A Surfing Culture Lost in Time
In April of 2018 the Nicaraguan government was hit with a wave of protests after proposing to implement social security reforms throughout the country. In the months that fallowed, the protests escalated into violence resulting in the deaths of nearly 200 people. Many of whom were university students.
This incredibly malicious abuse of power by the Nicaraguan government was a national travesty which disrupted the socioeconomic balance for many families and communities throughout the country. By the time 2019 rolled around, fear and mistrust of the government had spread beyond the Nicaraguan borders and into the international world causing the usual flow of tourism to slow to a drizzle. Now, not only were the people left to endure the loss of their free-spoken youth, but with the crumbling of a major economic pillar as well.
Nicaragua and her people were suffering. Expats were migrating North or South in droves, and backpackers were actively avoiding passing through this beautiful but disturbed country. So how is it that during this time of uncertainty and unrest I, somehow, found myself on board a one-way flight to Managua?
Well, in the seedy breeding grounds of bad decision making, my life of privilege met with the puppy-dog naivety of my early 20’s-and borne was the notion that travelling to Nicaragua was a good idea. I’m truly ashamed to admit it now- but at the time, the flashing travel advisory on my laptop was saying only two things.
‘Empty line ups,’ and ‘Come get me.’
Among surfers, Nicaragua is best known for her offshore consistency, which, coupled with a sweet and steady pacific swell, sunny locals and restaurants that serve fresh tuna and cold beer- in itself is a package too good to turn down. After a brief and almost sub conscious thought experiment subtracting crowds of flailing beginners and testosterone-charged bro-cationers from the mix, I decided that the benefits of just booking a one way and seeing what happened far outweighed the risks.
Despite its warnings not to travel to Nicaragua, Cheapoair greedily accepted my credit card information, and for 124$ promised to deliver me safely to Managua. I eagerly clicked ‘confirm purchase,’ which was unknowingly the pivotal moment which would propel me down the dusty, chicken-bussed throat of a desperate country fighting the clutches of political havoc to a small town who’s inhabitants would forever alter my outlook on surfing.
I began my trip with a conceptualized idea of the way surfing was supposed to ‘be’. Prior experience had led me to embrace certain habitual normalcies popular among other surfers. What I hadn’t realized until that trip was that my perception of the sport was so deeply integrated with my first world culture of social media and the seeking of external gratification that the essence of ‘surfing’ had become lost by the need to be recognized. But when I arrived in the town where I would unwittingly spend the next 52 weeks and was welcomed by a relatively isolated group of local wave junkies-my paradigm shifted forever.
The small community where I stayed for the fallowing year is situated away from the usual backpackers hot-spots and is just enough of a geographical inconvenience to deter the majority of tourists-even on a good year. Without much western influence, the tiny group of surfers that I had stumbled upon were still considered mildly rebellious and misunderstood in their pursuit to catch waves by their local community.
Being there, it was as if I had entered a time warp which had carried me through the devolution of mainstream surfing-back to ‘An Endless Summer’ paradise. Gone were the surf moms waving granola bars and towels at their not-too-rebellious offspring. Gone were the go-pro chewing weekend warriors, the parking lot crew flouting their hand-shaped boards, and the social media ‘influencers’ looking for their next thousand-thumbs-up shot. Instead, I found myself on an empty grey beach, miles away from the nearest surf shop, hospital, or paved parking lot. I had travelled to a community that didn’t have the luxury of worrying about stock market trends, the commute to their nearest yoga studio or the brand name imprinted on the side of their flip flops-let alone which of their kids had the deepest cut back.
Surfing, being neither convenient nor particularly ‘cool’ tended to attract a certain type of individual. All of them the sons of fishermen, and all of them hellbent on getting barrelled no matter who was watching or what the cost to their boards or bodies. Here I was, on the fringes of a rough-around-the-edges pack of barbarian surfers who shared a dispassionate sentiment toward the conventional surf culture I had always known. The dichotomy between my old surfing world and this new one left me with an insatiable desire to leave my old ways of surfing behind me, and adapt to, become a part of this relentless, anarchial crew who surfed for nobody, and who carried through every take off, a fearlessness of the future.
Learning to surf in this place was not an easy endeavor. A friend once told me that the first time he tried, it nearly cost him his life. As a young boy he had wanted desperately to become a surfer, but without a board all he could do was watch. So when an old fridge door washed up on the shore of his beach, he decided that it was a sufficient enough vessel to start out on. Utterly unsupervised in his attempts at catching his first waves-he got pulled out to sea by a rip. Luckily a passing older surfer noticed him in the swell and paddled out to save him.
Later that same year a bunch of boys embarked on a clandestine night-mission into a run-down hostel to ‘borrow’ a couple boards. They would ask permission later-or so they told themselves at the time. Either way, there was no more frantic fridge door surfing by the time I got there.
