At 50 years old, the Aguja Santiago di Pace seems to have lived 50 lives and never ceases to amaze because every day it begins to live a new one.

Last week he had caught one of the swell bombs of the winter in Argentina, a couple of years ago he was beating the best big riders in the world in the big wave event at El Buey, and at the same time he is the coach of the Argentine national team.

But the history of Aguja began alongside names that today many children do not know but are an important part of the history of Argentine and world surfing.

Before surfers who had already finished their careers emerged, the Aguja had been given a double-page spread in Surfer magazine, to mention a historical fact.

For this reason, when starting this section, it seemed ideal that the character be him.

Below are the five most notable events.

Meet and travel with my idol Alejo Abramidis

The story is very good; there was an old man here who sold coffee on the Playa Popular. And one day he sold me an O'Neill suit, I think it was very good. And it was Alejo Abramidis' suit! And I was a 14-year-old kid who had gone to Brazil with my mom and I didn't know it was his, I later found out when he made me friends.

The suit was so good that I had it exchanged for a four-fin Hot Stick hand-to-hand in Joaquina. That was my first trip to Brazil.

Later I became friends with Alejo and I told him the story… He was killing it and he was my idol and then I became friends with him and we traveled together, we went to Brazil and he was the one who took me to Hawaii the first time.

He was the only one who came from Hawaii with photos of Backdoor, Sunset and he came from Indonesia… He was traveling with Daniel Balda who was Garret and Liam McNamara's photographer.

We became friends, he told me: “Aguja, you have to come to Hawaii.” One time he brought me a board, a Dennis Pang, and he took me as a friend. He didn’t want anyone and he chose me as a friend and took me to surf at the beaches here that I had never been to: La Paloma, Off the Wall, La Maquinita.

And when I got a good one, I was pissed off. I remember one time we went to ride Off the Wall and I got a tube and he was yelling: “Son of a bitch, Aguja, son of a bitch!”, he yelled at me. Because he was a bastard and he didn’t like you to catch better waves than him.

Alejo died of HIV, at that time they were injecting themselves and he became infected.  

Arriving in Hawaii and meeting Glen Kaulukukui and getting a double-page spread in Surfer Magazine

I met my friend, Glen Kaulukukui, because we rented a part of this Hawaiian's house, in Foodland (the North Shore supermarket), where there were little signs of people renting, there was one that said Studio for rent, so Alejo, Lolo and I rented him a part of the house for a month.

Later, when I ran out of money, a Peruvian friend, Mario Chocano, acted as a translator for me because I didn't know how to speak English. I became friends with the guy and I told him that I had run out of money and that I could stay and live in his house and help with the cleaning and taking care of the child. He had a two-year-old son.

So I stayed there for a year at his house, as a babysitter taking care of the kid, in front of Velzyland and there I made friends with all the locals and I got that double-page photo in the Surfer, thanks to living there I felt like a bit of a local at that time because I was living in one of the baddest places on the North Shore, that made me feel safer and they respected me.

I went to visit him two or three years ago on Kauai, I visited him, I was with him and last year he passed away, he was a cousin of Titus Kinimaka, a Kauai legend, Glen Kahulukukui.

He was a longboard champion, he was a killer longboarder, and I remember riding the big Sunset the first few times and Derek Ho and Glen would ride the same wave, they would surf together, and across the street from Glen's place lived the baddest guy at the time, the best, Dane Kealoha, he lived across the street from Glen's place, and Glen and I would hang out and Dane would cross the street to come and say hi. Glen wouldn't even look at him, imagine the significance of Glen Kaulukukui on the North Shore, he was the most respected of all.

I found out about the photo first because I got out of the tube, I hit myself, it covered everything and the tip got stuck inside the tube, I stood there waiting to see what would happen and miraculously the tube opened and the tip came out and didn't get stuck.

It opened and I was in front of all the photographers, there were about five or six of them. I immediately spoke to a photographer, he showed me the photos that were slides at that time and up ahead I saw another one floating, I asked what his name was, it was Alberto Sodre, Brazilian, and well, that's where I contacted him.

I was in the Brazilian magazine and then I found out from Fernando Aguerre who said that I had been in Surfer, that he lived in California, that came out many months later, it didn't come out right away.

The first photos that  I was able to buy the ones that I'm opening my arms to very close by. There was a Japanese guy named Takashiro Sushira who gave me some good ones and another one named Denshiro Hato. The first ones I contacted were Japanese. Then the Brazilian guy and the Surfer thing that was through another guy, but I found out about it five months later.

In fact, the first photographer I contacted, the Japanese, says that when I opened my arms to him, he went to the moon and sent me the moon. He was a lover of the moon, that Japanese man was crazy, he was one of the best photographers in Hawaii at that time.

Winning the international in Pichilemu against my idols from Peru, Roberto Meza and Titi de Col

I remember that I won the semi-final against Muelas and the final against Titi, who were the best surfers in Peru at that time along with Magoo de la Rosa and they were my idols and well, having won there in Chile was… I had already been to Hawaii then, I came with experience.

Becoming Argentine champion two years in a row 96 and 97

There was a championship during Holy Week that was a triple point championship in the Yacht and they did it that way to benefit the surfers of their brands so that they could be Argentine champions. In the end, I was the champion of that date in surfing and Pajarito García, we were crowned Argentine champions and from there we went to Iquique with sponsorship.

And the following year, out of the five dates, I won three and became champion again. The third began in Chapadmalal and ended in Seis Brujas, which is where ALAS was held. The final was against Martín Passeri, Alejo Martínez and Walter Villalba.

The victory at El Buey in 2018

The Buey was a dream, having won a championship there on the beach that I liked so much since 2003 when I started racing there. The first time I went there was in 2003 with hepatitis. I didn't know I had hepatitis and I came out in a mess, I remember. I had just returned from Peru with hepatitis. That's where I met El Buey and I fell in love with that wave. Winning with all the monsters that went to that championship was a dream, on top of that with tremendous waves, with the waves that I caught, the one that I was winning against Toto, it was kind of hot, it was all like a dream.