We get a late start out of Huatulco and by the time we reach Puerto Escondido I am ready to rekindle my love affair with "La Punta". On the very far southern end of the several mile Playa Zicatela, otherwise known as The Mexican Pipeline, there is a rocky point break that can be a lot of fun to surf. Especially when you are tired of the brutal close out barrels that MexPipe can serve up on a minute by minute basis. Each drop at MexPipe is a possible broken board. Each time you go for broke and paddle with everything your arms and legs have in them, then pop to your feet to ride the blue walls, there is a significant chance of injury. It can make for very stressful surfing conditions. Therefore, the point break can be a nice little change of pace. I fell in love with this place in 2001, during my first Mexican Odyssey when I drove from San Francisco all the way to the Yucatan.




After losing three boards off the top of the truck, blown off ironically in an area known as La Ventosa, or very windy, I had no board when I arrived at four in the morning to uptown Puerto Escondido. I took a cab to the point and slept on the beach until dawn. When I awoke the next morning the dawn patrol surfers were admiring the waves with hoots and calls in Spanish. It was a big swell, and the waves were wrapping around the farthest outcropping of rock, where normally they break way, way inside of that spot. It must have been a good 8-12 foot, and I was stoked, except - no board. I had to rent a fun shape from a very cool guy who lives 6 months in the states teaching Spanish in Colorado, and 6 months teaching English to the locals here in Puerto. Once equipped I stepped up my learning curve and my confidence level. Those ten or twelve days that I spent living in a tiny Bungalow for less than five bucks a night, surfing three times a day, reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Autumn of the Patriarch and eating fresh fish and fruit were the real genesis of my surfing career. I had already become addicted to the thrill and Adrenaline Rush of the sport back at my home break Ocean Beach San Francisco, but this was warm water, tropical . . . just different.




It reinforced the notion that traveling to far off destinations to score epic surf was a good way to spend your Summer. Well, with this memory of my first visit to this place, I paddle out, hoping to rekindle the flame of memory. But instead another notion was reinforced. That the ocean can and will change. Conditions that are magical at one time, may not be so glorified the next. There was less sand built up around the inside rock where the waves pitch and throw their energy, so that meant I had to take off almost on top of the rock in order to get into them. But the locals are all dialed in and they don't like sharing very much. Two hours out there and I am only able to get two rides to show for it. That is not a good ratio. Finally, just before sunset, I catch a good one. Instead of working with it, I get too fancy and stall on my second top turn which denies me access to the best sections of the wave. Then I snatch a real one, do some turns, pump down the line to get speed and right at the best section, a boogie boarder drops in on me, pinching me and forcing me into the white water bowl.

After surfing I get a slice of pizza and some Posole (YUUUUUMMM!). Time to relax by the pool at Zicatela Bungalows and let the memories roll in and out of my consciousness. The friendly owner of the hotel is remodeling quite a bit, and the old restaurant where I eat many a meal and watched many a soccer game lays in a pile of rubble, total demolished. Oh well, life goes on without me . . .




ER Harris