Halfway through our stay in Antigua we decided to go to El Paredon, a surf beach 2 hours away to stay at a hostel called Driftwood Surfer. Malene made the booking after seeing the poster which looked idyllic and  really chilled – a bit of a party place but also time for yoga. We arrived at noon and expectations unraveled as we got off the bus and were ushered into a scruffy back-door entrance, our room was like a goldfish bowl with 3 walls of windows but at least the bed was good . We can do this we agreed, so we made our way the pool area, what was going on there set the scene for the next four days. I counted about 10 girls ……….

There was about 10 girls most of them top less – doing tequila shots, dancing and frolicking with each other on the pool bar, it was after all, 12 noon. We had no choice and under pressure we joined in for a “friendship” shot, Malene cheated and poured half of hers in the pool, some friend!! By dinner time it was nothing but body shots out of belly-buttons, both boys and girls. No… we did not partake and after the shuttle experience we had no idea when these belly-buttons last saw a bar of soap. Body parts we hadn’t seen previously started to get exposed and we retired early. The next morning a nice Canadian who was part of the festivities put it well “later things got weird man” he said. We heard that it may have involved some ‘yoga’ moves but nothing we can repeat in polite company.

We figured we had arrived during a particularly heavy sesh however they managed to keep up the party for all 5 nights of our stay. Guests left and new ones arrived but the staff were masters at pouring shots and starting parties, no one was spared but for the likes of us who hid after a certain time. This was a professional rave outfit and staff worked with military precision, the day’s party was announced after breakfast followed by ‘Dirty Pirates’ which were shots of 2 different tequilas, rum and some other liquid.

Our room was comfy and not too near the bar so we stuck it out. The beach was beautiful and as it’s a great surf spot, I decided to have a go – for the first time ever! – and rented a board for the day.

As with many sports my moves boarded on professional, judge for yourselves.

All that and still managed a quick change of top during my surfing

At night we discovered that a couple of local ladies ran restaurants on their front porch, there is nowhere in the world where you will not find pizza so there was also a pizza place.  We so enjoyed the food but we couldn’t quite work out if we have become accustomed to less sophistication or if these places were the latest in gourmet dinning.

The beach was long and black from the volcano sand so we did a few nice runs and a couple of walks past the vulture gauntlet to the little village by a river estuary.

All in all we had a fantastic time and managed to keep a low profile at the hostel during party time.

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