Mexico Central America 1978

In the spring/summer of 1978, I met a friend of mine in Oaxaca Mexico. She had left North San Diego County a couple weeks before with a couple friends of hers in a VW van for a trip through Mexico and Central America. Being a seasoned veteran of VW van surf trips to Baja, I knew they wouldn't last long. I got a telephone call from Mel, she and her friends had parted ways and was staying at a hotel in Oaxaca.

I packed up the surfboard and backpack, watched the baggage handlers smash my surfboard in the airplane and off to Oaxaca. After a thrilling landing at the mountainous Oaxaca airport, I found where Mel was staying. It took me about a week or so to get everything I needed for the trip, so she had been there for awhile and was pretty settled in. Remember, this is 1978. Being an attractive woman traveling alone in this part of Mexico was not very safe, so once I got there, she was ready to head south.

We decided the best way to travel and go where we wanted to go was to take the bus. The buses look like they are ready to explode and there are no bus stops, but the system worked pretty well and got people where they needed to go. This is Mel waiting for the bus in Oaxaca on the first day of the trip south.

The first major stop was Tapachula, Chiapas where we told the Mexican mafia ran the whole city and the bus schedule was uncertain. While we were waiting in the bus station, something we would do a lot of, we met some interesting people and I got to meet some of the locals. Eventually, a bus headed to Guatemala City came by and we were southbound once again.

Being a surfer and hauling around a seven foot surfboard, I wanted to head to the beach. After talking with the locals, most who had never heard of surfing or seen a surfboard until they met me, and checking available maps, I figured that the possible surf spots would be hard to get to, so we headed up to Lake Atitlan. We made friends with people in one of the villages and had so much fun we barely got out of there.

In Guatemala City, Mel and I got on the Ticabus, which would take us to San Jose, Costa Rica. In just a few days, we would pass through El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. These countries have a history of conflict and war. Each border crossing required at least one customs stop where everybody and everything was searched. As an American surfer, I was usually the prime suspect.

Crossing the border from Honduras to Nicaragua, there was a noticeable increase in military personnel. There were armed military at all the border crossings and all the banks, I didn't think much of it..

At the overnight bus stop in the capital city, Managua, it was obvious that something was going on. Keep in mind this is 1978; no internet, cable TV or cell phones. We went to a nearby restaurant/bar and were reading the local newspaper when several men approached me. They were angry and it was hard for me to understand what they were saying.

They were angry because they said that Americans involved in drugs had killed people they know. As the only American around, they were taking it out on me. I didn't fully understand at the time, but Nicaragua was in the middle of a civil war between the corrupt, American supported dictator, Anastasio Somoza and the Sandinistas(Sandinista National Liberation Front). Eventually I convinced them that I did not know US President Jimmy Carter personally and I was an average guy just like them.

I went with them to the place, which was nearby, where their friends had supposedly been killed to try and settle things down and see for myself what was going on. It was dark, but people had lights and there was no doubt that someone or something had lost a lot of blood and not that long ago. At the time, the chance of Americans being involved in this(except for me) seemed pretty remote. I would find out later that just the opposite was likely true. If I would have known then what I know now, we would have booked the first plane flight out of there. Not until years later did I learn that this was likely connected to the Iran-Contra affair, or at least American CIA or government operatives supporting the Somoza regime.

I don't recall exactly, but after what I'm sure was a sleepless night in Managua, we were on the Ticabus the next morning and safely in San Jose, Costa Rica the next day. There we booked into the Hotel Lincoln. Everybody was super nice, but after a couple days, we headed out towards the Pacific Ocean.

From San Jose we took the Ferrocarril Electrico al Pacifico west across the mountains and jungles of the Costa Rican interior to Puntarenas. From there we took the ferry across the Gulf of Nicoya and stopped in the small town of Jicaral.

While staying at a small hotel/restaurant/bar in Jicaral, there was a story in the newspaper about a spot where two people had recently drowned. I asked where this place was, since waves good for surfing and dangerous water conditions often go hand in hand. There was also an old black and white photo on the wall of a huge wave and a single palm tree. I asked where the photo was taken. It was the same place where the people drowned.

Today, this area is all beach resorts and surf camps but back in 1978 it was jungle, muddy roads and cattle ranches. We headed out to the coast until the end of the bus line and then set out on foot along the beach.

We slept in hammocks under palm canopies with cement floors used by cowboys working the large cattle ranches carved out of the jungle. Things were pretty good, surfing was good, except for the many sharks. We doing OK until one day, a small plane saw us and buzzed us a couple times yelling at us with a bullhorn. It was hard to understand, but something about a "big storm", so we headed to the nearest "town", which we only knew as Punto Coyote. Not actually a town but a couple concrete block buildings, palm leaf huts and a central pavilion with a cement floor, gas generator and beverage coolers. It was basically a fishing camp and home to some of the ranch workers.

