Through The Eyes of Francisco

About a year ago to the day I arrived in Nicaragua, Sam and I were sitting in a restaurant outside of New Haven, CT for DJ Harris' wedding.  It was snowing outside so badly we were concerned about how we were going to get from the rehearsal dinner back to the hotel only 2 miles away.  Sam told me he was heading to Nicaragua, not sure where in, for a stint with the peace corps.  His spanish was ok, he was clean shaven, very white, wearing a tie and while he did not seem frightened of the prospect of going to Nicaragua, I don't think he could picture himself where I saw him 2 weeks ago.

Allison, my girlfriend, and I saw Sam for the first time pounding on the glass at the airport when he spotted us.  He was shaggy haired, sun kissed (almost burnt really), had a mustache (which he later shared with he had been working on for some time) over his massive grin, rocked his classic Hawaiian shirt, and was spouting spanish at the rental car people before I had a chance to use my awful Spanish.  This was still Sam "Sambo" Shepard but he had added an additional 50 blades to his Swiss Army Knife persona which has also been wet by the Pacific Ocean and dried in hot as Hadies Nicaraguan air for the last 8 months.

Our plan was to grab our surfboards and head north on a surfing expedition for a week before scrambling back to Managua to pick up more Richmond grads for the second portion of Allison and my Vacation and Sam's break from school.  After dealing with a baggage delay we headed west, to the hottest place I've ever been to, and picked up more surfers/peace corps friends and then headed to.... a secret place I'm not going to tell you the name of....

Everyone kept telling us, "eh waves aren't good there" or "tides all wrong" or "check out the bay" or even (to paraphrase) You must not be surfers if you're about about that place.  Allison, Sam and I were all dead set on checking this place out.  Allison had been looking at pictures of it when the wave was great, I'd gotten nerdy and done some swell and ocean research, Sam had talked to some friends in Nicaragua about the wave.  We had put all our eggs in one basket before we got there and after driving down a road that required everyone to get out of the car so I could blast through a creek bed, destroyed the shocks on the car and maneuvered around multiple cattle herds we were not going to turn around.  We got out of the car, set up the boards, and walked down the small rock path to the beach.  It looked ok from where we popped out on the beach.  The sky was over cast and we were still about 100 yards or more from the water.  Finally, we were doubting our decision to scope the wave out.  Once we got to the waters edge the sky opened up a little and we saw this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75470591@N05/6786374183/sizes/z/in/photostream/

We had this wave all to ourselves for the remainder of the day.  It was world class.  We were paddling out easily. Catching wave after wave. Joking about how wrong everyone was and enjoy the ocean and beach alone.  Rather than gamble on another spot we stayed at our mystery spot for a few days.  Thanks to our friend Philip, we were able to walk from our hostel in the village to the wave via an old jeep trail in the woods/jungle then through a hole in a barbwire fence and lastly a romp between beach reeds which popped us out next to the wave.  The hike itself was almost as amazing and fun as the wave.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75470591@N05/6786457703/in/photostream/

oh yeah. AND the waves only got better throughout our stay.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75470591@N05/6786461705/in/photostream/

Now, when are we going back to this spot?