Antigua

It's cloudy here up in the guatemalan mountains. The volcanoes rise up all around Antigua. I'm wearing a jacket for the first time since baja. I must admit its pretty incredible.

Antigua feels like the resort destination of Guatemala. However! It's not completely stacked with gringos. Most of the vacationists seem so be from Latin or central America. It's not my favorite town I've been in since we've left. You have to pay for parking, covers for bars, and just buying a beer at a local tienda is over a dollar a beer. But! It is beautiful and worth the night we spent here.

Since coop and henry arrived, the surf bug is back.... Or never left. This morning we will be hitting the surf train again and heading south to el Salvador to find some waves for a week before starting our language school in xela.

Guatemala!

Big day! Here in Guatemala in xela. No problems. Details about border and travels to come!

Barra de la Cruz aka La Jolla

It's Christmas time! We are sitting here watching a 10 piece band play in the town square on Christmas eve. They all do a simple dance that even the little ninos and ninas are doing perfectly! I could probably find my way around the dancefloor here. It's goes step step step step step step with a little handrolling and voila! Just gotta add a little personal spice and you've got yourself a Mexican fiesta.

Barra de la Cruz is a well known surf wave due to a video that Rip Curl put out in 2006. Everybody knows about it and is a little bummed about the bigger crowds. Fortunately, it's the off season now and nobody is here! The local kids and a few expats are the whole crowd. They say in the summer, camera crews line the whole shore with the pro surfers tearing it up.

The wave comes from south swell running into a big rock cape. You take off on this big, rolling left right next to the rocks. It's super dramatic and wild feeling as the water pulls you around and you watch the swells explode up onto the cape beside you.

And the wave..... Well. It was big! I swear I watched some of the locals drop waves that were double overhead! however, despite it's size, it was relatively friendly and the rides went forever!

So merry Christmas! The trip continues south and we plan to cross to Guatemala very soon.

Nexpa, the End of the world, and zipolite

Nexpa is something else. Perfect left point break. A little crowded on the wave. Had an epic while spearfishing! Got trapped in a mine field of urchins in thigh deep water and waves crashing in behind me! Freaking awful. Lots of cursing my predicament and standing in tripod position with the speargun as a third leg for five minutes with waves breaking on my back trying to figure out how to get through. Managed to only step on two and make it out alive. no more urchin epics please!

Then....

Bam! End of the world happened. We spent it in puerto Escondido, known for it's monster barrels. Unfortunately that only happens in the summer, so we played pool and crashed at a hostel with our Canadian friends, Kari and Fred, the skydivers who live in a green Mercedes box van.
Next day was a little rough, but we survived the apocalypse and headed south to Zipolite! It's got a good hippie vibe going on and all sorts of characters wandering around. I've unfortunately gotten a little of the stomach bug so I'm taking it easy and taking some time to write up about the trip. Gotten a little lazy with the camera. Sorry dudes. I'll get back on the photo train. Iof need to start taking photos other than epic sunsets and long, sandy beaches. Unfortunately, that's all there is here!

Surf spot x

I recently realized that part of the beauty of a trip like this is all the discovery along the way. We spent five nights on a beach with a small town just up the road. We shared the beach with a few other campers and durning the weekend the local crowd would show. It was a complete flip from salyulita with it's commercial atmosphere. There was a Christmas celebration going on and the locals gave us free cervesas and birria, like roast beef with tortillas.

Mainland Mexico

Tonight Skyler and I are sitting by the fire, camped on another incredibly beautiful beach here in Arroyo Seco, Mexico. We've been incredibly fortunate on this trip with the way things have progressed. We've met so many awesome people who keep pointing us to incredible places.

It's day number ten on the mainland. We've managed to surf everyday and camped for free every night but one.

After saying goodbye to our friends from the ferry, we bolted out of Mazatlan and headed southbound in search of waves. We camped on the beach in San Blas and ripped around with some local super talented kids that evening and next morning. Tiny waves, tons of no see ums, time to move on.

