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Daily Archives: May 11, 2010

its a testament to how awesome sayulita is that despite being here for almost nine months, we have only done one road trip. its just so easy to live here –  nayou has plenty of friends, the beach and surf is just down the road, and we love our house. now that our departure is imminent, we started wondering whether we should have explored more and so we decided to take a quick trip up north to a town called san blas. we went with our friends sondra and risa. oh, and risa’s dog snickers as well.

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the drive up there was gorgeous – lots of mango groves and long, wide beaches. we drove at a leisurely pace and slowed it down even further once we got into town. risa is from san blas so we had the inside track on all the good surf spots and places to go. she took us to stoner’s surf camp, and that’s pretty much where we ended up spending most of our time. the place is a big palapa with some cabins and is right on the beach. they serve food and you can lounge around in the hammocks they have scattered around the place. paradise.

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the only things keeping san blas from becoming as developed are the mosquitoes and the sand flies. they come out in droves during sunrise and sunset, and are impossible to avoid. the sand flies are so small that they can get through mosquito nets! luckily we were staying in an apartment in town and not on the beach, so things weren’t too bad, but nayou still came home with tons of bites on his face.

the surf in san blas was phenomenal. there are a bunch of breaks to choose from, but we just surfed one called second jetty. on our second day i had what might just be the best surf day of my life. in the morning we went to second jetty where the waves where huge – around 3-4 meters (10-13 feet) – and steep, but also very forgiving. brenda and i caught some heart pumpers out there! one of the things i love about surfing is that it really challenges you to put faith in yourself. on bigger waves my mind often starts freaking out when i’m about to drop down its face, but i’ve learned to trust my abilities and trust my body. sure there is skill involved but its also about just letting go. when you’re dropping down the face of that wave there’s no time for thinking – you’re completely in the moment. yet another way that yoga and surfing are similar to each other. check out risa and sondra’s post-surf faces. those are some happy ladies right there!

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for sunset we went to a place called aticama. it was a left break so we got to practice our backside turns and take in the beautiful views. the best part about both places? there were never more than four or five people in the water. having all the waves to yourself is such a special thing, especially coming from the crowded waters of sayulita.

the town of aticama is a weird place though – there were lots of guys ogling the ladies as they went out to surf, and there was one guy who kept on following nayou and i around, but we managed to shake him and have a good time running around.

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on our last day we spent the morning taking a boat through the mangroves. the area around san blas has many rivers feeding into the ocean and is home to many birds and crocodiles.

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the boat took us to this restaurant at the end of the river where we could also splash around in the water. luckily for us they had fenced off a section so it would be croc free! as of late nayou has been obsessed with being in water. he was ambivalent about the ocean and pools until last week when some switch inside him flipped. now he wants to swim at every chance he can get!

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we were only gone for four days but it was a great adventure for all of us. on the way home we hit up one of the many colourful fruit stands that line the highway, making brenda very happy. the yellow stack on the right are mangoes. a sight like that is the stuff fantasies are made of.

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two days after we got home we took the plunge and booked our tickets to maryland. now we have a concrete departure date, which is may 29th. 18 more days to go. its really hard to believe that our stint here is coming to an end – we all knew the day had to come sooner or later, but our stay here has been so awesome its hard to imagine going anywhere else and being as happy. perhaps this will mean that we’ll try and come back here permanently later… who knows? at least our next stops will be into the loving arms of nayou’s grandparents.