There was a storm coming and it was a big one. I don't know if it was a hurricane or not, but Punto Coyote was wiped out except for the concrete block buildings. I was a wild night of screaming wind, rain and lightning. You could hear palm trees crashing down and when lightning hit you could feel electricity in your legs running along the wet ground. Everybody spent the night huddled in the concrete buildings with water running in one door and out the other.

Everybody survived the storm but I lost my good 35mm camera and several rolls of film with all the photos I had taken to this point of the trip. I helped get the generator and coolers working again so we could have cold drinks and food but the place was devastated and everyone was leaving, we might as well head back to San Jose as well.

Back at the Hotel Lincoln in San Jose, we were decompressing from another once in a lifetime event that seemed to be happening to us once a week on this trip. In San Jose we drank cheap, ice cold beer and ate huge plates of camarones con arroz that cost about fifty cents. Surrounded by turmoil, Costa Rica was a safe, cosmopolitan country.

I took this photo of Mel in our hotel room of the Hotel Lincoln. She is waiting to use the communal shower at the end of the hall. Whenever she used the shower, I promised to stand outside the door and met most of the male occupants of the hotel while doing so. It's one of my favorite photos that survived the trip.

We were having a great time in San Jose. The family that ran the Hotel Lincoln treated us like we were long lost relatives, but after a week or so, we were ready to travel back north through war torn Nicaragua. I was worried, to put it mildly, but I thought if we stayed on the bus and no side trips to massacre sites, we would be OK. Unfortunately, during war, trouble comes to you.

After crossing the Costa Rica/Nicaragua border on the way to Managua, the bus stopped as it frequently did to pickup/unload passengers, when the bus was boarded by a government military unit of one officer and three or four heavily armed soldiers. The bus continued on its way, soldiers standing in the aisle and military vehicles behind us. This was real trouble.

When we pulled into the Ticabus terminal in Managua, the entire place was surrounded by soldiers and military vehicles. After the bus driver stopped and ran off the bus, the military officer began reading the passenger manifest. Passing through different countries, the bus driver holds the passports and has a manifest of the passengers. Being the only Americans and white people on the bus we stuck out like sore thumbs. Everyone on the manifest had exited the bus and it was down to me, Mel and two average looking guys behind us. I knew we were on the passenger manifest, at least I hoped we were, so the army must be after them. After a few extremely tense moments, the officer stepped past the seat Mel and I were sitting in. I stepped into the aisle, grabbed Mel and dragged her past the soldiers in the aisle and off the bus. Later, the officer told me the men were political prisoners that had escaped from jail.

Another sleepless night in Managua and back across the rest of Central America. I had hoped to stop at La Libertad in El Salvador to do a little surfing, but there was no way Mel was going on another side road adventure. Mel was a real trooper through the whole trip. I'm sure she got way more adventure than she bargained for, but that's why you go. The things that happened to us on the road through Manauga had me extremely concerned for our safety. I'm a former Marine and experienced remote Mexico traveler, poor Mel must have been scared shitless.

We left the Ticabus behind in Guatemala and made our way through southern Mexico to Mexico City where we caught the train north through Guadalajara to Tepic in Nayarit. Our trip was nearly over, we'd been through a war and a hurricane, we had a bit of money left. I was able to convince Mel to take one more side trip to San Blas before the last leg of the trip home.

Except for the ever present mosquitoes, San Blas was just what we needed. The town square had foosball tables and was alway hopping. Quarts of Cerveza de la Pacifica were dirt cheap, like fifty cents, if you returned the empty bottle. Fresh seafood was cheap, there was a surf spot down the road, every day about 5:00PM it would rain so you could step outside and get cleaned up and cooled off before dinner.

While we were there, when the waves at the local surf spot got big and out of control, I know Matanchen Bay would be breaking and I would not be able to live with it as a surfer if I didn't have a go.

The waves at Matanchen Bay were good, but not epic. It must take a huge swell to get the wave to break for it's full distance, but it was still like six foot Trestles, only about three or four times as long. The tides and wind were also not my favor, but Matachen Bay was ridden successfully.

I knew this would be it for our trip so I made Mel run down to the ocean for one last photo. The next time she would be dipping her toes in the ocean would be at Stone Steps in Leucadia.

After a week or so in San Blas, some of the locals joined us for a party at our favorite seafood spot where a good time was had by all. We took our last bus ride to Tijuana and crossed the border into San Diego. We called a friend from the San Isidro Jack in the Box to pick us up and take us home back to North County.

Back on the green, green grass of Leucadia, safe and sound. Clean water, porcelain flush toilets, everything. The 7'6" Herbie Fletcher that I took on the trip through Mexico and Central America and my new 6'10" Danny Willette round pintail for the more manageable waves of North San Diego County. So much happened, the kind of things that stay with you for the rest of your life.

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