Path to enlightenment

Insta-surfers, rainy season & kidney stones

2010-10-12T19:34:00.000-07:00

Insta-surfers. I keep coming across so many people that just become "surfers" or jump into the lifestyle from left field and it never meshes well with me. I think there is this allure to the idea of the lifestyle of surfer that makes people just strangely jump in it. Somehow I cross paths with them and it's uncomfortable for all parties involved, something like the real surfer meets the posing surfer. I don't mean that to sound egotistical or conceited. I'll try to explain.
I headed north up the coast on a couple of travel days. Long driving days in Mexico were a thing I was dreading after so many military checkpoints. Plus I was in Chicahau loving the surf & my next stop was somewhere in the vicinity of Acapulco. But my travel experience seems to be kicking in and I made some good decisions and was pretty happy with how all the situations unfolded from being lost, to searching for a decent place to stay outside of Acapulco. It all went well, I was exploring to some beaches and found a nice beach right outside of the hideous large resort city of Acapulco. It's got all the glitz & glamour, all inclusive style places but with a really seedy dirty feeling nearby and I really wanted nothing to do with it. But, distance and timing was it was a good next stop to cross over onto some surf spots I wanted to hit well above it. First one was Troncones, right outside of Zihautenejo. Troncones is a really nice gringo style surf town. A lot of second homes owned by americans, it's a bit of a nicer area with a few surf options. The strange thing is that nobody is around. So I drive up and down the main dirt road and there is nobody, but it's filled with nice looking houses & hotels but they're empty, though still blocking my view and access to the beach. Not hotels like Acapulco resorts, just ones that look like a solid 2 week vacation spot for someone from the states. Which also means, out of my budget. But with nobody around I cruised around scoping things out until I found the wave & then found the cheapest place in town run by 2 "surfers" and is the only hostel like thing. It was a nice place, the best showers I had had in forever...really, hot water and a giant full pressure waterfall. I hadn't felt this clean in a while. So anyways as I check in and try to unwind from a long day on the road, I am chatting with the couple about the surf. They are telling me everything about all these waves, how to get in the water, they give surf classes, rent boards and all kinds of talk about times in the water and what this left point break has been doing on various occasions with various people surfing. All good, I'm psyched to get some tips for where to enter since it's a rocky reef break and stoked to hear about the other waves nearby as I'm going to head to one next. It's about sunset when I got there after a full 10 hours of traveling. There is nobody surfing and the guy from the hostel offers to go surf with me, show me the way down & out. The waves are small but after a hot sweaty day in Mexico, a refreshing sunset surf sounds great. Well as he wears his shoes to the beach and I go barefoot, the differences are starting to show early. Then comes the paddle out, we get in at the sandy side far from the wave & have to paddle. All good, mellow paddle out and I'm hanging back in no hurry but he's moving slow. Then I realize the sun is setting and I actually want to get out there in time to catch waves so I'm gone up ahead on my own. Get out there and try to asses the rock situation because this is a left point that breaks near and over rocks and you can't just catch the wave anywhere. At this point, I'm really comfortable in the water. I've been all over this continent surfing rights, lefts, beach breaks, reef breaks, rocky points, etc. I love the feeling of being connected to the ocean and being able to read it, that only comes with time in the ocean as it ever changing with tides, winds, rocks, swells, etc. SO I'm out there alone, find my groove and start having fun. Catching little waves close to over these rocks, the only steep section that was surfable on a short board as the rest was better for a long board. I get wave after wave and feel bad as I'm passing around the guy. He can't duck dive which is pretty crucial to surfing. And because the waves were really only catchable at the part where I was sitting, he never caught any because it was too close to the rocks. SO I sort of felt bad but didn't know what else to do but catch waves were I was and be nice as I paddled by. I don't care what skill level anyone is at and the point of this isn't to talk about how great I am surfing. What it turns out is that after the surf and we go back to their place, I start talking to the couple. THey're a young couple running this surf hostel, offering surf lessons and tours and such. A bit of conversing and it turns out they've only been there 4 months as they were fire dancers in Seattle and took this opportunity to come down & do this life down here and run this surf hostel. Except one thing, they don't really surf? It seems strange for me because I'm not trying to live a lifestyle or be a surfer, I just really love the connection with the ocean, the challenge, the humbling mother ocean provides and the feeling of being connected to it all. I'm living on the beach, in a truck keeping track of tides, moon phases, winds, swell angles and then when I pop into a more normal vacationers town & run into the insta-surfers it's an insta-clash. Like I've mentioned in previous blogs, I'm doing all I can not to talk about me or my trip and the insta-surfer is always keen to talk and talk so they do all the talking and then eventually after peeling bit by bit out they realized I'm actually living the life and they're just talking it. It would be just as if I jumped into some other super random thing out of nowhere like call home to mom & dad & said "hey, I'm moving to canada opening a hunting lodge & becoming a hunter." I don't have a gun, much-less enough to necessitate a gun rack. haha ok well enough about that, you would be surprised how many of these I've run into. And they never speak spanish either....
Well after my night with the fire dancer/insta surfer couple I was off to go find this spot called the ranch. I was told some directions from a lady who had been there but they were sort of confusing. One thing I remembered was once I was on my dirt road exit passing thru a small town, keep staying to the left as forks and splits happen in the road. It took me a bit of circling confusing to find the exit but I finally spotted my dirt way. I'm always wishing I could share these travel days with everyone so you could see how it is really. I decided to shoot some video with my little point and shoot to see if I could capture some of the essence. I am continuing the abuse my truck as I bounce up and down thru the small town of los robles. I keep staying left per instructions and it seems all is well. Now, before I go further, I forgot to mention that this has been one of the rainiest rainy seasons on record for Mexico. It's been pouring, causing flooding and landslides all over. So as I stay on the left the dirt roads start to have intimidating looking puddles that I have to make the right decisions on whether I should be passing. They are a few of them and they're deep but passable. There have been a few forks in the road with 2 or 3 road options and I just keep staying left. Well the very last one looked crazy and I should have known from the start this couldn't be the right road. But it's muddy on all 3 roads, they all look pretty crappy and small, and I was told stay left. So though my instincts said, this doesn't look right I went forward a bit to see more. As I get down this path the trees come in tight smashing thru my rolled down winds breaking leaves and branches all in the front seats. Now quickly the road is coming to a bend, I can't really turn around so I figured I'm doing alright I'll go forward to the bend and see if maybe I'm actually arriving to the beach. I've essentially been off the main road and into the dirt ones for maybe 30 mins. As I hit the bend and go around it the mud tracks are really not level and I'm quickly hanging down on the driver side meaning the passenger side was about 30 degrees higher up than the driver. I stopped video'ing at just before this as it was getting too challenging to shoot video and drive, needed my full attention. These tracks were scary, I wasn't sure if maybe I could tilt plus the ruts on each side were deep and I didn't want to slide over into them. So I was in it now and had to go forward and I finally made it out of the scary unleveled tracks and immediately drop on the other side and I'm not moving forward. Maybe I was pushing or leaning to that side because I had almost been tilting to my side the entire previous bit so I ended up a little over on that side after the tracks leveled and I was down quick. I try to reverse, no luck. Don't really see much mud spitting and being there alone I can't see what the wheels are doing, spinning or not. I check it out and it looks pretty bottomed out on that side. Now it wasn't long before this, maybe a month early, I was in a collectivo truck that got stuck similarly to this and the guys got out with their machettes and hacked down some tree branches, put them under the tires and we pushed ourselves out. I'm really far from anyone and now a little while back realized this could not be the right road down meaning nobody else is going to pass through here, only an idiot would take this road! So I get out, grab my machette and go searching for tree branches. It's mid day or so, really hot and unfortunately my car just happened to be in a spot not being blocked by all the trees around. It's muddy everywhere, I'm out in sandals which immediately become stuck and useless so I'm barefoot. There are immediately more thorny things that I want to deal with, I either walk the grassy like middle part of the road and step on prickly things or walk in the muddy mirky watered tire tracks. It's really muddy, deep up to my knee in some parts. I'm hacking away at branches and sure enough I grab one that is already knocked down and a bunch of fire ants are on me. I'm smacking and jumping away, continuing to fight this battle. Back over to the truck I've got branches and I'm first trying to dig my truck out. Key word "trying". The mud there was up to my knee and watery so I'm trying to make trenches leading the water elsewhere and dig mud out by it seems all my trenches ever do is bring more water to me. The truck being in the sun made it so my black exterior would burn you if you touched it. So as I'm trying to dig in the mud, sweating as it's 95 degrees, I can't even lean on the truck to assist. After a bit of time and positioning of these branches, I drop one down next to the tire on a bush and immediately I'm getting tagged by a swarm of bees. I was knee deep in mud and had been trying to tip toe my way around to the 'best' spots and now I'm just getting stung all over my legs and so I run, over to the car and jump in all muddy. So much of not trying to get all this mud on the inside, I had 4 welts on my legs from these bees. There home was right next to my tire that I was digging in. At this point I figure I'll fire up the car and give it another shot, no dice. Now I've been at this for maybe 1 or 2 hours and with the bees over there waiting to attack me and me not having anyone to push or help, I start to concede that though I'm trying my best I don't think there is any way. So I grab my water, lock up and start hiking out barefoot and all. All of the giant puddles I went through I know have to cross which is kind of creepy thinking about possible snakes or scorpions arounds. It was a long hot walk, probably an hour and a