Photo: Josh Jacoby
“If I ever complain about the roads in San Diego again, shoot me.” I said to Doogie after a particularly violent encounter. It was raining hard and the roads were flooded and the countryside looked soggy and lush. The houses and structures tended to be built right next to the road; and beyond, in the distance, the hills and fields were green and alive. People hurried about outside as we drove along, moving quickly and covering their heads with anything at hand. They didn’t look so much annoyed as resigned.
We arrived at Mark and Dave’s just at dinnertime. It was raining steadily still, and I could feel an onshore wind blowing through the house from the water just beyond. We walked into the main dining hall to find the others as Roberto unloaded what little we had brought with us. The whole house was just a gigantic palapa, similar to the airport terminal in Huatulco, Oaxaca. Everything was open to the elements, except for the four bedrooms, which were off to the rear of the house, and had doors. As Doogie and I approached the dining table, I could see that this huge palm-frond covered structure encompassed the living room, dining room, TV area and a pool. Beyond the pool was the beach, and we could hear the waves crashing ashore at the nearest break – Panga Drops.
Mark and Dave’s is a full-service surf destination: they provide food and drink and bedrooms and linens in a very comfortable environment, right on the beach. It is a really cool setup – except when there are strong onshore winds blowing rain and sand and napkins through the whole structure, as on this particular evening. Even the big plasma television was getting pegged by rain on the occasional gust.
The rest of our party – Jonny, Ian, Jark, Ty and Billy – stood and yelled as we entered.
“Watch out for the floor – it’s slicker ‘n’ snot!” advised Ty. And it was: highly glazed, wet saltillo pavers glistening under the swaying lights. And coconut crabs, bright orange and purple, scampered about the floor like poorly behaved pets.
Jark picked up one of the crabs and dropped it into his gin and tonic. “Let’s see how he likes that,” he smiled.
Jonny had rented the whole house for a week, and invited the rest of us to come and sample the wares at Colorados and Pang Drops. He had never been to Nicaragua – none of us had – but he knew one of the owners of the house, and was intrigued by the idea of a wave that tubed on takeoff almost every time, this close to home yet far enough away that crowds, ideally, would not be a factor. Ian and I had tried for years to get him down to Oaxaca, but most of his surf travels involved Indo and Fiji and Rusty and Martin. This trip would be much more feral for him – and a blessing for the rest of us.
We all knew each other from years of surfing together at Blacks beach. As part of the group loosely known as the BMC – the Blacks Morning Crew, most of us surfed at the crack of dawn, and then moved onto other endeavors by the time most people in San Diego were having their first cup of coffee. We all loved the wave at Blacks, and it was the perfect training ground for fast, pitching beach breaks the world over: if you could paddle in at Blacks on a reeling, down-the-line day, you could paddle into almost any wave in the world.
“How was the surf today?” Doogie asked no one and everyone.
“Insane!”
“Unbelievable!”
“No one out and perfect!”
We could tell they were full of shit. “Actually, it was howling onshore when we got here,” said Jonny, “so you guys didn’t miss a thing.
The next morning the air was still and humid, and the clouds still hung low over the ocean. Colorados was a quarter-mile hike south, so we all paddled out at Panga Drops, which was almost directly in front of the house. There was a very fast rip going north, and the takeoff spot seemed to shift a hundred yards north or south with every different set that came through. It was tough to get a bead on it.
But it was fun: big drops with a short, workable shoulder and then out. We surfed for a couple of hours, and then went back to the house for breakfast. Gustavo was the man in charge at Mark and Dave’s, and he was the one who made sure breakfast was ready when we got out of the water. There were maids and cooks and security guards, but he was the maestro who oversaw the whole operation.
Down the beach we found a really fun round beach break: Colorados. Almost every wave was two strokes and a pipe. The locals had it wired, and were getting shacked on every wave . They didn’t even try to maneuver out to the front of the wave; they just dropped in and stalled. Jonny took the lead from this local knowledge, and pulled into several nice right tubes. The rest of us took turns trying to pull into the left barrels that were a bit more consistent – Jark racking up a dozen waves and Billy doing his best Gerry Lopez incarnation.
Since the surf wasn’t epic that day, Gustavo arranged a trip into Granada for the afternoon, after we had spent a couple of hours at Colorados. After all, it was only the second day in Nicaragua, and the waves were just starting to turn on.
After lunch Roberto picked us up in his Mercedes short bus, and we headed into Granada. As it was Monday afternoon, there wasn’t much going on in the oldest city in Central America. It was a very pretty place, with narrow streets and varied architecture; the colonial influence readily apparent. We checked out some of the older Spanish Colonial buildings; walked around the abandoned train station at the edge of lago de Nicaragua with its volcano-as-island in the middle; and thoroughly enjoyed two really nice old Catholic churches. Billy and I attempted to climb the outside of the bell tower on one of the churches, but the four hundred year old iron ladder running up the side looked a little suspect.
Since we had been on a steady diet of Tona beer and Flor de Cana rum, we thought perhaps it would be a good time to find a bar. I mean, Granada is something of a tourist destination, so they must have bars, yes?
Roberto drove us around for awhile, and pointed out all of the huge Discos and multi-level bars in the downtown area – all empty. This wasn’t Cabo.
“You should see (them) en Viernes!” he said excitedly, in Spanglish. “You don’t even get in on that night!” But it was clear that people just didn’t drink much in the afternoon on a Monday here in town.
He then had an epiphany. “You like cigaros….Cubanos?” He smiled broadly. “I take you to the cigaro facilidad!”
