"Know any good jokes Joe". "Yeah, two Irish guys driving to Chile", he responded with a typically warm Californian smile. Talk about sending the sheep to the wolves, the joke was precisely on us. We had heard all the stories about the banditos, the curvas peligrosos and the drug lords in Oaxaca. Armed with a Spanish book, 13 surfboards and a van full of bits and pieces, we were up for a challenge, ready for what lay ahead. Joe wasn't so sure.

In California the idea of driving through Baja is a radical idea in it's self. Ask somebody what they think of driving further south and they'll tell you your nuts. One Cali surfer had advised us to bring a flare gun. Not to be used as a last cry for help but instead he explained, "it's sketchy to bring a gun, so your next best bet, is a flare gun, dude!". With a little research of our own, my friend, David Blount and myself had decided there had never been a safer time to take on such a trip. There were currently no civil wars in Central America and with the exception of government counter insurgencies in Columbia, the Pan-American Highway had never been more attractive. After spending 6 weeks on the north shore of Oahu, we were soaking up the hospitality of the Joe and Terence McNulty in San Clemente, in an attempt to get a van and some camping gear together.

Despite the dreary outlook given by some of the locals, San Clemente was a perfect place to get prepared. With a budget of only a 1000 bucks, we needed a stroke of luck to find a van that would last the 8,000 miles to Chile. Luckily, within a few days we had met Gerry, a hobby-mechanic who spent most of his time in Mexico, with a van for sale. We got a great looking '79 Dodge RAM van with a newish engine and a couple of security tricks necessary for a road trip into Mexico. To start the engine the old noisy bonnet needed to be lifted, the key turned and a wire sparked off the battery. Nobody was robbing this thing in a hurry.

Buying the van was one thing, trying to get it to pass the Californian smog test was another. After 3 attempts and 3 different carburetors, we took our chances with our newly christened, 'gross polluter' and decided to be imaginative. On the 11th of March after spending 3 weeks preparing, we were finally on our way south and trying to get through Tijuana as fast as we could.

The Baja Peninsula

Within a week we were in the southwestern tip of Baja surfing quality waves and sleeping under a palapa (beach hut) near Todos Santos. It's about a three day drive from top to bottom of Baja, with the road intermittently crossing from the pacific to the gulf side. The scenery on the Baja peninsula is some of the most amazing you'll see anywhere in Central America.

Between cliff-edge roads over looking the pacific near Salsapuedes, dusty windswept desert roads of the desierto Vizcanio and the surreal picture perfect, flat calm of the Gulf of Mexico, Baja is an incredible introduction to beauty of Las Americas.

Stressing about our incomplete documentation, every military checkpoint could have been a showstopper. We eventually came to realise, it was anything but a genuine registration slip that these guys were looking for. Driving at night for the first time, we met a military checkpoint at Gurerro Negro where we were politely told at gunpoint, to show our ID and explain our destination. We said 'Chile'. Not looking too impressed with our humour, the side door was opened, to be searched, so we thought. What a mess, pulling out all those boards, pots, lamps and car parts. In fact, it was to allow one of the officers, who had just finished his shift, to jump in. We were told, by way of a bunch of hand signals to bring him and his sub-machine gun home, to the next town about 100 miles away. 'Si como no senor' (whatever you say sir).

As the north of Baja was still relatively cold in March, our plan was to quickly, get to the warm water and weather down south of Baja. We were stoked with the tips we had received from the guys in Cali. The spare petrol tank saved us mid-way along a dead straight stretch of cactus lined highway, with not a gasolinera (BP station) for 100's of miles.

Making it down south in one piece, our first real surf was at Pescaderos just south of Todos Santos. (Not to be confused with Isla de Todos Santos, 1000 miles north) The water was steaming, the surf, 3 to 5 foot peaks, breaking over a rocky bottom with only the occasional light winds as the day heated up. The trip had finally started and waves were on the menu, what better time to get wet after than after 3 hard days on the road.

We stayed in this area, surfing Playa Pedrito with a bunch of loud and funny, cerveza(beer) drinking American surfers, where we camped for $6 a night, right in front of the surf. Straight away we noticed how relaxed the crowd was here, in comparison to California and Hawaii. First thing in the morning, when it was still pretty chilly, the surf was offshore, perfect and completely empty for a few hours. Dave and myself took advantage of this for the first few days. Sure enough after day 3, we were the same surfed-out, late sleeping surftrippers, as the rest of the pack.

Stoked with the constant swell we had gotten over the five days we spent here, it was time to head for the mainland via the ferry at La Paz, but first there was some partying to be done. We were heading for Cabo San Lucas for St. Paddy's night.

On the road east, we took an unfortunate wrong turn. The map we had of Baja wasn't the most detailed so we ended up on a 20-mile washboard dirt track from hell, in the dark. Until you've driven on a surface like this, you'll never quite understand the type of vibration the track surface instills on the van. This was a good training ground for what was ahead of us. Almost every surf spot in Central America requires an intense drive down a dusty, unpaved road leading to the surf.