half until I saw my first house. First house I walk up and there is a lady and she says her husbands working and they have no car. The next house I ask the guy for some help and he tells me to wait and he'll go get some help. Just like that he's gone towards town and I'm realizing this is going to be another one of those situations where some nice latin people help me out of my jam. He comes back with a guy in truck, actually similar to my truck, and we're off to go scope it out. I'm bouncing around the back of the truck enjoying the breeze and when we get to the last fork and I tell them to stay left they immediately stop and look at me like "you went down THAT road?" Yep, so he decides to back down a ways and then realizes he's not going to even try to make it there. We walk down, I'm hoping they can come up with some typical creative resilient latin magic that they do in so many situations but this one isn't happening. We try pushing but it's not moving. The chasis is on the ground. He tells me "necisita una machina"...a tractor. We're back towards town and they're calling the 2 guys they know that have tractors. First one isn't available and then the next has to call back. By the time we get back to his house a guy is rolling down the road in his tractor to pick us up and head out to my car. Just like that, nobody is asking for money , I have no fun, no AAA, just have to stay positive and use my spanish and hope that I will get help. It never fails that I do. All 3 of us climb ontot his guys tractor and we head back out to my truck. I'm standing barefoot on some gear or something off the back, it's actually a long ride back on the tractor as it's not moving much faster than I was walking. My feet are getting sore balancing on the back of this thing and trying not to get slapped by leaves and branches. We get out there, they hook up a chain and just like that I am out of hole I was in and just have to turn around and drive that scary part again which I really wasn't looking forward to doing but I had no choice. I make it out, hand the guys a little bit of money for the help and everyone is on their way. I'm not on the right road down to the beach, get down there and it's empty. There are 2 restaurant palapa type places that are closed down & I pull up at one, set up my tent under the palm thatched roof and I'm back in business. Now if you remember I had just left the nice place with the fire dancers and I was feeling so good about the nice hot shower I had there. That was from the morning, now 8 hours later I'm covered in mud and sweat. So much for that feeling, all I can do is go in the ocean with a bar of soap... So I captured some of this on video and put together a little vid to show you guys a day of searching for the beach down here in rainy season. I'm going to try to put up on this page on the right side. As always the end destination turned out to be a good one, I was camped out on my own left point break for 3 days. I spent time surfing, reading, writing, trying to play guitar, drawing, cooking, cleaning, & some yoga. At this point in my trip I find myself thinking about the entire trip, something I hadn't done much of as I have always been trying to stay 'present'. But wow, I can't believe all the places that I've been through and how many days like this one I've had. It's pretty overwhelming trying to digest it all.
Well a few days of camping I was getting low on food and ready to find a real shower so I'm off to the next beach which was a place I really excited about going to and surfing called Rio Nexpa. Rio Nexpa has a fun left point break, a good bit of power and because of the rain the river has busted through for the first time in some 6 years. As all the towns in Mexico, it's eerily empty. I park, walk around town asking about camping and rooms. I had all plans on camping but I was really wanting a camping situation with a shower and everything, which they had but when I got offered this cabaña with it's own kitched for 12 dollars a night I couldn't resist. It had a fridge which I never had, I immediately thought of cheese and cold milk for cereal and left overs. Plus a sink to wash dishes, this is the high life for me. So I set up there for a week & end up getting some really pumping a frame rights and lefts on the other side of the river mouth that busted through and had moved some sand to form these pretty amazing sand bars. It was high performance, powerful and hollow surf. So I'm out there with a guy I met a month ago in southern mexico, we're catching these bombs and all is good for a couple of days. But with surf like this, big waves and big powerful barrels comes hard spills and I end up getting smashed on my board and my chin is split open. I immediately feel for it and see blood all over my hand. I paddle back out to my aussie mate and ask him how it looks & he's like "ah, you're going to need stitches for sure mate." My board took some damage too. Off to the nearest town, I find another funny small clinic. The guy ties up my chin with some fishing line that I can still get in the water if I want. And just like that I'm taking a day off and enjoying some time in the hammock with my book.
Off from here I'm looking to head up the coast to my next stop, Pascuales, where I can get some dings in a couple of boards repaired. On my 5 hour drive I get hit with some intense kidney pains. It's bad, like to the point where I'm immediately nauseas from the pain. I'm not near any kind of facility that can help me but I'm realizing this is serious pain, not one I can just ignore. It's too intense. I spend the day traveling anyway, arrive to Pascuales and set up my tent under this roof of the guy who does board repairs there. I'm exhausted, always a side effect from fighting through the pain. I get my cot set up, lay on my hammock next to the tent and I'm asleep before the sun is down. Next morning I get up and it's come back. At first not quite so intense but enough to keep me from surfing some fun looking waves and thinking about the fact that I need to go find an Urologist. So I leave my tent, drive to the nearest town with internet and start searching where I can find Urologists in Mexico. There aren't just specialists all over, only the big cities where the big money is have facilities that I need. So the closes big city is Guadalajara, I track down a hospital and call them asking about Urologists. They recommend a guy, I call his office asking if they have lithotripsy or some high tech solution because I'm dying in pain and know that I can't pass this stone on my own. Talking spanish on the phone still isn't easy and I'm writing down the name of the place, some other things nearby to reference and just like that I have an appointment at 530 that same evening in a city 4 hours away that I know nothing about. I'm back to the beach, pack up my campsite, grab my boards and I'm on the road. I have no phone, no gps, no map and no guidebook for this place. I guess the having no road map thing is my own fault, they're out there but I've just been using word of mouth and asking people for directions. So I'm driving as fast as I can as the road leading to the city has a toll road option and it's a nice road compared to what I've been dealing with. I fly for hours on the highway and I'm entering a city that seems pretty big and spread out. I stop and start asking, it's confusing but somehow or another after a few different stops I find someone that knows a fairly easy route to get where I'm going. I make it over to the hospital for my 530pm appointment. The office is really high tech, all macs and the doctor seems really legit. He ultrasounds me right there and confirms what I've knowns, I've got a giant stone that I can't pass without some sort of procedure to help. I'm telling him my story as he's asking, that I'm traveling alone and what I went thru to get to this point. He sends me to get xrays and go do blood/urine tests. I'm feeling pretty good about my spanish. My ability to understand seems pretty good, as always much better than my ability to talk. But since I've been through some of this before in Peru, I'm pretty familiar with the medical terms relating to anything you might go through with your kidney. All the tests are done and I'm being scheduled to have a tube with camera & laser up my urinary tract to laser burn my kidney stone one on Monday, Oct 11th. Yesterday. Now that this is all out of the way, I still need to figure out where I'm sleeping. It's dark now, Friday night. I have no information and the area where the hospital was is the most fancy american looking area I have see in forever - outback steakhouse, mall, pf chang's, starbucks and super fancy expensive hotels. Not in my budget, I'm about to spend a fortune on this procedure so I need to stick to a budget traveler style place. I just ask someone how far the centro is, which turns out to be far...maybe 30 mins on city roads. Somehow or another I'm there, circling around the busy small cobblestone streets until I spot a hostel. Have to leave the car on the street with a guy watching it as it's not a parking area really. They have space but no parking so now I have a bed and just need to sort out my parking. Back in the car, circling around until I find a fenced in parking area and negotiate a deal to leave the truck there for a few days. It's not 10 at night and I haven't eaten either so I'm off to walk the streets, grab some street tacos thankfully not to far away and back to the hostel and I'm crashed out as all the hostel backpacker people are just getting started to party the night away. Kill me. I guess when I started the day I had no clue how I was going to work this out and as I was driving to Guadalajara it was hard not to think there was no way I would make it in time, or find the place, or figure out where to sleep and I consciously told myself that it was all going to work out. I was just going to face each thing as it came and would make it happen. With no phone, no gps, and me alone I was able to just get it all done and end up sleeping the night away with plans of surgery in a few days. It definitely does good to just focus on what is in your control and not worry about what might happen, just face it as it comes and it will work out one way or another.
Yesterday was the day, as much as I wanted to stay upbeat about the outcome I couldn't help but get anxious about the idea of a tube going up this part of my body and the inevitable pain I was going to endure. I was given an epidural to numb my body and watched via the computer screen as the camera and laser did its work on my stone. An hour and a half later I'm being wheeled out of there and because I was alone, put into a room for the night. I won't describe all the horrible parts of it and they are still happening right now as I've been typing but it's definitely not something I would ever wish on anyone else. I'm not out of the weeds yet, I've still got a catheter inside and I'm trying to pass all the small bits of stone that were broken up into more passable size. It's painful and maybe it's time like these that I wish I had my loved ones near. I think that's why I decided to write this tonight, since I can't have you all here then all I can do is talk to you through this blog medium. It's certainly no fun to be here, especially in a backpacker environment where everyone is socializing and then I'm the weird guy in the corner with a catheter in his urethra and peeing blood. I guess this is just another one of those moments where I've had to endure and persevere. All good for more spanish learning and testing my patience. Hopefully this will be the end of this kidney stone plague that has plagued me more or less the entire trip.
I guess tomorrow I need to get back to these stitches and have them pulled out or take them out myself...that turned into a very minor problem real quick :)
buenas noches, off to sleep now!

