Salsa Brava.

This book was given to me by an older surfer in Tofino. It is the cornerstone of surfing literature as far as I am concerned. Allen Weisbecker documents his travels down the coast of mexico then across to Coasta Rica in search of a long lost surf friend. Wiesbeck has a dubious past as a drug smuggler and this friend was his partner in crime. The idea was to smuggle marajuana by boat from Mexico into New York. The huge pay off would fund their surf trips. Years later his friend goes missing and he takes a surf reconnaissance mission. In the end he finds his friend in a drug addicted mess in the small isolated town of Puerto Viejo.
This is a tough town with a group of steely eyed expats and cut throat locals.




This is Salsa Brava. The most powerful wave in all Coasta Rica said to match the strenght of Hawaii's North Shore.
The first day Allen paddles out past the break he is certain he will perish. He looks at the deranged group of Expat surfers and notices that everyone is wearing a helmet. Among the crew are well known big wave surfers who had gone missing from the public eye to hide and ride only this wave. Allen states you have to be an adreniline junkie and partially sucidal in order to go out and ride this wave.


Today I read in the New York Times Travel section they are promoting tourism to this exact spot.Here.


This makes me sick. In the same way I would imagine the 16th century explorers would feel about a flight to Timbuktu.
IS NOTHING MYTHICAL AND SACRED ANYMORE !!

In my dream this coast is teeming with dirty grudgy good for nothing expat surfers with chips on their shoulders and a pulsating hunger in their pupils. In my dream people die at this wave alone under the terms they dreamed of and with their last vital memory being one of fierce speed punctuated with the thundering sound of mammoth whitewash


And Yes the Weisbecker novel compeltely inspired my future surf trip down the west coast in my Westphalia.
And no I will not be going to Salsa Brava.

OH and one last thing New York Times, I believe the use of the word brava is refering to the heavy swell of the ocean not to the adjective wild in this context. Chew on that, you blasphemous dream crushing assholes.