussion. “Maybe we try the easier end now?” I was asked. I couldnt really see at that point and I must have muttered something along the lines of “manyana”. My instructor said “If you get asked by anyone if you enjoyed your lesson, say Yes. They want to throw me off the beach”…. Enough said.

I had been so brave watching him go through all of this. I was ready to go in and rescue him several times Bay Watch style (with remarkably less style no doubt) but stood my ground as he always tells me not to worry so much. I watched him  nearly get wiped out by other surfers so many times, I watched him come off and worried he might not come back up and I watched the board almost face plant him nearly everytime he came off! Still, it wasn’t until I saw him walking out of the surf (looking amazingly buff and unbelievably gorgeous) and had finished gaping at him that I realised as he got closer that he probably wasnt ok. He had very little balance, his eyes were bloodshot and he could barely here me! I ran to get him some water and food (always the cure) while he returned his board. He was heading towards me as I came back and said he had had enough for one day.

I sat him down and he put his head in his hands to rest. As he did, salt water POURED out of his nose! It poured out of his ears and he looked exhausted. I felt so bad for letting him go in! We laughed about it on the night and said we would draw up an alternative surf lesson. It would of course include being hit repeatedly with a 9 foot surf board whilst being sprayed alternately with a firemans hose of sea water and sand whilst having rocks thrown at you. All of this whilst trying to balance on your knees and paddling at pace with your arms! Not my idea of fun!

So with Alex being unable to walk or go back out on the waves we decided we should really get back on the road as we have only 16ish days to drive 1550 miles over to Cancun in time to collect Alex’s Mum, who is coming to join us for Christmas! We have booked a house on the beach for the holiday season…but more about that later!
So after enjoying the free road so much we made the decision to hit it again…but this time for the 250 mile journey to our next destination Tequila…where they make Tequila!
We set off and within 6 miles realised we had made a mistake this time! This free road was not like the last.
The potholes were only comparable to the topes…and less distinguishable until you had a whole wheel in them! The potholes did not discriminate and I am sure they were Acme potholes that dashed under your wheels when trying to swerve to avoid them! Once we had become accustomed to the pothole, tope mix we came across a whole new thing! Whole portions of the road missing! On the steep, death drop side of course! The lorries use the free roads as do tractors and they are all single laners so these obstacles are thrown in for good measure! All of this to contend with and THEN we find ourselves climbing….and climbing…and climbing! We must have been at least 9000 feet on the first climb!!!! All the way up…and then all the way back down the other side, just to repeat the process! Peggy was not a happy bunny after four minimum 9000 feet climbs and she was making a whole new world of noise! It took us 8 hours to travel 250 miles! Poor Peggy, Poor Alex, Poor me! At one point on the journey I completely lost the plot when we were going around a particularly treachorous bend and the fridge door swung open. EVERY single item that had been in the fridge was now all over the floor! I threw everything back in, but the thing that tipped me was the half tin of sweetcorn…STILL IN ITS WATER…that was now rolling up and down the floor! Of course on such bad roads Alex couldn’t just stop so I was tring to get everything back in the fridge, all the time swearing profusely and getting hit repeatedly by the fridge door as it swung too and fro with the motion! By the time Alex had stopped I had everything but the sweetcorn cleared up and he turns around to ask what the problem is and I lost it and even cried! It was so ridiculous but of course I didn’t realise this until I had finished sobbing over the sodding spilled sweetcorn.
It was a tough exhausting day and poor Alex aching all over did most of the driving as the roads were so bad. When we finally arrived it was too late to find any Tequila so we found a campsite in someones back garden and we were about ready to kill each other so we had tea and watched a movie in bed! Don’t worry, we were soon friends again once we realised that the long hard day was over!

I guess that means that the moral of todays story is that there is no point crying over spilled sweetcorn!

Find out what happens next on our traveling wedding adventure!