my truck almost became a boat

2010-09-14T06:40:00.000-07:00

Buen dia everyone. So I'm still here in Southern Mexico really loving it. Last year when I was in Mexico I only spent one month here so this time around I'm really trying to slow down and explore around for all the gems I missed on my way down. The southern part of Mexico is really amazing for surf. There are points upon points upon points & with 4x4, a little patience & the will to explore you can really land yourself on some amazing empty beaches. I finally found the spots I had always dreamed of finding & it's been so cool to enjoy these places, though as always I'm always missing the oh so important factor of having someone to share it with. There are people around but whenever I find these amazing surf spots I'm always wishing my brothers were there or friends or someone so that we could sit there in disbelief rather than me sitting there unable to believe that I'm actually here doing this & experiencing this. In the south I really went up & down many dirt roads in hopes that one of them lead to an empty beach with waves. After quite of bit of rough driving, I landed on an amazing beach alone...so I thought. It's one of those moments where I'm sitting on a beach, parked & camping and I feel like I've found this right point break and I'm feeling all good about my explorations. And then that feelings is curbed quickly as 4 suburbans come driving up the sand & park right next to me. And out jumps the Nike 6.0 junior girls & boys surf team. These little 16 yr olds had just flown from California and then escorted right to my precious lonely beach that I thought I had all to myself. These are some of the best junior surfers in the world and as I chatted with one of them, she says "I've never been to mexico, this is my first day". Here I sit having driven up a billion rough dirt roads to "find" this place and these little brats get driven right out there with no effort, no spanish, and in luxury. So while I camped, fought mosquitos, and slept in my tent they came in & out in the A/C from their perfect little worlds in a city about 45 mins away. So I spent the week sharing the waves with them & their photographers. After this bit on the beach I finally headed up the coast a bit to continue northbound (which feels wrong by the way, I'm a southbound kind of guy). I end up running into a guy I met last year and he tells me that he's out on this peninsula that has some good waves. SO I decide to make the mission out there, though I was reluctant because you can't arrive there by car this time of the year (rainy season). So I drive to a town, catch a shared boat ride, then a collectivo truck (a group of you sitting in a truck bed), and finally arrive to the small town of Chicahua. It sits out on this peninsula I guess, it's out on the beach and we drove through mangroves across the lagoon for 15 minutes in a boat to get there from the mainland. Chicahua is a really small town with nothing going there, just some fisherman & a few surfers that have realized this is a magical surf spot. You know, just like all the really small towns I have camped in, I always have this same question in my head and the same answers come to life. The question is, I wonder how I'm going to get food when what I have runs out. What I have grown to love about the small towns on this trip is there isn't grocery stores, the food just comes right to you. I'll be sitting around the campsite and then someone will walk up and have baked fresh breads. Then someone walks by having made enchiladas. Then another who makes tortillas. Then someone with vegetables. Then another with eggs. It always happens like this. No matter how small, the food shows up with someone on a scooter, a veggie truck, walking on foot. It's so cool because essentially these small towns all work together to feed each other. Each person just makes something & then shares it with the rest of the town for a few pesos. You know exactly where your food came from, it's such a big difference than the big cities of home. We get everything from the grocery story, who knows where it came from. But this is so different, you get to know everyone and what they make everyday. SO surely the people that make anything dulce know they can pass by my camp everyday and get me to buy a sweet bread or whatever tasty treat they make. So Chicahua turned out to be the most amazing surf experience I've had. The waves were big, it's a right point break, and the sand bar had just been shifted to form the most perfect giant barrels I've ever been a part of. I guess it's also cool to realize my surf skills have improved slightly (one who hope so!) and that I can actually surf these high performance waves. I've never spent so much time standing in giant dry barrels for many many seconds on every wave. All this and it was just 2 of us out. Each wave I came off of just blown away, unable to believe that I was actually riding these waves. So after a 4 days of quiet on the beach, books, hammocks, writing, drawing, practicing guitar, and surfing a huge rain storm cam. It poured and poured and poured for a day or 2. Well apparently the water levels in the lagoon had risen to unusual heights. One morning I'm lounging around & this guy comes running up saying the truck is leaving to the boats and that they heard word that my truck was almost underwater! SO in a flash I grab a couple things, run to the truck in the crazy downpour & now I'm sitting in the back of a truck getting completely dumped on by rain. The drive is rough, muddy, wet. First we come to a tree down in the "road" so the guys jump out and hack away at it with their machettes. Then we hit a soft spot and one side of the truck bottoms out in the mud and we're stuff. Machettes out again, cutting down some sort of branch to lift the truck and put under the tire. I'm out, soaked, to help push. I end up in the muddiest spot (knee deep) and when we finally push the truck out I fall a bit in the mud and onto a pile of bullet ants. I get so attacked by these ants. They're called bullet ants because it feels like a bullet when they bite. Back in the truck, trying to wipe the pain away from the numerous bullet bites and we're bouncing back down the muddy path. Finally we get to the boat, jump in and it's pouring and a rough 15 min ride back to town. Upon arrive I see the house I parked my car at is completely underwater, 3 feet high in their kitchen and next to my truck is parked all the boats. The people nicely built a barricade around my truck but the water was about knee high all around the truck and my only exit is to drive into the lagoon. So I get out, move the boats out of the way to create a "road" for me to pass thru them and I have no choice but to just drive my car into the water and hope that I don't break down. The rain was intense so I knew it was this or my truck would be a boat in a couple of hours. So after a bit of moving boats out of my way, trudging through the water I finally jump in and drive into the water and thankfully make it out of there just in time. As soon as I had removed the barricade, the water flooded my parking spot and I was so close to losing my truck in the water. Just another one of those "oh no" moments that I really lucked out in. Thankfully the people who's house got flooded decided to build a barricade for my truck, I don't know how in the world that they decided to bother with my truck when their things were under water. But I sure thanked them. That was half the journey, I had to go back on the boat & truck to get back to my campsite but took a little break to shop for some things while back on land. I was able to snap a quick picture in the rain of my truck, it doesn't really show it well but you can get the idea. There was no time to bother with cameras, plus it was pouring. This is all part of being down here in rainy season and these are the things that make the days so exciting and scary. That's all for now, I'm actually heading back to that same place as I decided to go back for one more incoming swell before heading northbound. Hope everyone is doing great & enjoyed the end of summer. chau!

