Dog Bite

This is a Picture of the Wound. Now Tara and I are both afraid of Labs. Cuts heal fast chicks dig scars. Tomorrow is the 1 year anniversary of my scaphoid, radius, capitate injury.

La Ticla

After spending two days in Barra de Navidad or Natividad as Chad kept calling it, we said bye to our amazing Canadian friends...Suzanne, Christian and Pumpkin (11 month old girl-cutest thing ever). We headed south down the beautiful coastline into the state of Michocan. We made a quick stop in Manzanillo to drop off our Arizona friend, Lee, who was attempting to finish the lengthy five year process of becoming a dual citizen...in case the US collapses he has something to fall back on (gotta love the paranoid). Although Manzanillo appeared to be a worthy stop we continued south on our never ending search for waves. We checked out the waves at the famous surf break, Pascuales, and Chad decided that due to the excessive afternoon wind and lack of organized sand bars it was a bit too closed out to surf. After talking to a couple of ex-pats who informed us that they were towing into the DOH waves that morning Chad became super anxious to get to our next stop. Due to Chad's excitement over the first decent waves he had seen all trip he failed to get diesel in Manzanillo convinced there would be some in a smaller town along the way. Unfortunately our lack of Spanish got the best of us and after speaking to a local man we were under the impression that we would have to drive all the way back to Manzanillo (through the $10 toll road AGAIN) to get fuel. Ugh...we went all the way back to Manzanillo to get diesel and it turned out that the guy said to go towards Manzanillo not to Manzanillo. Had we taken the free road we would have found a Pemex just a few kilometers down the road, not to mention one about every 10 k the remainder of the way towards Manzanillo. Another positive to knowing the language of the country you are traveling in. After this slight detour we stopped along the road to indulge in some lard fried adobada tacos, according to Erin they were the best tacos we have had to date.

We came around yet another mountainous turn and looked down to see clean overhead lines wrapping down the beach. Erin had to continually remind Chad to keep his eyes on the road in order to avoid another near collision. We pulled into La Ticla and were immediately greeted by Cisco, the 59 y/o Mexican surf guide from Punta de Mita, an absolute character. He gave us the scoop and ensured us that the burb and our belongings would be safe or "seguro" in La Ticla. Shortly thereafter we were living in our oceanfront expandable studio tent. We stayed in the humble palapa campground for $4 a day opting out of "Hollywood" which was the next step up with casita's and palapas with private baths. Cisco pinned us as the Hollywood types and was pleasantly surprised at our camping choice. Within minutes Chad was out in the lineup. Although there were about 30 surfers out, there were plenty of peaks to handle the crowd. Cisco introduced us to the professional surfers that he was escorting around Mexico...Sep (Canadian), Shannon Brown (Australian), Martin (Mexican) and two 18 y/o Canadians. They were phenomenal surfers, dominating every wave, and absolutely hilarious outside of the water. Due to the fact that they hadn't seen a decent looking girl in weeks they made jokes about stealing Erin away from Chad in the middle of the night. The next day Erin filmed Chad out in the line-up with the pros and was pleased to see Chad hold his own.

Our neighbor Chuck, who owned his own expandable studio tent, is a surf photographer. He takes pictures of surfers all day and then charges $4 a print in order to sustain his Mexican beachfront lifestyle...not bad! Erin has now taken an interest in photography and is looking into buying a nice D-SLR Sony or Cannon camera (Tyson what model sony do you have?). Her interest in photography and not surfing was solidified following her near death experience being caught in a strong rip current. Ok, near death is a bit of an exaggeration, however once you panic out in the water all is over and it feels like you are going to die. After taking pictures of Chad surfing for a few days Erin asked Chad to go swimming with her. She knew there was a strong rip which is why she consulted the water pro before entering the water. They entered the water up the beach and were immediately pulled into the rip. Due to the fact that Erin has not worked out in over three years her swimming ability was a bit weak and her confidence was extremely low. Chad advised weak Erin to swim as hard as she could directly to shore, against ever rip current advice she had been given throughout her life saying to swim parallel to shore. Clearly this was not going to happen. Chad attempted to pull Erin to shore, however without fins this was another failed attempt. Eventually the two made it to shore with Erin bitching at Chad the whole way for overestimating her strength and ultimately for taking her right into a rip. Lesson learned: Don't listen to Chad, gain some muscle, and wear fins when you are swimming near a rip.

