Out Here in Mexico, Chapter 9: Sayulita. by risa
Sayulita
by MK
Shortly after my return to my working vacation, Eugenie rolled into port with the J 120 and a bunch of younger, tan, happy students who had been aboard since Cabo. She had spent a month and a half with students on the boat sailing all the way down much of the coast of the Americas from San Francisco. She had fog, sun, doldrums, wind, and caught a bunch of mahi, dorado, bonito, and tuna from which she made sashimi for the students. Since San Diego she had given up on wearing her top…French. The mostly male crew did not complain.
On our first day off we went house scouting. I decided we needed a surf break so we headed 35 minutes north to Sayulita. As soon was we drove in she said ‘I want to live here,’ and I said ‘Done.’
A few days later we came back and hit the streets asking locals about renting a casita. Eventually we found ours and jumped on it. We live at 14 Calle Pelicanos and it is about a 6 minute jog to the beach. We have a beach cruiser bike that this guy has loaned us for surf checks and other miscellaneous errands. I have a 6’8” and a 7’8” and Eugenie has two 8’6”s and this other guys leaves his 9’0” in our house so we have plenty of boards to choose from.
The gringo castillos are up the hill and we are on the edge of a solidly all Mex barrio. Across the street there is a sketchy open air pool hall on the second floor of a buidling that looks out on the jungle, where you can bring your own beer and play for 16 pesos per hour — we plan on becoming locals there.
The house itself is charming, now that we have it set up, and there is a pull out couch for visitors.
Sayulita is definitely a longboard wave but it has its days when the Norths push in, and there are plenty of nearby spots to hike or drive to that are pretty high quality.
The town is pretty trendy and sports the ‘I just took a semester off college to learn to surf’ girls in place of the white whales at the resort I work out of. The local surfers absolutely rip and 2 Mexican national champs live here. So you have all types in the line up and two places to buy espresso in the town square. Luckily, it really retains most of its Mexican charm despite the tsunami of Norteamericanos.
Lying in bed at night in our house you generally hear at least 4 or 5 dogfights per night, along with the local fiesta or blaring music (that does in fact shut down at a reasonable hour) and roosters which start at about 3 am. I have finally managed to tune it all out though and sleep like the dead.
We did find a scorpion in Eugenie’s shower, rather disconcerting. We named him Oscar and kept him in a tupperware feeding him moths and grasshoppers until we set him free in the bushes in order to maintain good scorpion karma. We are not in the resort anymore I guess.
I can surf everyday if I want to before and after work. So most of the time, living here is like a dream. Usually when there is a swell I get up at 6:30, make coffee, bike down to the wave, watch the sun come up with my coffee, then go home to grab my board and hit it for an hour before leaving for work.
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