blogged out in Mexico

2010-08-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

I guess I have drifted away from this blog action. Blog, who made up that word anyways? I have never really liked that word and never thought I would be saying that I blog. I like the idea of journaling better. I guess after too many days, too many situations, too many things to blog about I started feeling like I couldn't keep up and I couldn't possibly relay the story of my life in this once a month blog. There is too much going on, even though it may seem like maybe nothing is happening with me other than beaches & surfing. I guess that is what is so addictive about this trip, there is always something happening and whatever does happens is so unpredictable that I'm always riding high on a bit of excitement or fear or adrenaline. It's a constant addictive high traveling in a car, being lost, not knowing where you'er going to sleep or what you might find or what is going to happen. Avoiding police check points or military searches or landing on a beach after driving 4x4 to an isolated beautiful beach with a magical surf set up. It's all part of it, all these encounters with people from all over the world. Spanish conversations that are getting better and better allowing me to dig deeper into understanding and knowing these cultures and not just pass through on the outside in a bubble as a tourist but really pass through the heart of the people and all the small communities. I know that nobody can imagine what I'm doing or how I'm experiencing these things which is why I always feel my blog does injustice. I leave out major events, relationships, friends, feelings, sights, & smells. They leave me feeling like the blog is too surface level. I guess now I'm sitting with a fairly introspective mind because I'm sitting in Southern Mexico and the next border to the north is to my country & my people. It also culminates my trip that to date has lasted 1 year & 8 months & counting. What an experience, what a transformation for my life, what an epic journey. At this point this trip is too big for comprehension for me or others. It has become this elephant in the room when I'm around people. I don't know how to explain this other than saying that basically nobody has done this trip like me. There are loads of travelers, people hitting all sides of the globe, but in general nobody knows anybody who has driven a truck to south america and had the experiences in the way that I have had them. This is been a problem for me the entire way....it draws too much attention on me. If I meet someone, I hold out on telling them anything about me or my travels until it's dragged out of me & then it turns me into this focal point for interest, travel questions, stories, etc. I have been slowly sliding away from people because of this, causing me to be more quiet or reserved maybe than normal. I don't want this attention and it can't be helped. People just can't believe it and all the attention is focused on me for almost every encounter the entire times and I find myself being lured into telling tales of the trip to the point of exhaustion. I then realized I've divulged my travels to these strangers and I'm already tired of talking about myself and yet I haven't even shared it all with my loved ones from home....other than via this blog. It's a weird space to be in, the way people react to my 'trip' is in unbelievable shock & then questions which means if there is a group of people I get stuck talking about me until I leave, which happens a lot. I'm sure if you're reading this you're laughing thinking I'm a bit ridiculous which is probably true but I just want to relay my head space. The thing is, a huge part about traveling like this is meeting all these people from all over the world. And though I cringe at the idea of talking more about me when someone knew walks up and starts asking the standard traveler questions (where you from, how long you been here, where are you going, and for how long have you been traveling), it is these same people that I have made friends with, helped me in crisis of illness or anything, and had meaningful conversations about the world and usually government/law comparisons of our countries. There are certain types of things you can't learn unless you're removed from your own country & have all of these discussions. It's been amazing for me and it has caused me to be even more interested in visiting more countries because now I have friends and local 'guides' in plenty of amazing sounding countries.
So here I sit in southern Mexico, one really big country left to cross before arriving on U.S. soil. Seems a bit surreal for me but I'm trying to continue focusing on what I have right in front of me for each day. I've been exploring, camping,& conversing my way slowly up the coast. I don't even remember what I last blogged about but I have really been pushing myself to dig deep into the purpose of my trip. So since Nicaragua, I have been traveling alone. It's really easy to meet someone that might be heading the same direction and maybe even surfing that would love to jump in the truck. But for now I have been alone and started the right way in El Salvador. In El Salvador I stayed & camped in local communities. I explored far off the path using my 4x4 to find amazing waves, beaches and as always welcoming communities. I can just pull into an area with sporadic shacks around and after a few strange gazes and a little of talking to me in their language, I am welcomed into a home like a family member. And these are always humbling experiences because I have to show up in what seems like a million dollar truck and am asking for a place to sleep with people who's homes are hand made shacks. Bucket showers, outhouses....all the basics. But I push myself, even though I'm embarrassed, to approach the situation for the experience & spanish practice. I went through all of El Salvador without really having any english conversations. The surf was amazing en El Salvador, so were the people. I guess what is cool about passing these countries again is that this time around I am having a completely different experience. Last year when I passed through Mexico, Guatemala & El Salvador I was still really nervous & protective with myself plus I didn't speak much spanish. So I remained behind a protective layer of finding the most secure feeling environment & only engaging a little, the language barrier really stops you from being able to feel but so comfortable. Now I'm back and I'm really getting to understand these cultures and how different from each other they really are so it seems to be a new experience this time. I spent a short time in Guatemala which I loved, in this city up in the volcanoes/mountains that had a good blend of local culture mixed with some tourism. After that break from the ocean I decided to head for Mexico & find my way to the coast to explore & camp again. I landed on this remote point and camped on a local families land, got some great spanish practice and fun surf. After 10 days of camping, I came up to the powerful & punishing surf of the notorious Puerto Escondido.
Well I guess this blog was more of some introspection than an exciting story from abroad....already told too many stories, just needed to talk about things from a different perspective. I hope everyone has had a great summer...chau