Cabo, a big tourist town at the southern point of Baja, was packed with American "spring breakers". It being Paddy's day, we were making the most of our Irish accents for the American girls. After lots of cheap beer and tequila, we were heading for Valentino's disco, until we found out was 20 bucks on the door. With the same mentality as we would use at home, we decided we would take the back door, by climbing up a 10 ft cliff and jumping over the back fence. Midway through finalising our drunken masterplan a policia showed up with a guy who spoke English. The conversation via the side-kick went along the lines:

"Senores, you're not supposed to be here, raise your arms, I want to search you". Confident we had nothing illegal, we agreed.
"Disculpe (sorry), knives are illegal in Mehico, we're gonna have to take you in now amigos". The policia had found a two inch swiss army knife in Dave's pocket. We checked out this guys badge and gun. The problem is in Mexico, there's so many different types of police, all with different uniforms, that it's hard to tell if they're genuine or not. Suspecting this was a scam, but at the same time not wanting to go anywhere near a Mexican jail, we started the negotiations:
"Is there anyway, we could pay you the fine now and you could pay it for us later". For the first time we had had to pull out the undisputed ticket to ride in Mexico. Finally we got out of there after we haggled the fine down to 40 dollars each. Bummed about the money but not in jail with Wan Pablo and his brothers, the next day we took the ferry to the mainland. So much for the luck of the Irish.

Mainland Mexico - April.

On our map of Central America, we had asked a friend in Hawaii, to pinpoint all the best spots on the mainland coastline. He had provided us with enough insight to enable us to make a rough plan of where we wanted to spend most of our time. This 1500-mile stretch of coastline from Puerto Vallarta to Salina Cruz had the most notes written on the map. 'Peaky beach break', 'long hollow sandbar', all the info we needed was right there. This was where the real waves were to be found over the next 6 weeks.

April is the start of the season for well-defined swells radiating from Southern Hemisphere. Pascuales, La Ticla, Rio Nexpa and Puerto Escondido were all about to turn on. After a few days spent hanging out in Puerto Vallarta, Sayulita and San Blas, surfing waist-high waves, the whole coastline was at an in between stage, waiting for a swell to come from either hemisphere. We were again planning on doing some serious drive time to get to an underdeveloped black sand beach town, called Pascuales, which apparently had a world famous Mexican pipe style beach break.

It's Dave's birthday and what a surprise it is to show up and see the 5-foot sand snarl pits at Pascuales. Only Puerto Escondido and this place have the ability to draw surf from an otherwise flat ocean. We booked in at Marty's where we got the second floor of a canopy construction which has a view of the surf, two hammocks, mattresses and the essential mosquitores (mossie nets) for 5 dollars.

The next morning's session was the first of a great week spent trying to make a few barrels at Pascuales. Waves breaking over perfectly defined sandbanks would appear for thirty minutes, only to disappear just as quick, with the movement of the tide. Part of a typical day at Pascuales, is spent cleaning the sand out of your ears and eyes after the short but brutal wipeouts.

We're practicing our basic Spanish with the school kids, who hang out at Marty's. In return, Nacho and Mario are around after school to borrow our surfboards. Despite a few attempts, I'm sorry to say, this is about the limit of our correspondence with the locales at the moment. Next stop is to Tecoman for a beer at night and a chance to chat to some senoritas en la plaza (the town square). That's the meeting point for the best well dressed senores sporting the biggest sombrero's but more interesting to us, the finest looking senoritas. The hours spent studying Spanish, has been great for asking directions and ordering tacos but it hasn't yet given us any lingo for chatting to the senoritas. We're just spectators at this stage.

After five days with some awesome barrels racked up, the surf has picked up to 8 to 10 feet. Standing on the beach and watching the sets quickly reel off, we get out to the empty line up. I'm starting to understand why it's empty and regretting I'm not on my 8'0. I get 3 or 4 waves which all close out. By the time my last wave washes me to the beach and breaks my board, Dave is out the back scratching to get over the shoulder of a triple overhead set looking into a pit from hell. Pascuales can hold these swells but Marty, who's lived there for 20 years, reckons the banks, pre-rain season, hadn't had a chance to sort themselves. Either way the next day was two foot bigger but breaking way too fast, so we were out of here. Apparently a more sheltered point, called La Ticla, with a right and a left, is just an hour down the coast.

What a relief to show up and see long peeling right and left point break waves after the intensity of Pascuales. We arrived mid-afternoon. It was cloudy with a gusting onshore wind and a 6-foot swell running. We paddled out only for the wind to completely die and to be left on our own in 40 degree midday sunshine with 200m long walling lefts. Both La Ticla and Rio Nexpa (3 hours further down the coast), have excellent areas to camp and a radical mix of friendly surfers passing through.

We spent an incredible couple of weeks in La Ticla and Nexpa, eating the freshest barbecued fish around our campfire while sleeping comfortably in our maccas (hammocks). The heat of the sunrise would force us out of our sleep and into the surf each morning. The swell seemed unstoppable, not dropping under shoulder high once while we were along this coastline. However, the talk around the campfire every night was about, "Puerto dude". "Dude when ye get to Puerto, ye gotta do this dude, ye gotta do that". Puerto Escondido from what we had heard was the place that had it all. Coinciding perfectly with semana santa (easter week), the biggest and craziest party time on any Latino countries calendar, we were Puerto bound.

Part two will be coming at you next week.