We got company.

On the afternoon of the second day at Petacalco two rogue gringo drug guys showed up out of the brush and told us in very short terms we needed to leave. They had machetes, and were definitely acting the part of tough guy. They said we were not welcome and had some bullshit reasons why we had to leave. They pretty much were calling it their place and backing it with a threat of violence, but I think we stumbled into some other drug crap. I call them drug guys because we knew this area was a big producer of pot, and we had more than a couple of heavy searches on our way through by military checkpoints. These guys seemed pretty strung out, and reason did not seem a very good option at this point. We were a bit taken aback by the confrontation, but given the perfect surf out front and the inability to talk among the four of us for a strategy to confront them the best we could do was "we will think about it". Needless to say, neither group said "goodnight, sleep tight" as they pulled back.

After they left, we decided to call bullshit on their threats and hold our ground. We had a couple of Singapore slings and one spear gun so it was not like we could not huff and puff too. Calling bullshit is easy, sleeping in the middle of nowhere with who knows who in the weeds behind you is another thing. Not much sleep that night, but perfect surf the next day with no bogey men around kind of settled our anxiety. At the end of day three, it seemed that these guys either did not surf, or waited until it was far less than perfect to quit smoking and paddle out.

That night they came back. They were playing the machete card hard and saying leave now or someone was going to get hurt. We stood across the fire with the three spears and basically said "lets go". My heart was beating pretty damn good, but my three partners played the bluff perfectly.

They changed tactics and kinda became bros for a moment. Probably because they did not want to lose face by retreating but not wanting to call our bluff because in reality they were So Cal mommy boys (like me). We all dropped the threats, and found a little common ground. After a bit of conversation they found out we had a jar of peanut butter (please don't ask me to remember whey we mentioned that). They offered us a bag of pot for it, and we politely declined the offer and just gave it to them (Oh, I know you are all calling bull. No we did not take it).

They seemed to reluctantly accept our compromise of leaving in a couple of days, and keeping the place a secret. They left and we did not sleep.

We surfed perfection for the next couple of days, got tired of looking over our shoulders (you have to realize how vulnerable you are when you are camping on a deserted beach) and pulled out per our agreement. In retrospect, we should have killed them as the world would have been a better place. But, in our minds if we had just found this one perfect point there is probably another one a day away-without clowns.

We drove 8 hours a day for over a week before we found our next gem. La Libertad, El Salvador. http://www.surflalibertad.com/galleries/beach-LaLibertad.html

And, yes, Peterson and Naughton were here a month before.
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