boats, planes, bribes and crimes

2010-07-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

Hola amigos!!! I know I know, I am super slow at this blog thing. It takes a lot of effort for me to do this these days, I suppose it always feels like there is no way I can describe everything so I avoid it plus it requires internet access to really sit down and publish something. Here I am in Nicaragua writing this but I haven't posted anything since I was about to try to ship my car from Ecuador to Panama. That was a painful process that I want to forget but will finish this story for anyone who still reads this thing. So I guess first thing I will say is that I don't ever see myself shipping a car in latin america again, it is painfully corrupt and a test of patience like no other. When I arrived in Guayaquil after my flat tires and madness to get there, I began searching around the city for this office. I find it and go start to talk to them about shipping details. Like the emotional rollercoaster ride of the entire process they start off by saying I don't have time to get on the next ship that is leaving and they don't have another one for 4 weeks. Wouldn't be too much of a problem except I am trying to get back to Central America to meet up with some friends and family that are taking a vacation in Costa Rica. Sooo Dj & I are there debating whether we should just charge a super long drive to the caribean side of columbia and hope to find a boat there or what. You can't drive through straight to panama because of the Darien Gap which is said to have no road and lots of gorilla groups throughout the couple hundred mile jungle. Though I am tempted to see if you can drive through it seems like a bad idea so I am trying to follow thru with this car shipping thing. I don't think there is anyway possible to describe how frustrating it is to try to figure out how to get your car exported from a country on a boat & then imported into another. For whatever reason, it is a million times more difficult than just crossing a border by land. So basically the frustration begins when the shipping company never actually knows or tells you what you need to do. SO I spend all day everyday running around town to find a guy who will 'help' me expedite the process so that there is enough time to for me to get on this next boat. Apparently, with a little money paid to him, he has the ability to push my paperwork through to get everything ready for me to put my car in a container. So after a day of running around doing getting things ready, Dj & get ourselves a decent room and decide to head for gringo food. I guess when you're in guayaquil and dealing with port people, it's all really dirty, sketchy, seedy & corrupt that when the first day (which seemed successful) was over we just wanted to get a clean room and something more comfortable. So we found a pizza hut. Seemed like a great idea to me as I haven't had any foods from home in a while. We get pizza, it's really greasy and apparently my body isn't ready to have this much grease and later that night I begin with the vomiting. So the next day I have to tackle all the errands while being super sick, great. We get the last few things done that was on our list, feeling like this is a slam dunk, but we decide to run back by the shipping office to double check that everything is good. It all seems good and then I ask them about putting my car in the container and they throw a "oh the container is 40 km's outside of the port and you have to hire someone to move it, haven't you done that?" Uhmm...it's Friday at 3pm and the boat leaves the next day & I need to be packed up by saturday at 5pm. So I'm responding with, you never told me about this when you broke down all the costs and the list of things needed to be done. Kind of a major detail left out & of course it's 3pm on friday so how do you hire a truck to move a container at this hour of the week? I mean, this is latin america and they usually don't do anything fast. So I'm freaking out and then they start calling people and then telling me it's going to cost me 200 dollars. Again, I'm fighting angrily as they gave me a price breakdown and it didn't ahve any of this in it. I refuse to pay and tell them I'm just not going to go and all of a sudden it costs 25 dollars. And this is a perfect example of everything, they try to get more money out of me than it actually costs. Every person tries to tell me I owe them money, some of them I do owe money and others not. It's frustrating. SO I have this guy who is going to deliver the container at 8am on saturday morning to the port and I'm going to meet him there, put my car in the container and leave. Sounds easy enough right....wrong! The next morning we go to the port. Now I've 'hired' a friends cousin to come with me to help get through the potential road blocks and use his native spanish speaking skills to help ease me along. So we get to the port, which is basically the seediest poorest part of an already seedy port city. Everyone is staring at us (as always) but they look rough and we feel a bit uneasy. Now Dj & I have put together a backpack with the things we're going to bring and everything else will stay in the car. We get to the port and they say that only I'm allowed inside the port so my helper can't even come in to help and I leave him & dj with our bags outside the port while I go put the car in the container. If it were only that easy. I also had a lot of cash on me because a bunch of this had to paid in cash only (imagine that) and that money was left in my bag with Dj while I went in. After getting thru security and their finger print scanners, I'm in to go track down my container and load it. Things seem to be moving along and then I'm stuck waiting for a police officer to come inspect my truck. He's working on another container filled with boxes of fruit and I see him over there going thru every single thing and I know it's going to be tough on me. I've just packed up my truck nicely, organizing everything so I knew where it was and was ready to go. After a couple hours of waiting, he finally comes to inspect my truck. There are these other port workers there that are waiting to help tie down my truck in the container. He tells them that they have to take everything out of my truck, EVERYTHING. This might not sound bad but this truck is my mobile home and I have a lot of stuff. They just start tossing all of my things everywhere on the ground and have to get every single penny or paper or thing out. This is all my camping gear, surf gear, camera gear, clothes, misc items and more misc items. It's more than you (or I) could imagine. So it's finally all laid out and the policia with his dog, ties his dog up and then takes this tennis ball and starts teasing the dog with the ball and then putting the ball all over my things. Finally after he's touched all of my things with the ball he releases the dog and it goes crazy smashing all of my things. I mean, like hyper crazy jumping all over all of my things (*some fragile). It seems pretty ridiculous and certainly doesn't seem like a real drug search. The dog thrashes my books (I have quite a few these days), jumps on my surf boards, camera bag, etc. I'm fuming, it's also like 95 degrees and sunny. So after demolishing my things, it's onto the empty car. He does the same thing with the dog, ties it up and then goes all in my car showing the dog the ball & touching everywhere including the engine, seats, everywhere. Then again, release and the dog goes nuts jumping all over my engine, seats, etc. Driving me nuts and seems pointless (like everything in this process). I thought the pain was over but then this police takes his knife out and behinds to try to rip apart my car from the inside and bangs the outside with the knife all over leaving lovely scratches and breaking plastic parts inside. After it's all over, he tells me to repack which I do while seething some choice words in english that he couldn't understand...probably for the better. So it seems it's all over but now I need an inspection by customs. I wait, then wait more and finally track this guy down who comes with my paperwork and looks at the car and just walks away without saying much. Then I'm stuck waiting, and waiting and waiting until finally I track this customs guy down and find out that he's not going to clear my car for export. My paperwork, which customs at the port made when I entered, was wrong. Basically when I entered they had a computer based system with pre-populated fields so select your vehicle and my vehicle didn't exist in their system. You couldn't type it in manually so in the end when I entered the guy selected the next closest car model. It was a chevy truck but single cab instead of double. All of the rest was correct, my VIN number, plates etc. But this guy insists that he can't let this truck leave until I get the guy who made it to correct it or sign off on it. It seemed near impossible to try to explain to this guy the drop down box issue on the computer even though he should have used this system because it was aduanas (him) who made it for me originally. Anyway after a day of fighting and actually calling another customs guy and getting a letter saying he made it, it was just about dark 10 hours later and I was finally free to put my car in the container. So the guys who were sleeping waiting to pack my car finally jumped around, everyone was sure my truck wasn't going to fit in this container. Some certain too long and others too tall. They said it to me all day but I was pretty sure it was going to be alright, though I shared a bigger container on the way down so I couldn't be certain. I knew the height was going to be alright but not the length. I get the truck in, seriously an inch away from being too long. I squeeze out of the window and crawl over the truck to get out of the containers. The guys tie it down, we close it, start to take pictures but of course the guys camera wasn't working. So we had to wait again for another solution, got it and the pics were taken by customs and I was all set. I went to leave the port, which wasn't so easy either as my thumb print was working and the electronic door wouldn't open for me. All along I thought I had a horrible day and that Dj had just been chilling waiting for 10 hours and I was doing all this crazy stuff on the inside. Then I get out, Dj & jorge (hired friend) were in a ladies little place drinking beers with an anxious look on their faces. The first thing Dj says is, you have no idea what has been going out here and what a crazy day we've had. I'm thinking, tell me about it. Then he tells me that while he was waiting on the street, right in front of the security gate to enter the port, a guy gets robbed. Now Dj is standing there with both of bags, basically 1 thousand dollars cash, both of our computers, cameras, ipods.... a jackpot for anyone. So this guy pulls up on a motorcycle right on the other side of the road from Dj and pulls a gun out on another guy. The guy doesn't give him anything and the other guy puts the gun to his head. He gave him whatever was in his pocket, cell phone money. Dj and jorge see this, jaw dropping, and walk over to this little tienda on the street. They ask if they can put their bags there and the owner says "I'd rather not get involved". And then Dj knows this is serious. Lucky for him he had Jorge because Dj spoke very little spanish. So they end up finding a lady, Negrita, who let them come inside her little restaurant house & tells them nobody would mess with them there. But Dj spent five hours waiting for me, with no way to communicate anything either way and we thought we might have been done at 10am so we had all of our stuff so we could pack the truck and leave the city for a few days to relax. SO no common hotel or somewhere to meet, he had to wait. And then it was starting to get dark and I finally walk out. I link up with them at Negrita's & they bring me up to speed on the happenings including that there is one taxi guy saying he'll take us but he's a questionable character who negrita says we probably shouldn't trust. So we have no ride. Finally one of the guys from the port pulls out in his car and I flag him down for a lift, he agrees and we jump in and we're off. We almost knee jerk react to this horrible day and get a super duper expensive hotel room but finally we come to our senses and leave this fancy one we were dropped at and go find something moderate but nice to clean all the dirt & corruption off of us. So now we that we have put the car on a ship and it should be going to panama, we have to figure out how we're going to get there to meet it. A friend told us about an agency that charters flights to panama and while in Guayaquil we hunt down this office and work on the tickets. It works out to be cheap, a weird travel hour but there are free seats in a few days to get us there the day the truck should arrive. Meanwhile, during the illness in guayaquil, the running around town, the port and all of that I managed to get new tires, a new battery, an oil change & found out the brake pads brought to me from the states weren't the correct fit. Quite a whirlwind of events and finally felt like we were golden on the Ecuador side now. As always, the drama wasn't over. We spend a few chills days at the beach, enjoying La Leona vibes in Ayampe (that's another entire blog, later maybe), and then we're back to Guayaquil, by bus this time, ready to catch our Saturday night flight. I've been emailed saying my ship has arrived & the truck will be ready for pickup on Monday. All good. Well I'm traveling light, just a backpack, and as always I have 2 wallets on me. One in my pocket with a small amount of money and another with the rest of my money. I guess this is the driver in me, always keep next to nothing in my pocket for my run-ins with the police. Anyways, at the last minute I decided to check in my backpack instead of carry on and forget about my other wallet with my credit cards, money, bank card etc. SO I realize it when it's too late and am worried and frustrated with how dumb that was. But it shouldn't be a problem & I'm now just traveling light with a shoulder bag with my computer in it. We've long checked in and decide to relax and get some food and not pass thru security or migration until a bit closer to the flight. Well relax a little too long but we're alright for time if we go now. We head into immigration and while in line to get out of the country I look for my stamp and see that it says a date that has already passed. I thought I got 90 days when I entered because I got that before and because my truck got 90 days this time again. I had always been looking at that paper work, which I had with me. Well my co travelers are already out of the country and it's my turn and the immigration is saying that I have to pay a "multa" or fine because I've over stayed my time. The thing is, they say I'm not allowed to exit right now. I have to pay this in the bank and it's saturday night meaning the bank isn't open until Sunday! I'm freaking, I have no money or credit cards and I only have 7 dollars on me. I can't even afford to stay anywhere and have no access to money. You read the earlier story, Guayaquil isn't really a city you want to be walking around in with computer, iphone all night. Plus my car is showing up and I've paid cash only for this chartered flight which means I can't get my money back or get on another one. Basically I'm about to be in a really bad spot. And they've already exited the country so they can't come back in, they're only route is to fly to Panama on this flight. I'm showing them my car paper work, pleading my story, telling them I have to leave right now. So I suggest I can pay right here. This fee is a big one but I do know the amount is the amount you have to pay at the bank so I know I'm stuck paying this time. The guy goes and talks to the other 4 guys on shift and after a while he comes back and says I can pay it. Problem is I have no money. I have to signal to Dj to come back and give me 200 dollars which he does. The immigration official tells me I can't pay him there though, because there are cameras all over the place. So he tells me to go to the bathroom, put the money on the page of my stamp and come back. I leave him and head to the bathroom however I realized I had to cross another guy, who just looked at our passports before immigration line, to get to the bathroom. I stuff the money in, 200 dollars in 20 dollar bills which is thick, and I try to get back through this guy without him seeing it. He wants to see my passport again so I hold it and show him but he takes it and clearly sees the money. He's asking me what this is and I play dumb "oh it's my money" and he tells me to take it. This is all in spanish of course. So he then says, I just saw you walk out of here and go to the bathroom and then come back. What are you trying to do? ANd then I start playing the "no entiendo" game meaning I don't understand. He closes my passport & lets me go and as I'm walking into the room behind him he turns back around and says something and I rush away. I get back in immigration line, give the guy the passport, he takes the money and leaves me for a while. All along the flight is about to leave, the others don't know if I'm going to make the flight and what they're going to do if I do. Immigration is back, say I can't return to Ecuador for 9 months and have created me a fake bank receipt and stamp me out. I'm running down the hall, not even sure how to react to the long string of emotions I have been going through over all this process and can't believe I'm actually going to make it. I come down from the adrenaline and can hardly sit still on the plane trying to digest all that just happened. Then I realize I'm only half way there, I have to go to Panama and get myself in & then work with customs and police to get my car in the country. The flight makes it and so does my bag with it's money and cards thankfully. Off to sleep before preparing for the other side of this nightmare process. I guess in the end each day and moment seemed to be a test of my patience and to really see how I handle myself in all these unpredictable crazy situations. I know I'm way behind on the blogging, I've traveled through panama back to my island, had family and friends come down, pass through costa rica & into Nicaragua.

