Although Americans had been coming to Playa La Saladita to surf since the late ’80s, Lourdes Valencia Guzman had never learned to surf. Then she met an American named Paul, and her interest in riding waves changed.
Paul came to the beach for the first time about 16 years ago. He was hanging out at Jaqueline’s Restaurant, the first restaurant on the beach owned by Lourdes’ parents. Everyone thought Paul spoke strangely but Lourdes explained that it was because he was gringo. That first day, when her mother finally slipped away to take her daily walk into town to watch her soap opera, Lourdes approached Paul and asked, “¿Tiene hambre?” (“Are you hungry?) And when he replied yes, she made him lobster. He asked if she knew of a place he could stay and she suggested that yes, he could sleep in his car. And so began the long courtship between Paul, the American from Alaska, and Lourdes, La Reina del Mar.
Although there were a few bungalows on the beach, they belonged to the original surfers from Long Beach, California who had come here years before in search of waves. At the time, luckily, there was also a larger house being built on the beach for another gringo, and the first room was almost complete. Lourdes told Phillipe, who was managing the project, “You should rent to the gringo.” So Phillipe showed him the room. It was terrible and still had no roof, but Paul agreed and only stayed one night. Apparently, he didn’t see the wave there, made plans to go to Nexpa, but quickly changed his mind and went to stay about 30 minutes away in Ixtapa. Paul drove to Playa la Saladita every day and every afternoon drove back to Ixtapa. He didn’t speak Spanish, and Lourdes didn’t speak English. After a bit he returned to Alaska. When he left, he gave Lourdes a Spanish/English dictionary.
Three months later, Paul returned, this time with a friend. They discovered there was a roof on the bungalow, so they stayed at the beach. At this point Lourdes didn’t know how to surf. Paul went back to America and returned again eight months later. This went on for a while as he tried to learn Spanish so he could communicate with Lourdes while she used her dictionary to learn English. Within a couple of years, she was his girlfriend and decided she wanted to start surfing. But since she didn’t want to learn to surf in front of him she did so when he wasn’t there to watch.
Peter, an American who was a painter and had been coming here to surf for years, had a surfboard he left at Lourdes’ family house. She would borrow the board secretly and take it out to learn how to surf. She got some dings on his board and when he returned and removed it from the wall, he said, “Who broke my board?” Lourdes told him, “Peter, it must have fallen off the wall.” Peter agreed that was probably true. But her mom shot her a look that said, “I know that was you, and I’m going to kill you!” Lourdes says Peter knew it was her too, but he took the board to Zihuatanejo to have it fixed. And a few days later when he got his board back he asked “Lourdes, why don’t you come surfing?”
“No, I don’t like it. I go swimming,” she responded.
“You don’t want to try my board? Take it. No problem.”
Peter watched her surf and decided he was going to leave his board down, instead of putting it up on the wall, and that she could use it any time. So Lourdes went surfing every day.
Even though he still commutes from Alaska, after 16 years, Paul and Lourdes finally married two years ago. Lourdes opened her own restaurant/surf shop in 2007 just about 2 years after this small community finally got electricity. And in 2009, they finally paved the road to the beach.
Just down the beach from Lourdes’ and Jaqueline’s you will find Ilianet Nuñez Valdovinos, who began working and spending most of her time at the beach about 15 years ago. Her grandfather had given her father a little piece of land on Playa la Saladita and her mother Salena said, “I want a restaurant at the beach.”
Even though they have had the restaurant since 2001, the family only just moved here full time two years ago from Los Llanos, the town you drive through to get to Playa la Saladita. When they opened the restaurant here, surfing was already popular here. Jaqueline’s Restaurant had been here for years and Ilianet’s uncle had a restaurant here, Paco’s. The family just had a little palapa when they first opened Ilianet’s (It is tradition in Mexico to name a family business after one of the children). Today the business consists of more entities: there are palapas available for camping on either side of the restaurant along with casita’s for rent behind the restaurant. The kids all work and maintain some part of the business. Ilianet and her husband manage the restaurant and Uber, her brother, manages the camping and the casita’s. They all help one another out to make sure everything runs smoothly.
Ilianet tells the story of how her brothers got invited to go surfing with some tourists. But not Ilianet because she was the only girl. Her mother told her “You’re a girl, you’re too small and it’s too dangerous.” Some years later, a tourist family convinced Ilianet to give it a go. She stood up on her first wave, decided she loved it, and the rest is history.
Many of their clients were so excited to see Ilianet out surfing that everyone would give her waves over and over again. She surfed every day. When she was in high school, she didn’t have classes until 3pm, and so she surfed all day before school.
At first she just used Greg’s board when she was learning. Then when a gentleman called the Gallo came to town, he let her use a surfboard that they called “The Hawaiian.” He didn’t give it to her but she could use it whenever she wanted. To this day, she doesn’t have her own surfboard. The restaurant has some boards they rent and she uses whatever happens to be available. Her husband wants to buy her a surfboard of her very own. Even though he doesn’t surf, he knows how much she loves it and he wants her to find one that she likes and that will only be for her.
Although a generation apart, these women share a similar story and have watched this small beach town grow over the years. They both have strong businesses and loyal customers, but they also understand that other people with businesses on the beach and in the neighboring towns need more clients. Although some growth is welcome, neither of these women want to see Playa La Saladita grow too large. As they look to the future, luxury hotels and large crowds are not what anyone wants around here. They have a good thing and they know it. With more people and more money come more problems and more work. Ilianet has a family and would like to surf more. She used to be able to surf every day, but now she only gets to surf on her days off. And Lourdes has a family and a young son to raise. These ladies understand there is a difference between working to live and living to work and they want to live a well balanced life with plenty of surf.