That being said, La Ticla was our favorite spot. Rhino loved diving for rocks in the river, Chad loved everything, and Erin loved her swim! Main lesson learned: Don't pee in the river...little one-way spiney fish will swim up your pee hole like the salmon returning to Capistrano :).

Barra de Navidad

We arrived in Barra de Navidad yesterday and watched the Charger game in a bar on the beach while watching the waves between plays. Chad only made it until half time before he had to go surf, go figure! Oh by the way, the Chargers lost, thanks LT for your five yard contribution. This place is awesome minus the vicious dogs. Unfortunately Rhino is not well liked among the local dogs. Two labs on leashes and yes they were actually on leashes decided to pull their owner over to Rhino to attack him. Chad tried to get in between the attack dogs and they proceeded to bite him and rip through his shorts leaving a gnarly wound on his inner thigh. Oh well, that's Mexico for you. The owner was a jerk and Chad attempted to use his limited Spanish to tell him to keep his dogs under control. Useless, but oh well we went on to enjoy the beauty of this town. Oh and by the way, we are calling the dog Matix because it looked just like Mitch's lab named Matix :). Crazy that it was a lab considering the majority of the dogs in Mexico are pit bull looking mixes and a freaking lab was the culprit. The sunset was beautiful and dogger enjoyed getting slammed in the shore break the remainder of the evening.

Away from the coast!

After leaving Puerto Vallarta we went to the town of Tequila and tasted some tequila. Sadly Erin was too nauseous to drink any after the tour so Chad drank her share. Imagine the smell of tequila for an hour, watching the fermentation process and then attempting to drink it. It felt as if we had just had a horrible hangover from Tequila and then were tortured by the smell of tequila for 2 hours. A lot like a wine tasting, however the end result was much less pleasing. Then we headed off to Guadalajara for Chad to get a taste of a traditional street market. Although Chad was tempted to buy some rad crocodile boots he opted out because he realized they were made in China along with all the other crap there. Due to our lack of interest in big cities we headed towards Lake Chapala after only about 2 hours in Guadalajara. Lake Chapala is the largest lake in Mexico and although it was beautiful the pollution has made it off limits to water contact. Due to Chad and Rhino's obsession with submerging themselves into water we decided to head back to the coast. This is where the trip started to get interesting. Somewhere near mile 2,000 since San Diego the mountain roads were among the scariest roads we have seen yet. Due to the pitted windshield in the burb and the horrendous glare from the sun we had a near collision with what we call the "slow driving" Mexicans. Chad couldn't see as we came around a curva pelligroso going about 30 mph and nearly slammed into the back of one of our favorite "slow driving" Mexicans. Erin screamed and thanks to the Vitrek sponsored new brake job we were able to avoid the collision. Dogger was covered with all the crap from the back of the burb and was trembling from the fear of the scene. We proceeded to pull over and re-arrange our belongings while reassuring Rhino as well as the ourselves :). As you can imagine Erin convinced Chad to turn into a "slow driving" Mexicans the remainder of our journey to the coast. Better safe than sorry, right?

10 signs that Mi Novio is turning into a Mexican...

For those of you that think that Chad will be returning home in August, you may want to re-think that after veiwing the following:

1. Growing a Mexi/Mark-stache

2. Accelerated hair growth in the back (business in the front, party in the back)

3. Interjection of hair products into daily routine

4. Altered driving techniques...increased aggression and failure to yield to
pedestrians

5. Newly acquired taste for roadside taco stands (OBSESSION)

6. Doesn't have a job and plans to build his own tope in the middle of a perfectly good highway to slow down traffic and draw attention to his catch of the day

7. Excessive use of the word servieta even when it is not appropriate

8. Contemplating lowering and putting extra wide tries on the burb

9. Conspiring with local authorities on ways to gain citizenship

10. Lack of personal responsibility or liability in all matters (being bit by a local dog and acting like it is no big deal..see picture attached)

Puerto Vallarta

We made it to Puerto Vallarta yesterday its been great, no problems and beautiful coastlines. We are off to Guadalajara and Tequila right now. Wish us luck.

Central America