The crew usually procured their boards from a nearby town, where an expat resort owner would let them sift through the discarded remains of broken boards left by his western clientele. On these trips they would pile lopsidedly onto a borrowed motorbike and rip along the hardened sands of the low tide, heedless and helmetless, returning hours later with bundles of half-boards stuffed between them. They always came back beaming, half drunk on life like a first grader on Halloween. When I at last got invited on one of these adventures, I knew I was finally ‘in.’
They taught me how to bring a broken board back to life, and with that knowledge I became less weary of ruining the single Firewire I had brought with me. I was learning to embrace the ‘surf it like you stole it’ mindset which this crew already fully embodied. My learned attachment toward material objects slowly melted away into a certainty that things, like waves, are meant to be used for maximum enjoyment of the moment. A wave no matter how big will always break against the earth and cease to exist. A board, no matter how strong will become dinged and bashed and eventually broken-and when that day comes you’ll wish you had ridden it harder.
I once walked in on a Nicaraguan friend of mine seemingly destroying his only thruster with a rusty hand saw. He grinned at me as he explained that he wanted more rocker and less height. He had finally gathered all the necessary ingredients for a renovation of this scale, and he would simply cut out three inches from the center of his board, then glue it back together in a more rockered style. It was a success. With this new board he surfed like a ping pong ball, throwing himself into impossible barrels before bobbing up out of the whitewash, and appearing back in the line up with an annoying swiftness.
Not long after, I found him in the water catching waves in his classically ping-pongy maniacal fashion with the broken-off tip of his board clamped tightly between his front teeth. He went on like that for an hour or so, loath to leave the water on such a glorious swell, indifferent of the damage no doubt accruing beneath him.
These boys were masters in the arts of conservation and improvisation. Once a board was broken- the afflicted surfer would carefully scrape off all the remaining wax and re-melt it in a pop can to save for future use. Busted fins were shelved with the anticipation of glassing them in later if need be. Broken leashes were tied together again and then re-tied until they became unusable, after which they were disassembled into their various parts and put aside. When a quick fix was necessary for a small ding, chewing gum was a temporary substitute for melted wax. Many times I found myself surfing leash-less or with missing fins. And for one particularly ominous period of time I became mockingly hubristic in my ownership of a single thruster with three right sided fins.
Our sessions in the water became a circus as the ocean, in all her wisdom, sucked away the seriousness of our responsibilities and left us all recklessly prodigal. The boys would call each other into waves then drop in on each other laughing while their counterpart inevitably went over the falls. They pressured each other into impossible take off zones, and onto clumsy too-large faces, hoping the other wouldn’t go so they could shower him with a cascade of insults. It was a riot of wildly inarticulate take offs, laughter, and name-calling of unpublishable proportions. But the waves were of such abundance that it was blasphemous not to waste one or two on a practical joke.
At one point I realized I wasn’t actually as ‘in’ as I thought I was when a friend pointed out that they were only calling me onto the worst waves of the set-obviously keeping the best ones for themselves. I had become joyously blinded my perceived inclusivity. But no matter-I was having a blast.
The days in Nicaragua passed with a simplicity seemingly unknown to western culture. Still salty, we would hide in the shade to feast on mangoes and coconuts and watch whichever dwindling surfer still remained in the water. I slept in a hammock and visited the farmer every morning in search of fresh milk for my coffee. At night with nothing to distract me, I would watch the satellites march their way through the stars and listen to the giant pacific swells brake unendingly on the sand-untamed in their approach toward finality.
My observations of this paradise only became transparent upon my return home to Canada where shiny cars would flash by, leaving me in a whirlwind of air freshener and conversations were centered around board buoyancy, swell reports, and underground wetsuit brands. I drank lattes half-suited in the parking lot and over analyzed the waves before paddling into bloated, sullen line ups. Occasionally I overheard people talking about serious things-their jobs, salaries, cars.
I was back on the treadmill of ‘real’ life. Gone were the days of bare foot motorbike rides and intrepid high-spirited line ups. Gone were the days of impulsive misadventures, mango foraging, families that gather on the beach to inspect the daily catch- to be replaced instead by the self-conscious rigidity of calculated moves, credit scores and cell phone plans.
I had travelled to Nicaragua in a time of unrest and although I went there with the single tactless objective to surf as many empty line ups as possible, I returned to Canada indelibly changed. I no longer take things (myself included) so seriously. I try to surf with genuine relish and if my car breaks down (as it often does), I do my best to laugh about it. And although its not as easy as it was 5 years ago, I’ve tried to retain that fearless regard for the future which came so naturally to my surfing friends on the beaches of Nicaragua.
I now travel back regularly and, although the country still endures political turbulence, I’m happy to say that tourism is on the rebound. Hostels, bars and restaurants have opened again re-creating many local jobs, and the best breaks have started to swell with travelers. If you’re reading this then you’re probably well aware of the direction surf-tourism is heading. In many places the magic is slowly disappearing, my place being no exception. But whether that’s a good thing or not, who’s to say? All I know, is that that was the best 124$ I’ve ever spent.