there are not a lot of japanese people in mexico. or at least around sayulita. in the nine months that we have been here, i have only met one other person from japan! that all changed when we went up to san blas and had the good fortune of meeting kazu and hiro. these guys are sponsored surfers travelling from california down to panama with the intent of catching as many waves as possible on the way. i hit it off with them immediately and invited them to come and stay with us in sayulita. a couple of days later they showed up and we have spent the last week hanging out.

having visitors is always cool because i get to see sayulita through a fresh set of eyes. i was once again reminded of how special it is, and how lucky we are to have spent time in a place like this. i hope that we can come back soon, permanently or otherwise!

hiro brought his water-proof digital camera and snapped these photos of us surfing. brenda and i have been talking about photographing each other in the water for months, so it was like a dream come true. i think the photo of brenda captures everything that is cool about surfing. just look at the smile on her face!

i enjoyed hanging out with hiro and kazu a lot. i haven’t really had a chance to hang with guys much out here for one reason or another, so having some “man time” was very refreshing. plus being able to speak japanese was cool too!

we introduced them to guacamole and they shared their stash of quality japanese rice. these guys have been hauling a 5kg (11lb) bag of rice from japan with them along with their backpacks and surfboards. now thats dedication.

hiro and kazu both hail from osaka, although hiro now lives in miyazaki. hiro’s descriptions and photos of miyazaki have made us very keen to go and visit. it more or less sounds like a japanese version of sayulita, complete with tropical weather, nice surf and plenty of nature. apparently you can make a good living there teaching english too! it has got brenda and i thinking and scheming…

as usual there was lots of hanging out at the beach. we had an even balance of great surf days and mellow rest days.

staying sober was not necessarily our forte.

staying clothed is definitely not nayou’s forte. this kid can barely keep his shirt on for the five minute drive to the beach. and we’ve given up on pants at this point.

kazu and hiro left this morning to continue their trek south. even though we’ve only known each other for a short (but intense) while, i know that we are going to be hanging out with these two sometime, someplace in the future.

their departure also marks the end of our stay in sayulita. from here on out we are going to be running errands and getting rid of our stuff in preparation for ours. only ten more days to go. eek!