ChrisJenTravel.com – Honeymoon Trek

We’ve been slow again on updating the site, which seems to happen whenever we settle into a town we like. First, we don’t have any good “road stories” since everything gets easier, and second, we end up having too much fun to go sit online for hours uploading pics and entries. Such is the case with Escondito. I’d heard of it as an epic surf destination for years, with huge barreling waves that rivaled Hawaii, but we didn’t know much about the town. We were happy to find a town large enough to have all the amenities we needed with a small surfer’s village-type tourist strip set just apart from the rest of town near the main surf beach. Although there are decent hotels, restaurants, shops, food stores and internet/phone cafes, everything was priced for traveling surfers – meaning cheap. How cheap? Well, we found a 6 person spacious room with hot water and cable for about $27 a night and full meals (think huge plates of spaghetti or burgers with fries) with a free beer or drink for about $3.60, while watching the sunset over the ocean, surf videos and great music.

We also found nearby picture perfect bays with clear turquoise water for snorkeling, lined with thatched roof umbrellas, Adirondack beach chairs and small food stands serving oysters, ceviche (fresh fish), plantains and beers. You can spend an afternoon there and feel like you’re on a five-star vacation in Jamaica for a few dollars.

And, the surf. Well, this was actually the only disappointment. There were waves, definitely bigger than anywhere else around. While all the nearby beaches had waist high waves due to the small swell coming in that week, Zicatella Beach at Escondito had head high waves consistently crashing in. But I mean crashing. The waves roll in from deep water thanks to a drop in the shelf just off shore, to a depth of about 7 feet where you sit out in the water to wait. Then they wall up and break on a sandbar that’s about 3 feet deep. They break so hard that water shoots up in the air and sand saturates the clear blue water 30 feet out from where the wave just broke. It is the fastest, steepest, most violent breaking wave I’ve seen. Just trying to get out through the white water you feel like you’ve been punched in the gut. And I was there on small days. Bigger swell can form waves 25 – 30 feet high fairly close to shore. Also, most of the waves break all across at once, leaving nowhere to go for the poor souls dropping in except down. For those that have been to Costa it’s very close to Hermosa. But, some waves break just right enough to cause a nice barrel and a ride that can last a few seconds. For that, people flock here to try their luck. Tanner, you’d probably love it. Tons of surfers and boogie boarders out in the water all trying to catch the few good waves means lots of competition and attitude. I surfed a little down the beach from the main peak to avoid the scene and had a good time, fitting in two sessions a day and getting some great practice, but the wave simply wasn’t my style. Way too much work and risk for a few second long ride just wasn’t as appealing after some of the fun, easier waves I’ve seen on the way down.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 18th, 2006 at 1:04 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.