Yes we found it...or at least we were told where it was...and no we won't tell you where it is...OK then buy me a beer an we'll see...OK OK it's called Chacahua but don't tell anyone!
We left Puerto Escondido on Sunday at around midday. We had been told two things in PE. One that there was a great reggae party happening in town on Sunday night; two, that there were an awful lot of Australians looking to head to Chacahua on Monday. So we decided to miss out on the party (sure there'll be others) and try to beat the crowds for a surf or two. We called down a taxi, threw our boards on the roof and our reduced bags (having managed to find somewhere to leave the rest of our stuff with new friends in PE) in the trunk and off we went. An hour and a half later we arrived at a small town on the banks of a large inlet. There we haggled our way onto a speedboat and were soon speeding our way across the water. We started out on open water and passed a few fishermen hauling their nets. Soon we were headed straight for a bank of mangroves when at the last moment an opening appeared and we passed between the trees at full throttle. There were all sorts of birds along the inlet including frigate birds, vultures and white herons. As we rushed through the mangroves the herons that were feeding on the banks were interrupted and beat their wings furiously as they set to flight a couple feet ahead of the boat until finally an opening in the bush above allowed them to escape.
We eventually re-emerged from the
mangroves before pulling up on the palm lined shore of the river mouth. Already the deep blue walls and crisp white spray along the horizon announced the presence of nearby surf.
Our skipper asked if we already had cabanas to which we replied no and we were soon chasing him through a small maze of timber and concrete huts until he eventually pointed us to Las Cabanas De Piojo. The cabanas were basic and clean but most important was the view. Out front stretched a beautiful golden beach maybe thirty meters wide, running around a bay as far as the eye could see towards peaks turned purple in the sunny afternoon haze. Beyond the beach the blue pacific ocean where wave after wave endlessly peeled from one side to the other. The waves ran from the edge of a large breakwater to the north along a shallow sand bank to beyond our cabanas some 250 or more meters further south along the beach. I was soon scrambling into my boardshorts as fast as i could and paddling for the horizon to join the small handful of surfers already out. Over the next couple of hours I had one of those surfs you just want to package up in your brain and relive time and time again. I dragged myself out of the water just as the sun was burning red above the horizon and with the news of a new swell arriving the next day things were pretty damn close to perfect.
Over the next five days life fell into a pretty magical routine. Wake up early head out for the best surf of my life, drag myself out of the water for food and water, then a siesta in the hammock before heading back out in the late afternoon after the heat had passed for the next best surf of my life. Pretty tough really.
Jane didn't seem too fussed either. She was pretty happy to just sit back, soak up the sun, swing in her hammock, swim, eat, read and do it all over again as many times as she required throughout the day. She would regularly run through a yoga routine in the morning and I tried to persuade her to do a class for donations so that we could supplement our dwindling funds but in the end she didn't get around to it.
By the fourth night my greed for waves had been appeased sufficiently and along with the now dying swell and our lack of funds we decided that the time was right to leave.
Chacahua had been one of the most perfect places I had ever been to and I only could hope that it would remain that way in the years to come. Like out of a dream I had to continually pinch myself to acknowledge that it was actually happening.
We took a slightly longer and cheaper way back Puerto Escondido the next day sharing the collectivos with the locals (an their chickens). We were back in good time and booked into a nice hostel with a swimming pool and hammocks (all for under $20!) to try to endure the calm and peace that had overcome us.
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