TAKING IT TO MEXICO, SELF EXPLORATION OF SURF TOURISM



Mount Washington

For this blog update I took the imitative to get completely immersed in my research and travelled to Playa Nexpa, Mexico to have a firsthand experience with Surf Tourism.  The transport needed to arrive in the destination was only a small portion of the experience encountered during this adventure.  My first leg of the trip was traveling by bus from Kamloops from Vancouver.  I sky trained it into the city stopping by my brothers place in Vancouver to say and hi and pick up my surfboard and heading out the airport by cab.  The first flight was to LA, where I would meet the UVIC Surf Club (5 students) and jump on another flight to Ixtapu/ Zaihuatanejo. The owner of our accommodation met us with two cars to transport us the final two hours to the beach.

The city was congested with cars, the streets were not like our conventional modern city in North America but we were happy not to see any McDonalds.

The development on this beach was placed between a rock formation and a river mouth.  There were about 10 cabanas along the beach and 15-20 homes and cabanas on the dirt road leading to the beach, one operational restaurant run by a local Mexican family and three little convenient stores. 

Over the next six days I would take part in the activities of the average surf tourist.  These activities included surfing, resting in a hammock, eating local food, working on my Spanish and mingling with the locals and other surf tourists.  I met surfers from Israel, Switzerland, Germany, France, United States (east and west coast), other Canadians, Australians and people from other locations of Mexico.  The difference between their observations of the environment and mine are, that I have been studying the impacts of tourism on a economically, politically, social and environmental level and would taking note of the environmental impacts and events relating to recent change in the environment.

There were no signs posted or garbage cans around but surprisingly the non organic garbage on the beach was minimal.  The visible recycling system can be split into headings: Organic ocean waste, Organic plant waste and glass bottles.   This area is rich in marine life, meaning great finishing.  Basically any scraps, bones and shells from fish and shrimp were thrown onto the shoreline to be returned to the ocean for recycling.  Fruit peels and vegetable scraps were placed around the base of trees and plants, acting as fertilization for the plant.  Beverages purchased in glass bottles (cerveza) had to be returned to the location they were purchased.  The business would then return the bottles to collect the bottle deposit.  Any additional food scraps were cleaned up or fed by the domestic animals that were passed out in the sand just outside of the restaurant 90% of the time.  

As I stated above the marine life in this area is rich.  Hatched turtle and seabird eggs can be found along the beach, as well as sea turtle carcases. The reef formation along the shoreline was thriving with barnacles and sea urchins. Bio luminescent sawn bright in the waves at night.  We spotted two hump back whales swimming through their late migration as well as a ray came up for a visit along side of me in the water.  Little fish we nicknamed bird fish, because they would jump out of the water waving their fins like wings and skip like a pebble across the top of the water, popped up everywhere and bumped into us many time as they were trying to escape the larger fish chasing them.  There were also some more uncommon and as a surfing unwanted marine visits. There has never been a shark attack at the surf break, though reef sharks (bottom feeders), hammer heads and tiger sharks.  No shark has been spotted here in two years, but of course the first day in water we had a nice visit from a tiger shark.  Those who spotted it as it surface paddled in closer to the crowd (about 20 surfers) but other than that we just stuck closer together and kept doing out thing.  The last day we were there a crocodile was spotted on the shoreline next to the river mouth.  We were also told this is very uncommon for here and I am happy I didn’t find out it was there until I was about to get out the water for the day.

From the descriptions of my experience we can conclude that environmental changes are occurring at the surf destination.  This is supported by late migration of whales and uncommon wildlife spotting in the area. Through the fear of further growth of the destination and the growth which has occurred in the past ten year, we can see that capacity and development is an issue.  If the beach is further developed to accommodate a larger capacity it will lead to overcrowding in the water, which has already started to become an issue there today.  I did not see any extensive sign to conclude that globalization is a major issue in this location, but I believe it would be hard to judge without previously visited the area.  I am grateful to have experience the culture, met the people I have, experienced the beauty and that the locals allowed me to take a turn checking out their wave.  The experience has contributed and increased awareness and knowledge of the world and will have contributed to shaping my future.   

The UVIC surf club organizes at least one international surf trip every year and a couple with in Vancouver Island.  Last year the club went to Panama, this year the beginner surfers went to Tofino and those who felt they were more advanced picked Mexico.  This supports active international awareness, improvement of individual surfing skill, students to share their passions with like minded athletes and an assortment of new opportunity.  The TRU Riders Surf Club has the same intentions and I hope will grow to this is the future.  To find more information on UVIC's surf club search UVIC Surfing on Facebook and for more information on TRU's surf club search TRU Riders Surf Club on Facebook.