Next! We peaced out in search of bigger surf and headed towards the surf town of Salyulita. While in route, we ran into some locals and stumbled our way into an adobe fort/hacienda. The surf was across the river and the caretaker let us camp there for free! We stayed four awesome nights and won't be forgetting this spot! I'd tell you exactly where it is, but part of what makes it awesome is finding these places.

We stayed in salyulita for a night, which is your standard gringo party vacation town. nothing too special. Steep prices, packed beach, urchin in the foot! I will say it was nice to meet some pretty ladies rather than just remote beach with skyler. But! One night and on to the quest for waves.

Punta Mitas is another little resort town with a few different breaks around. We ended up at la launcha.
La launcha is at a beach owned by a resort. It's guarded, and he only lets in people who have surf boards! We met three australians, two Canadians, and one Brit, who were short two boards. It turned out we had to extras so the guard let everybody in. The Canadians were super nice and let us sleep on the pull out couch at their holiday inn (first bed in 20 days) resort in puerto Vallarta. Traveler spirit is awesome!

Now, we are in Arroyo Seco. The beach is empty (our nearest neighbors are at the opposite end a half mile away) and the waves are stout! Stoked to be here. Can't wait to see what the morning brings.

El conejo surf break

This was our last stop in baja before taking Craig to La Paz. It was finally warm enough to surf in a thin wetsuit. Skyler and i finally moved to short boards! Super fun. The water was clear and after one day of flat water and waiting, the surf was in! We surfed three days, met the locals, spearfished for dinner (managed to spear our first two lobsters!) and sent Craig off with a bang.
The spot is another camp full of surfer rvs,vans and toyotas. There are outhouses, shower 'frescas' and trash bins. First class camping! We paid 4 bucks a person to Nardo, who is quite the character.

Agua Verde

After "The Wall", we departed on HWY 1 across Baja California to the turnoff for a formula dirt road to Agua Verde, a small Mexican fishing community on the Sea of Cortez.
This was the first real test for us with the spearguns, and man spearfishing is fun! We managed to eat fresh fish every night in Agua Verde with our double band 44" speargun with no problem at all. What an amazing place to get in the water! Tons of pretty fish and some ugly ones I didn't mind shooting for dinner!
On the beach, we were the only gringos carcamping in a corner right next to the town. A few gringo sailboats in the bay was the only other gringo action there for four days. A fisherman or niño would wander over every now and then and say hi and talk with us a little. The pace was slow during the day as most if their fishing was done at night. Very friendly people. Free camping. Definitely a 5 star stop.

The wall surf camp

After cuatro Casas, we made our way out into the deserts of baja and camped for the night. Saguaro cactuses, Joshua trees and these really funky trees that came right from the Dr. Seuss books grow there among granite boulders. The boulders are similar to J Tree granite boulders and make awesome evening first ascents.
Early the next morning we made our way to the wall surf camp. You drive for an hour into the desert and find a gringo truck and small rv camp full of surfers who reside there for up to 6 months during the good surf season. There are two separate breaks at the wall; the bay, which is a mellow right beginner break, and the point break, which boasts a much more aggressive and larger right wave.
We camped for Four nights and met a few of the annual residents at the thanksgiving potluck (the party of the year!) and surfed every day till sunset. There are super cool rock walls, sculptures, and dutch ovens built by one of the surfers that make the desert campsites pretty awesome. Wish we had more time here but we are on a crunch to get Craig to La Paz so it's off to the Sea of Cortez!

Cuatro Casas, Baja

Packing up in LA the night before crossing the border, we hadn't decided on a place to spend the first night. Skyler hopped on the computer and we checked a surf report to find a spot to camp. We found Cuatro Casas Hostel and for no particular reason decided to end stay there with cheap camping and surf. After "battling" through Tijuana, (not nearly as epic or intense as everybody thinks) with a thousand California license plates crossing with us, we took the toll road south and realized our google maps directions to Cuatro Casas said "turn right on road". No name. Just road. So we estimated the distance, stopped at a gas station, and with the help of everybody at the gas station, we managed to make get directions in spanish to Cuatro Casas.

