Chapters > Mexico
I don’t know if I am naïve, or if I have just seen too many Hollywood movies, maybe both, but I thought Mexico was about swing door saloons, tequila and sombreros? I expected to head out of the airport and hear someone say “ey gringo, wat joo doin ere? Joo wan sum tequila?” Okay, maybe I am stuck in the past, but seriously, was that too much to ask?
Actually, arriving in Mexico was like when you first hit that big milestone in kiting. You remember that feeling when you were thinking “Okay, front leg straight, back leg bent, roll onto the board. Don’t dive the kite too much. Hey, I AM UP, I AM UP, woh, balance, balance, HEY I AM GOING, woh , balance, balance, woooohoooo I am a kitesurfer” At first you are way off balance and before you know it, you have eased into it completely. Yeah, it was like that for me in Mexico. I was like “Okay Mike, be careful now, watch your back, eye out everyone suspiciously. You can’t get mugged on your first day. When you get out of the airport, bolt for the hotel. DON’T look anyone in the eye”. Thirty minutes later we were drinking Margaritas and had pledged allegiance to the country.
On average it blows between 18 and 25 knots in season. The wind sites to check the forecasts are iwindsurf.com and buoyweather.com. It seems common practice to take an average of these two and then add five knots.
The bonus about not having a bar nearby a kite beach is that you can do a downwinder to the bar where the windsurfers are, which makes that beer taste all the more sweet. There are a number of downwinders, but the most common is to head from Kite Beach to Hotel Las Palmas in the late afternoon.