El Paredon and Guatemala City

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El Paredon Surf Camp

A very punctual (especially for this part of the world) Rafael picked us up from the Jungle Party in Antigua at 9 AM. We had already paid for our previous nights stay in cash, but were still paying for it physically. Tired and hungover, or maybe still drunk, we made introductions and got into Rafael's Suzuki SUV.

The route to El Paredon was scenic and a nice drive. Leaving Antigua we were surrounded by Volcano's, one of which would (Volcan Fuego) occasionally spit out a smoke plume. As we got closer to the coast the humidity and temperature dramatically increased. It really amazes me how a two hour drive in this part of the world can change the entire landscape. As you get closer to the Pacific, the terrain, the people, and the buildings change drastically. I've noticed that in general there is a lot more poverty on the Pacific coast of Central America, it least it appears this way from building standards. Houses are made of scrap metal, wood, and palm. Everything is littered with trash. Dogs are everywhere. Life seems generally harder and there seems to be a lot less resources for making money.

The ride in with Rafael was good...he was pretty interesting and although he struggled a bit with his English he was easy enough to understand and since his English was much much better than my Spanish I'm really in no position to complain. Rafael is from Peru and has been surfing since he was a child. While I don't know his exact age I would guess somewhere in the 40's. We told him about meeting Adolpho, and we found out that Adolpho had broken his back and Rafael had broken his arm surfing this break. We also found out the waves this weekend were not going to be ideal. Rafael had to get back to Antigua so he dropped us off at a boatman who would take us across a canal that led into the town of El Paredon. It is possible to drive as well, but the roads are all dirt and sand it it takes an additional 30-45 minutes.

The boat ride took about 10 minutes and cost about 1 USD. We were met in the town by Manuel who seemed to be Rafael's right hand man. Manuel didn't speak a word of English, and for that matter none of the other people working at the camp did either. The town of El Paredon is about 4 blocks of concrete and metal structures with palm thatched roofs. There is absolutely nothing to do in this town except surf and have children. There was a church that seemed to be the only real place to go to. On the outskirts of town there were little farms and ranches.

Manuel took us to the camp which was definitely a little more rustic than I was expecting. There were four huts, one with one bed, one with a bunkbed, and two with two bunkbeds. There was an outdoor shower, another outdoor shower that was enclosed, two toilets in small mostly open structure, and a kitchen/storage space with a common area that was roofed but had no walls. There was another hut closer to the beach that had four hammocks strung up in it. The days there consisted of laying in a hammock, and attempting to surf waves that were either far too large for me to surf or far to sloppy for anyone to surf. There was only one longboard, and several "foam" boards that were completely water logged. The remainder of the boards were short boards ranging from 5 to 7 feet. I grabbed a fish that was probably a bit under 7 feet. Having only ever surfed longboards this posed a bit of a problem for me.

Where to start with the problems with surfing here. Lets see..the first day the waves were huge. From what we were told the morning was pretty clean but by the time we had arrived they were pretty sloppy. Occasionally there would be a cleaner wave that would come through and hold a nice right or left, but even those were falling apart pretty sharply. The longshore current was the strongest i've ever seen. It was hard to even stand in the water and when you were paddling out it would take you 100 yards down the beach in a minute. This wouldn't have been such a problem if there wasn't also a wicked channel that would suck you strait out to where the largest waves were breaking, which was exactly where I did not need to be. It certainly wasn't ideal...but even with all that I did get a few really good waves and even managed to get up on and turn the board i was riding. The best wave I caught was also the worst.

La Ola De Muerto

Not really sure if my Spanish is right on that but you get the gist. So the state of repair on the boards they had, and especially their leashes, leaved something to be desired. So here's a story about my best wave of the trip. On the first day of surfing i quickly traded my gigantic water logged plastic surfboard out for a smaller fish design. At this point the waves had calmed down a little and they looked manageable. This was mistake in logic number 1. My plan was to let the channel bring me out to where the inside waves were breaking and play around on those and see if i could make it up on this smaller board. I did make it to the smaller waves, and I did make it up. But the "smaller" wave I made it up on was still a nasty powerful pacific wave. As I cut across to the right I noticed the wave breaking behind me and I knew there was no way I would be able to stay on it. This was ok..I would just cut off the back spend a few seconds underwater and regain the relative safety of my extremely floaty surfboard. Mistake in logic number 2. The waves here are way stronger than what we get in Florida. I was underwater a lot longer than desired or expected. This would have been an OK plan i think until i felt the tugging of my board at my ankle pop and give away. Out of air, and out of the reach of my board I had to admit that i was thoroughly outclassed. I made towards my board, which was quickly making it's way for shore, but with the combination of wild ripcurrents and a massive break zone I wasn't making it very far. Luckily I had a friend close by that was able to make it to my and we were able to let the waves push us in on his board. I now know what people mean when they say they had an experience that gave them a greater respect for the power of the ocean. It's not so much that you don't realize it can happen before, it's just that is hasn't so you don't actively think about it. *Special thanks to Tony for dragging me out of the water, without whom this story would have a much different, and probably more exciting, ending.