Expect the unexpected

2010-04-29T05:05:00.000-07:00

So after Dj started off his trip with a vacation to Galapagos it was time for him to jump into the adventures of traveling by car in foreign nations. IF you remember I was robbed back in Venezuela and lost my drivers license so on our first day back from Galapagos, it was time for Dj to drive. This basically brought him into the madness right away as we started in Guayaquil and I made him drive us out due to their being police and checkpoints on our way to the beach. Right away driving in the city is crazy, the people in Ecuador don't mind any lane indications and they generally turn 2 lanes into 4 or 3 to 5 or something that seems a bit ridiculous. The first thing I'm telling Dj, as he's driving, is you can't drive defensive and friendly or you won't make it anywhere and the people won't understand how to react to you driving. It's all about the pecking order, pedestrians have no right of way and won't cross the street if you nicely let them. THey're certain you're going to run them over so you just have to drive and never try to let someone cross because they will just look at you as you wave them by and still just wait for you to drive. Same goes with the cars, the smaller cars get out of the way of the bigger so basically the buses and trucks can bully their way into wherever they want. This works in my favor as well since my truck is bigger than most cars, but all this is new to Dja nd I'm having to 'yell' at him to push his way into the lanes we need to get where we need. His trip has begun. We get out of the city and are onto the coast route and getting excited to get to the beach before dark for a quick surf when all of a sudden a weird sound starts and we realize we have a flat tire. We're far out now and in between small beach towns and it's been raining. SO we dig out the jack and tools, pull off the spare and after a quick scare with the wrench not fitting the lug nuts but thankfully I dig around the back of the truck and locate another that fits these lug nuts. In getting the spare off and the jack set up, I had to crawl under the car and get muddy/dirty laying on my back in the loose gravel. Anyways we're feeling pretty good how it's all just working for us until we can't pull the tire off after all the lug nuts are off. Looking at the tire, it appears the center of the wheel is connected or rusted on and we are trying various methods to get this tire off but there is zero movement which has us wondering if there is a step we're missing. The rains coming down, we're wrestling with this tire and darkness is looming in. Dj is asking me funny questions about the closest car shop which I tell him is about 2 hours away or a tow truck which I just chuckle at and he's getting really worried about it getting dark shortly. FOr me I'm less worried because we have all the food we need and if we couldn't move, we could just set up camp right there until we came up with a solution. I try flagging down the police, who have passed by checking us 3 times, and they just drive by flashing lights. I figure the truckers would be used to doing this and maybe give us an idea but nobody is stopping. Finally a guy pulls up in his car and pulls over. I explain what our prob is and he responds with a typical phrase here in latin america "no te preocupes" aka don't worry and then he runs back to his car. That's when this guy shows us that he's a genius and we're not so smart...and we're the educated ones. First thing he does is ask if I have something to put down, which I'm not understanding why as I navigate spanish with him, until it dawns on me that he wants something on the ground so he doesn't get dirty...and then my head drops in shame. Dj & I both stand there covered in dirt, Dj with dirt dread locks and my head and back all over dirty and muddy....from mud we made. Next puts the spare tire under the car so that if the car falls, it will protect the impact...genuis as I was climbing around under the car while the spare tire rested outside safe and sound. We both feel even dumber. And down he goes, clean & dry, with a mini mallet smashes the backside of the tire with a couple hard wacks and off the tire falls. Then in a matter of minutes he puts on the spare & puts the flat back where the spare goes and does all of this without breaking a sweat. So after a couple of unsuccessful hours by us and him doing it in 10 minutes. We walked away in shame and filth but also completely ecstatic because the sun was just setting and now we were back on the road. We made it safely to the beach of Ayampe and that was Dj's first long day living on the road. Once in Ayampe, Dj got to see what the rewards are that go along with the headaches of traveling by car. Ayampe is slightly off the path, we blazed right past the towns where all the tourists go and we landed ourselves in a nice but basic cabana with a 180 degree few of the ocean for 8 dollars per night. So we got to relax into the mellow beach scene here in Ecuador for a bit before I had to start thinking (and researching) how I am going to get my car to Panama and get ourselves there so that we can make it to Costa Rica by early May. The plan is that friends & family are doing a vacation in Costa Rica in May & Dj and I are trying to meet them there. This all sounds easy but the most frustrating part of my trip had been the shipping of my truck to ecuador from Panama last year. With limited info on the internet and me not having a cell phone to just call around, just figuring out a plan is painfully difficult. It can be hard to pull myself out of my tranquility to do something like this, and thinking about shipping my car again sounds about as fun as walking barefoot on broken glass. However it is time to face it so I start calling some companies and find a few potential ships that are sailing out that sound like they would get us there in time. The only thing to do now is actually drive to the big port city of Guayaquil and go to the offices and start the process. It sounds like maybe it would be fairly easy to drive to a city, find an office, get a container on a boat with my car in it but actually it's a painfully corrupt & difficult process that ran me through an emotional roller coaster ride. As expected, the unexpected threw a wrench in the plans on day 1. We woke up at 4am to leave by 5am to get to Guayaquil by 8am for a 9am meeting with a company about shipping the car. Getting out of the morning fog and getting ready to leave I notice that one of my tires is completely flat. This is actually the 3rd flat in 8 days time. It's raining, muddy and I have no spare because of all the other flats. At least now I know that all of the tires are hard to get off because of the salt and sand that adhered it to the rim. I go through the process of getting it off, now I put down a tarp so I don't get as dirty this time around but then I have to hitch hike with this spare tire to the nearest town with a tire repair which is 20 mins away. I find a lady willing to take me & my tire and she wants to utilize me to help her carry something heavy into town so we run by her house first. Then her car won't start again and now I'm out in the rain, in my flip flops, pushing her car in the mud to attempt to push start it. After a few tries, it works and we're back on track on our way. Her windshield wipers don't work and her window is fogging in the rain so I'm wiping down the window constantly with my tshirt and helping navigate us to town. And all along the way I'm thinking, I actually have a really crazy big day ahead and can't believe it's starting off like this. It's not like I have a cell phone or AAA or anything to help me and yet again I have to navigate all of this in a foreign language. But as always things work out, I find a vulcanizadora aka tire repair who repair my 2 holes for 3 dollars and after a half hour the lady is back to take me back. But her car won't start again. It's pouring buckets now and I'm again loading my tire and pushing her car down the muddy street. It starts again, we make our way back to town where my truck is and I put the tire on and NOW we're actually ready to go....3 hours late. Now we're off on the 3 hour journey to dive into the hot noisy large port city of Guayaquil, Ecuador. This is when the nightmare shipping process begins. to be continued.....

Galapagos!