It turns out it's a hostel with nothing around but a few fishing shacks, a gray whale skeleton, and miles of empty coastline. Quite the spot. It's hard to find a place to camp on the ocean anywhere for five bucks a night with nobody else around.

So, it's been three days of awesome surfing and getting used to the water again. The water is cold! I was comfortable wearing a thin long sleeve with a short sleeve wet suit over it. It's hard to move but at least my teeth aren't chattering! And remember! If you plan a trip to surf in baja, bring water booties because walking on the reef in bare feet is sharp. I now understand what it's like to go through the washing machine.

The Mexico border

It is now 5 pm here in L.A. We have 9 hours till we depart at 2 am to hit the border at 4 am and scoot down baja a ways in the daylight.


Prepping today involved a massive stock up on food and supplies and putting a few logistics in line. Soon we will be driving off into the dark for a full on adventure through Mexico with three gringos, three surfboards and plenty of miles ahead.

Apparently the new standard for car insurance is that the vehicle has to be no older than 15 years in order for it to be covered for vehicle theft. Unfortunately we fall short of that bar with our 94 4runner. Looks like we may be outta luck if the car is stolen.

Cheers

Red Rocks, Joshua Tree, and to the Border!

Coop on Warmup Handcrack in Indian Creek

Craig sending in the dinosaur suit on Halloween in Indian Creek

After departing Utah, we headed southwest to Red Rocks, Nevada.  We were on a mission to put up some longer multipitches after doing a weeks worth of single pitch cragging in Utah.

On our first day, we climbed a classic 9 pitch 5.8 route called Crimson Chrysalis.  It was a long day of steep,  juggy sandstone and three person hanging belayswith Craig and Skyler.  The climb is beautiful!  All 9 pitches are extremely steep and continue up one nonstop face all the way to the summit.  There wasn't a single belay ledge all the way to the top!  After reaching the summit, we started our rappel and ended up finishing the last three rappels in the dark on a semi-epic.

Unfortunately, this time of year, the days are too short to put up the other classics we were looking at (Epinephrine mainly) and the weather rolled in.  It ended up getting super windy and blew the rain around Even a little snow came through.  We ended up heading to a local Nevada biker bar for the evening and sticking to some single pitch routes the next day.  We dinked around and headed south to Joshua Tree  in hope of warmer weather!

Coop on the classic cave route that's perfect for sunny, hot, desert weather

Believe it or not, cracks like this aren't even named in Indian Creek.  This was labeled "unknown crack 5.10"

The Supercrack of the Desert.  Excellent climb!

We reached Zion and this is from the top of Angels Landing hike. 

Our Zion campsite

enroute to Angels Landing

Joshua Tree Camping

Craig working through "Head Over Heels 5.10a" 

Head over heels 5.10a

the original "J-Tree"

5.10X

The brutal desert life

a small monster on a 5.5x (Skyler)

Craig being awesome

Skyler racing the evening light on Double Cross in Joshua Tree 5.7 classic

Scouting out a boulder problem called pigpen in the dark!  

Skyler Sending pigpen V4 the next day!

We reached Joshua Tree. It was the coldest yet!  We were getting frozen fingers in the shade and so we had to stick to climbing in the sun.  However!  we managed to put up some of the harder routes of the trip and I managed to put up a few trad 5.10s myself.  Stoked on that!

Illusion Dweller 10.B in Joshua Tree.  

There is a place in Joshua Tree called "The Chasms".  The locals say the tradition is to walk through these passages at night with no headlamps.  It involved squeeze chimneys, lying on your back in small passages, boulder hopping, and it's really not recommended unless you meet one of the other dirt baggers who can show you through!

Now, we are in LA and getting ready to cross the border to Mexico!  We will be departing day after tomorrow from here at 2am to race through Tijuana and down the peninsula to put some miles between us and the border.  After that, it's surfboards, coronas, and spearfishing!  I bought a legitimate speargun that looks like something from James Bond. I'm excited to see if I can manage to bring in some dinner.

I apologize for my lack of updates but my computer is giving me the blue death screen and I'm hoping to get it repaired tomorrow before we cross borders.