Anyway after that first day the waves calmed down a lot but they never really formed up to anything very nice. At low tide we were able to walk out to a sandbar and try to catch the waves breaking on the lip of that and surf those in, but that wasn't really surfing it was just kind of jumping on a board and hoping there was enough power in the wave to pick you up.

The camp itself was very relaxing...which is good because there was nothing else to do besides relax. The days were spent in the water, the evenings and nights were spent in a hammock. On the first day we met Corey, a New Yorker that had been travling for the last year or so first through Europe then chasing waves, and Diane a Guatemalan he had met a few days prior. They were both fun to talk with and Diane was very friendly and helpful. She helped arrange a ride to El Salvador for Corey and myself after we found out we were both headed there. The second day a group of students from Antigua arrived but they kept to themselves to say the least. A little before sunset we would venture out into town to get snack and drinks from the local tienda's, which seemed to be connected to peoples houses. The residents of that town were clearly not used to Gringos' because we got a lot of really odd looks, both from people and curious dogs. While there was a decided lack of meat at the surf camps meals, there was no lack in town. You couldn't walk ten feet without tripping over a pig and or chicken and many people had geese, ducks, and an occasional turkey.

For as little as there was to do at the camp the time went be pretty quickly and before we knew it we were headed back to Guatemala City with Rafael and a younger kid that came out to bodyboard.

Guatemala City

The first thing you notice about Guatemala City (and I've found this in pretty much every major Central and South American city i've been to) is the smog. While the rest of the country doesn't exactly have the freshest air in the world, due mostly to them burning EVERYTHING all the time, it's nothing like the city. It's absolutely choking. Eventually you do get used to it, but coming from the beach and then through the mountains it can be a bit overwhelming. With a little difficulty we made it to our hotel. Partly because the address system here it's super confusing. 2nd ave 12-28. What the hell does that mean? Nobody knows.

Our hotel, Best Western Stofella, was one of the nicest hotels I've stayed in..ever really. Which makes it even stranger that no one seemed to know where it was. For US 80 a night we got a spacious room with two beds, a large bathroom, and a little office style room with a day bed in it and a walk in closet with built in wooden dressers.

First order of business was to get me some flip-flops as somehow i forgot mine at home. This caused several issues. *first, on the first day i wore shoes i had never worn before and they rubbed a massive hole in my ankle. *second, my Teva sandals, my only other option, sat right on the aforementioned hole in my ankle. *Third, my Teva sandals smell incredibly bad, which seems to be a problem with Teva sandals.

*As a side note, not having flip-flops at a blacksand beach...not a good idea.

So, checked out a local mall and got flip-flops and got rid of the Tevas. First impression of Guatemala City...really Americanized. There was an American style shopping mall, a Hooters, a Buffalo Wild Wings, Applebees, every fast food chain imaginable, and sushi joints on every corner.

Cabbed over to Parque National which houses the former presidential palace, now a museum, a large church, and very near by is a large tourist market..you know the kind you get pick pocketed at. Not really all that much to see here honestly..took all of an hour. Cost us 8 to get there, and 5 to get back.

Later in the night we got Ceviche at a Peruvian place and then set off to find out what the nightlife was like. We were in Zona Viva, which was supposed to be the happening district. On a Monday night, though, this is just not the case. We wandered up and down blocks looking for anything open to stop in to. There was a heavy police presence on the street, an entire bus full in fact traveling in a pack. Four or five of them had full riot gear on. They were stopping into local restaurants and asking questions of the management and then sauntering around in the street until the next restaurant. It was later explain to us that a drive by shooting had occurred a few nights prior and they were making their presence known, although they didn't seem to exactly know how to do that so they just kind of aimlessly wandered around in a big pack.

We tried to go to a casino but in order to play you had to fill some crazy form out so we scrapped that idea. We ended up at a bar called Cheers, owned by a Canadian expat. I can see the place getting pretty jammed on busy nights. The owner, Mark, was an interested guy. He ended up in Guatemala 18 years ago after hopping on a early morning flight still drunk from the previous night..or perhaps week...of drinking. From what i gather he didn't much care for his job, or the states (he was living in Cali) and a buddy of his said Guatemala was a good place to be and that was all the convincing it took. He's owned this Cheers place for 17 years and seems to have a pretty good deal for himself. Taking our previous advice of the responsible travels creed and knowing we had to be up at 5:30 we decided to stay at Cheer until he kicked us out and shut the place down. Good times.

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Photos

Volcan Fuego
Ash plume

El Paredon
This was the kitchen facility

El paredon
Our room

Sort sort of disaster
People looking into the back of an ambulance. I found it amusing

Comments

[Shelly]

Livin the life..
You just might be cut out for blogging... Random, exciting, relaxing and basically floating through the wave of life.. Sounds amazing.. Too bad we all can't do the same... Looking forward to your next adventure!

[Branden]

No reason why you can't.