2010-04-19T05:54:00.000-07:00

Buen Dia! I've been sitting on this blog thing for a while, it's been getting increasingly harder for me to do this. I'm not sure exactly why but I think part of it is I feel the blog doesn't even remotely encompass what is actually going on and does a little injustice to me, my trip and the people in it. However here I am to attempt to update the few of you that might still check in on this. Things have changed since the last blog, I have an addition to the travel team. Dj came down from California, quitting his job and ready to jump into the abyss. So Dj flew into Guayaquil in Ecuador and I picked him up at the airport. We had no plans other than me picking him up. When we met up at the airport we decided to walk over to the 2 airlines that fly to the galapagos and one of them had a flight to one island for the next morning and we bought the ticket and just like that we had a 'plan'. Back to the hostel, organizing the things in my car and packing for the galapagos for a 2 week trip and we're off just like that. We have no clue where we're going, where we're staying or what we're doing. Most people have all these pre booked tours on boats and here we walk onto an island we haven't heard of with zero clue what to do. But this is the type of travel I'm used to now, use my spanish to walk around and ask people where are good places to sleep/etc. We get on a ferry boat and then a bus to a town that is supposed to be a good jumping off point for activities. Landing a basic hostel room we're at least here with a room to sleep in while we get our bearings and sort things out. First morning we walk to a protected beach nearby and we are just blow away by what we stumble onto. Along the path on the walk to the beach are giant cactus trees unlike anything I've ever seen, birds flying all over and butterflies accompanying us to the beach. We step onto the beach & it seems we've stepped onto the moon. Milky white sand, soft and fine, with turquoise blue waters & hardly any signs of other humans. One of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen, if not the most. There are giant marine iguanas walking around, huge pelicans gliding in the air, birds, butterflies and even a little bit of surf. We go for a swim and start to soak it in...here we are on the galapagos, a place both of us of only dreamed of from watching on discovery channel. A relaxing day at the beach building sand castles, catching up as I haven't had a chance like this to just talk to one of my friends in well a long time. Next day we're walking around looking at giant land tortoises which are so huge with crazy shells. We find soliterio george who is the only one of his kind, nobody in his species exists any more. Galapagos are very interesting when it comes to evolution and species. They host a load of endemic species and loads of interesting things around the animals on different island and how their shells might form based on food or all kinds of crazy facts. The animals in general on the galapagos are different than anywhere I've ever been. They aren't used to having predators so they don't move when humans get close, including the birds. The wildlife surely runs these islands and you are just a mere spectator. It's amazing and indescribable really. Another day passes and after some chatting around Dj & I are on a boat to another island, San Cristobal. This island is supposed to have some good surf and some cool wildlife so it seems like a good option for us. Another day of having to search out a place to stay, in the heat, but we keep our at times conflicting views on prices and places along with both sweating to death and eventually I ask around enough to land us at Cabanas don jorge. Such a basic little house but a house with a kitchen swung outside of the little town with it's own beach right out front. And for 12.50 per person per night we were sold, we found our home for the rest of the trip. Things were just working out and we couldnt' have found a better place for us. This island has a nice little boardwalk area which has a park with some slides and such but instead of their being kids playing in the park, there are hundreds of sea lions playing and walking on the boardwalk. It's so funny and entertaining to watch when they're trying to sleep. Our first day we take a taxi to a beach on the other side of the island that we've heard of and of course it's another day of being blown away. The wildlife is always just right there, whether it's frigates, boobies, iguanas, sea turtles, etc. And this time it's black lava rock meeting white puka shell sandy beach with big hawaii style surf. There is 1 surfer in the water and another on the beach who walks up and introduces himself. This guy turns out to be a character that we interact with the entire trip, his name is Fernando from Brazil but we forget his name and rightfully name him stoney baloney. He's kind of like a lord of the ring character with the strangest ears I've ever seen. He's really nice and tells us so many funny stories that Dj and I had wished we'd video'd a dinner session with him. He's kind of one of these guys that has drifted all over the world, somewhere in his 40s and he's spent the last 3 months on the galapagos. I guess if I don't put an end to my trip I might end up this way... We chit chat for a bit, go for a surf in pretty intimidating conditions with shallow rocks on the inside but all in all really fun. Over the next 2 weeks we get to know all the surfers on the island, all 8 of them, and get on water taxi's to drop us off on reefs and pick us up later or walk to the break near our casita. We do one snorkel tour one day that turns out to be amazing. We're brought out to this rock called kicker rock and the water here is the deep dark blue. There is a split in the rock which has a current pulled thru it and we swim thru this part, with a million fish, turtles, sharks and eagle rays. I'd never seen an eagle ray before but swimming over a giant set of eagle rays was so cool. Same with the white tipped and black tipped reef sharks, something I'd never swam with either. Snorkeling in galapagos you see all the fish you'd see in a dream aquarium, it's unbelievable. The day trip included some stops at some small other islands that had the bluest waters that made me think we were in the Caribbean somewhere or tahiti or something. except we're seeing blue footed boobies and frigates with their puffed out red throats flying around. SUch a crazy experience. More days back on the island surfing, relaxing, snorkeling with hundreds of sea turtles, sea lions, puffer fish, clownfish, etc. Walking to the surf near our house proved always a challenge as all of the marine iguanas blend into the lava rock and so do the sea lions so you have to be careful where you step. One time trying to enter the water I couldn't get by the sea lions, they weren't liking how close I was walking to them but they were blocking the entrance so I tried to slip by which prompted one of them to jump off the rock into the water and come barreling at me....I had to use my surfboard as defense and ended up falling down but all in all it just created a big laugh for us. The last few days we caught amazing surf, 15 foot faces breaking across this bay with perfect peeling rights. SO much fun. We left galapagos on such a high, with a few cuts and bruises on us and our boards and a giant smile on our faces. We both still can't believe we did but it was so worth it. The galapagos has to be one of the best places on earth to visit.
My plan with this blog was to catch up to right now but now I'm running out of time so I'm going to leave it as just galapagos. Next installment will include 3 flat tires, hitch hiking with 1 flat in the rain, pushing the ladies car who picked me up and then broke down in the mud, driving to guayaquil city, running around bribing customs, police, getting searched by police dog, them trashing my things and my car trying to rip all the plastic out and check for drugs and finally getting my car in a container bound for Panama. By the next blog I should be on another continent. Have some friends and family coming to costa rica in a few weeks so we're trying to make it there but it hasn't been easy to accomplish this. hope everyone is healthy and HAPPY doing just what they want....that's what I'm doing. chau, jesse

Back in the groove of things

2010-02-14T12:31:00.000-08:00

Well I have avoided blogging for a while, I'm not sure why but I had internet the entire time I was suffering with my kidney stone saga in Lima but I didn't want to write again until I was better. And then when I got better, I avoided internet and camped for a week on the beach. I guess I left a lot of things open ended after the last blog, issues with my health, no drivers license, border crossings, etc. As always a lot has passed in a short time. First things first, my kidney stone has been s mashed (twice) by a procedure called Lithrotripsy and I've passed all the little bits over a 2 week period. It was quite an intense experience, one of those "character building" experiences. I had to navigate the health system alone and in spanish while in excrutiating pain. This included xrays, blood tests, urine tests, physical exams, lithotripsy (twice) and many farmacy trips. It was good practice for my spanish & it's these situations that make me learn a little more. I learned how to get to and from the hospital for 25 cents instead of a 3 dollar taxi & I learned loads of new hospital terms in spanish. I suffered tremendously & experienced the horrible process of getting a catheter removed with no pain meds. I walked out of there feeling like I had been defiled, embarassed & then had to just catch a bus back to my hostel where I landed on a friday night with backpackers all around having fun & wanting to chit chat. I crawled in my room yet again and hid away. My story was too weird to chit chat and I've traveled so long and my story is so strange that I can't even relate to the avg person traveling anymore. Anyways after getting the catheter removed, I started unloading sandy like sediments within my urine. I had one final test to ensure I didn't have an infection & then I got cleared from the doc. The hospital happened to be across the street from bus station and I begged and pleaded my way into my final consultation to be before the 5pm overnight bus left and so the doc saw me at 440pm, gave me the green light and I ran across the street and got on yet another 18 bus ride back to my car. When I got to my car I decided it was time for a fresh start so I just started driving towards Ecuador. That night I couldn't find accommodations so I slept in my truck, it was hot. The following morning I went to the border, with no drivers license, and hoping I could pull it all off. I was also down to my last few Soles along with the fact that gas in Peru is twice as expensive as Ecuador so I was trying to hold out until I crossed the border and could use my US dollars as Ecuadors' currency is US dollars. This proved to be an added stress as the light on my truck was on when I hit the border. Exiting Peru was easy for me as I am familiar with the process for my truck there. I got to the Ecuador side & their system was down so they made me drive to another spot to get my passport entered, while the light on my gas tank was lit up. There was 1 gas station with about 40 cars in line so I figured I just have to get in line and wait. They're all there because the price of gas is so cheap in Ecuador & though I wasn't in Ecuador, this gas station was techincally in Ecuador. I waited an hour, got up there only to find out they only had Diesel! Just wasted more gas, still haven't entered the country & now I've decided to try to get in the country & find the next gas station. I managed to talk my way in without my drivers license. i was asked for it twice but avoided answering directly & kept handing the copy I have. somehow it worked, I was in and I now was worried I wouldn't have enough gas to even start my car. I got to the next closest gas station, another line of cars and I made it to the pump where they would only give me 10 dollars of gas....well I talked my way into 20 dollars but they limit it to 10 dollars per car so peruvians don't come over for gas. On the road again it felt really liberating to be healthy, in a new country and back in my truck. I hadn't really traveled in my truck in a while at this point and with all these positive things I was really over the moon. Decided it was time to make the journey all the way to the coast, another 6 hours of driving. I was pulled over twice and managed to get away with having no drivers license. I finally get to the coast town, pull in a beach called ayampe and make a 'wrong' turn and end up in front of a guys hotel that he is building that I know from Virginia Beach. Random crossing. It turns out they are still working on things but welcome me to stay for free if I'm up for helping out. I stick around, get to enjoy these guys ups & downs as they stress on their new lives in Ecuador, fresh from the states, and under construction with a 1 yr old baby. It's funny to see how far I've adjusted to this life when these city folks get here and DON'T EAT SEAFOOD and only eat chicken breast....which you can only get a supermarket 2 hours away. They call me "the drifter" and laugh at my daily meals of vegetables or me eating at the little local fish market or making my granola every morning. I also invented a little coconut coffee drip which still needs a little more touches to make it perfect. A few days here & it was time for me to really disconnect so I did a little camping trip up the coast for 5 days. Camping was fun but as always turned into some random adventures. One night it was pouring so I decided to drive south and then it started to get close to dark so I took a dirt road off the main coast road and figured I could find an empty spot to sleep for the night. I found a dried up riverbed with nothing around, parked and hoped for darkness to come so nobody could even see me. The sun was setting & up walks a drunk guy who I can barely understand as he slurs his spanish & asks me for food or money or something. He also tells me it's dangerous to be there. Then some kids ride up on a pass above on their bikes and stare at me for a while so I'm starting to doubt my choice of spots. Sure enough shortly after a guy pulls up on a motorbike to ask me what I'm doing there. he said some people in town saw me & they want to know what I want and what I'm doing. I'm actually setting up my stove & cutting veggies so I show him my set up and tell him I just want to camp for the night. He tells me it's not safe & insists I come to his house for the night. SOooo before you know it, I pull my big american truck in front of his house and out pours his kids & nephews, wife, and other family members all to stare at me and ask questions like I'm some strange alien. They're all really nice, the kids are cute and it's quite humorous really. I sleep in my truck bed and when I wake up in the morning everyone in town has passed by to see who I am and what I'm doing. Nobody can believe my truck and my sleeping spot. I break out my skateboard and get the kids doing runs down the dirt street. Then they get me on their little bikes and take me on a tour to show me off to everyone in town. They're so proud that I'm at their house and hanging out with them. EVeryone comes out to say hello and smile and stare. It's quite funny. They try to get me to go to Church but I manage to say goodbye after they gave me bananas, a spoonful of sugar from a sugarcane & a reused pepsi bottle that they made me take a taste out of which was full of sugar cane juice. They made me promise to return, opened the doors and basically told me I was part of the family now. So funny how quick to open up their home and give me things. After this I head back down to Ayampe to get back to my friends spot. When I arrive news of his first guests are on their way. It's professional surfer Ben Bourgious & a guy Jerry taking video for a new Reef surf video. I'm a big fan of this surfer and for the last week it's been him & I surfing up & down the coast of Ecuador. He likes having a surf companion and I like pushing my surfing with someone who is on another level. He's around for a little while longer & I am actually about to go surfing with him right now so I think I'll end the blog. I hope you're all staying warm, those that are in the snow....I'm sweating bullets as I type this blog! chau