Big Ty and Jark really liked this idea, because they were cigar aficionados. Roberto took a circuitous route to a very narrow street in the center of town, and pulled up in front of a beautiful hand-carved wooden door. The thing must have weighed a thousand pounds.
Roberto knocked, and a pretty girl opened the massive door and smiled. We exited the van and entered Cigar Smokers Heaven: tobacco hanging from everywhere, even spread on the floor; comfortable chairs placed strategically around for smoking; a nice marble bar with rum and scotch and single malt. A dozen or so men and women sat at wooden desks intently rolling magnificent Nicaraguan cigars. The owner motioned for us to come sit at a couple of the desks and roll our own cigars, to the absolute delight of Jark and Ty.
The smell of sweet and pungent tobacco mixed with the smells of leather and rum. The sitting room of the cigar factory was nicely appointed with artwork and display cases showcasing the various types of cigars produced within. It was a very pleasant and relaxing atmosphere; civilized and formal in its simplicity.
After an hour or so of rolling and smoking cigars and drinking plenty of rum we happily parted company with the cigar factory. The owner and his son-in-law and all of the workers waved heartily from the steps in front of the factory as we all piled into the van. Everyone bought cigars to take back home – some quite a few more than others.
It was getting late in the afternoon, and we knew we had a horrendous two hour drive back to the beach, so we stopped at one more ode to intemperance on the way out of town. It was as empty as the others we had driven by, but we went in anyway. There was a guy talking to two heavily made-up women at the bar, and Jonny walked up and asked if they knew the owner, as we wanted some cocktails.
One of the women eyed him slowly, and said she was the owner. A quick exchange of pleasantries and cash found Jonny behind the bar making Martinis as the rest of us drew up barstools and smoked fresh cigars. Not really much else to do in an empty Nicaraguan bar with your friends except drink and smoke cigars.
It was getting dark outside, and Roberto wanted to get us back to the house, so we all piled in the Mercedes after buying a few trinkets and maracas from some kids on the sidewalk. They fairly swarmed the van, shoving pottery and purses and jewelry at us.
Once on the road out of town it became evident that the maracas were not a prudent purchase, as Billy said he thought he could shake them all the way back to Mark and Dave’s. Roberto turned up the volume on the CD player, but the incessant rattling began to work on everyone. Billy, of course, was oblivious to this, and kept shaking them with his eyes closed in some strange drunken trance.
After an hour of this torture, I opened the passenger door and started to step out of the moving vehicle, which was bouncing and rolling slowly over the muddy minefield of a road.
“Oh, no you don’t,” said Jonny, grabbing the back of my shirt and holding fast.
“Where the hell are you going?” asked Ty.
“He’s going hood-walking.” said Ian matter-of-factly. “He does it all the time.” Ian had seen me perform this feat more than once, and it had lost its excitement. Now it just irritated him.
Roberto pulled the van over and stopped. We all got out and stood in the middle of the road. It was good to stretch, and to get away from Billy on the maracas. Roberto looked around worriedly.
“We’re going so slow, it’s not even dangerous.” I pleaded. “Look at the roof rack.” I continued, trying to sound logical in an insane situation. “It’s made of friggin’ four inch diameter aluminum pipe. It could hold all of us!”
Everyone looked at Roberto, and then at Jonny.
“If you take all of your clothes off, you can ride on the roof rack,” he said.
“What?”
“Either that, or get back in the van. The mosquitoes are zeroing in on us because we’re not moving. Let’s go.” With this, everyone began to move back to the van.
“Alright!” I said, and stripped naked in the center of the road. I grabbed a bottle of rum and climbed up onto the roof rack. The aluminum was cool on my skin.
Roberto shrugged and started the van, and Billy and Jark climbed up beside me. “Jonny said we needed to watch you up here,” said Jark. They positioned themselves on either side of me, and hunkered down like they were in a bobsled.
“Fine with me, but you guys should strip down, too,” I replied. I sat up and swung my legs over the front of the rack, so my feet touched the windshield. It was easier to drink rum when you were sitting up naked on the roof of a van.
We drove for about ten minutes this way. Jark lit a cigar, and Billy and I passed the rum back and forth. Then the van slowed and pulled to the side of the road. We heard the side door open again, and Doogie and Ian climbed up to the roof.
Naked.
We all howled and laughed into the humid Nicaraguan countryside. Roberto started the van again, and we all sat down on the roof and drank rum and smoked cigars as he drove slowly, cautiously, over the bumpy terrain.
Five minutes passed, and the van slowed to a halt again. Jonny and Ty stepped out and took pictures, then climbed up on the roof with the rest of us. Roberto, who was standing outside the driver’s door, simply shrugged and slid back into the van. He was alone in the cab of the vehicle. He started down the road again, a pack of crazed surfers atop his pride and joy, yelling and singing songs from old television shows.
We drove through a couple of little settlements – not really towns, but clusters of three and four houses built next to the road. In each house there were people standing in doorways, a television or radio on in the background. As we passed through each one, we would sing and wave and blow great billows of cigar smoke into the air.
Naked.
The laughter and smiles and confused looks from the locals in these clusters of homes as we passed by were priceless. Some of them would cheer us on as if we were a triumphant soccer team returning home from victory, while others would merely stare up at us in mute astonishment.
I am certain that the people of these little enclaves have seen many strange and wondrous things living in the tropical jungle of Nicaragua.
But they may never again see a group of naked surfers from San Diego drinking rum, singing sitcom ditties and smoking cigars on top of a shiny Mercedes van as it slowly makes its way back to the coast from Granada.