Almost a year

2010-01-07T13:15:00.000-08:00

Hola whoever still reads this. It's been a while since I've been on the blog thing, partly because I've been staying in an area with no internet access (and no electricity or running water) and partly because I have been having "issues" lately with a few things that are making my life complicated. We have crossed into a new year since I last wrote anything and I can't seem to believe that it's the year 2010 and that I am still on the road. I am just shy of 1 year, I left on Jan 14th 2009. As the new year crossed I did reflect on the past year just a bit. I actually haven't sat back and thought about what I've done on this trip because I'm usually staying very present and just doing whatever it is I'm doing at any given moment. But thinking about it all, it seemed a bit surreal. I went through 11 countries in 2009 and did it in my truck. Such an amazing cultural experience and language experience. I surfed some amazing waves in amazing places all through central into South America. I also tried a bunch of new activities in some cool spots - sandboarding in Peru, Rock Climbing in the Andes, river kayaking in Colombia, Scuba diving the Caribbean & more. It seems like I'm always learning whether it be language, culture, sport, being creative or just something within myself. The reflection of the year is somewhat overwhelming to grasp. I know that most of this trip I have been living very in the present moment without worrying to much about what's going to happen down the road. Who knows how it will all play out but the journey has been unpredictable and amazing. Since the last blog a bunch of things have happened. While on the Caribbean side, travel mate Andrea & I decided to go to Tayrona national park for a night. We went through the travels of collectivo's & bus to get there & then hiked in. In the late afternoon we arrived to a spot where we can rent some hammocks and set up for the night. It was hot, really hot so we jumped in for a swim and then I got a chill. The sun was setting and I kept getting colder even though it was hot. As night fell in, I was shivering with a fever and I didn't bring much with me because I envisioned sleeping on a hammock in shorts as it was super hot. But I froze all night. Next day we hike out and it's a miserable hike as I still had a fever, around 103. Bus & collectivo back to civilization and get in a hotel room in Taganga. The next few days I went from freezing to sweating with a headache & nausea. Andrea patiently played nurse and worried for me until it was too much time & I had to get out and go to a clinic. Small private clinic in Santa Marta, get tests done and the verdict is I have a failing kidney/infection. The clinic gives me prescriptions which includes a pack of 5 needles & antibiotics to inject in myself. My thoughts when I got back home were "aren't you supposed to have some training to inject yourself.." Turned out, I didn't have it in me to do it so I returned to the clinic everyday for a week and paid them the equivalent of 50 cents to do it each time. Along with being sick, I had a shortage of money so along with playing my nurse, Andrea was flowing me cash to help me limp along. So fortunate for me to have her, not so fortunate for her to get stuck with me. I get back on the road to recovery, we head towards Cartegena and I'm still slow moving. We are now trying to cram in some travel as we spent so much time still while I was sick and now it's close to Christmas when Andrea heads home to Austria & I head who knows where. So after 1 day in Cartegena it's off to the zona cafeteria & get back onto my first activity in a while, treking an area with palm tree's and pine tree's. Still tired but survive. Another crazy mountain bus ride & we're in a cute little town with cobblestone streets called Villa de leyva. Nicely festive with Christmas decorations and we head to another national park to hike up to this lagoon. Quite the climb, still tired but survive the day without any real problems. After this we're off to Bogota where Andrea catches her flight back to Austria & I pick up a flight to Ecuador. Arrive in Ecaudor and hop an muggy miserable overnight bus ride to Mancora in Northern peru. Then another bus to Talara & then a collectivo to Lobitos where I am anxiously awaiting the first site of 'mi casita' aka my truck in almost 2 months. I left it when my mom came and have been doing the normal backpacker thing. Definitely after that trip 'home' I was happy not to be a backpacker anymore. So I thought. Of course my battery is dead so I'm not going anywhere but I don't need to either. This is now Christmas eve, I made it back to my home in time to spend Christmas with basically my only friend down here. A friend who works in Lobitos and who I met almost a year ago in Nicaragua. Her, a few volunteers at WAVES, some others & I are all invited to a Peruvian Christmas which they celebrate on Christmas eve. I think we were 9 gringos, all piled into the hardly available transportation - tuk tuk's and some ladies car - & we show up in a local neighborhood in Negritos and are welcome into a home. It was a good cultural experience I spent the night talking with the man of the house and he schooled me on history of the area, Peruvian Christmas customs, gentleman ways of standing with the ladies in the street and just overall good spanish practice. They served us dinner at 1am that night, we were all exhausted and the kids in the neighborhood were all running around the streets. Christmas day our same group of gringos all pitched in to make a huge Christmas feast after I surfed in the morning. Christmas turned out really nice in the end, different but nice. Then there was New Years, I got to put my truck back in use for what it's good for. I went exploring the barren lands outside of Lobitos in hopes of finding an empty beach I can drive on, we could camp on and have our own wave to surf. With some help, I found a decent spot and the volunteers, Naomi & I went to ring in the near year by campfire. Nice piling everyone in the truck, driving on the dirt roads & getting some slight adventure. To me driving my truck around on crazy roads is something I'm slightly numb to now so it was nice to have all these people who had never been in a big american truck or driven on the beach and such get all excited about the bumps & jumps and all. Mellow New years eve and fun day of surf alone on New Years day worked out well. Back to Lobitos & I'm realizing that though I'm disconnected to the internet I really need to sort some things out. The good thing about having friends help you, like Andrea, is that it enabled me to really sort out some of the logistical issues I have to not having a drivers license or bank card. Money is becoming and issue & my car's temporary permission to be in Peru is expiring on the 14th of January. I can't particularly drive without a drivers license. I get hassled enough when all of my documents are in order so one can only assumed how it might be if I'm missing one. These issue's are then combined with more lower back pains that are starting to be fairly unbearable or unbearable to hang around other people. Another day of really bad pain then blood in my urine & I realize I have to really do something about this problem. I'm basically far from a real city and don't want to do another mom & pop clinic. I pick up a bus ticket & overnight it to Lima 18 hours away. I arrived a half hour before the appt with the Urologist I called before getting on the bus. I was sent to start a series of tests which lead me to not being able to eat the last 24 hours along with doing a cleansing to prepare for today's tests. And so now the tests are done but my results aren't going to be ready until Monday where I will reconvene with the Urologist. Doesn't sound too bad except for the fact that I have other issue's. My car has to be out of the country on Wednesday & I'm only having a follow up to see what's wrong with me on Monday. And I'm 18 hours away from my truck. I also don't have a drivers license. So I spent the day, after my tests, going to the US embassy & to the peruvian transporte to see if I could somehow get a drivers license. I only managed to get additional pages in passport which I also needed. So I am kind of in a bind and supposedly can only get a new drivers license in person in California. Not enough time to fly home & I need to get my health back on track before I do anything. So time will tell, my next stop is to see & police to see if they can help me with a permission to drive with just a copy of my license. That will help me in Peru, who knows what will happen at the border of Ecuador. I'm sure these things should be sorted one way or another by the time I blog again. As always I have crammed too much into one blog but there you have it. Happy new year everyone!

What goes up must go down!

2009-12-02T13:36:00.000-08:00

Hola, buen dia! So after riding high for some time now, I was bound to be grounded again. It seems that this is always true in this trip & in life, you can't stay high forever. This trip is always like a roller coaster ride but has mainly been me at the top just enjoying the adrenaline and fun. I've been gone almost 11 months now and it's pretty crazy to think that I haven't had many bad things happen to me, specifically haven't been robbed (not including payoffs to cops, military & customs). But the thing is with good times or bad times is how you react to it and feel about it is just something in your head. So my trip started from Colombia and deciding I would go to Venezuela and spend maybe a week or so there. I had a friend flying into Caracas so I had a mission to get myself there so we could then go out & travel. I started off leaving San Gil Colombia which was hard to leave with all the fun adventure activities to be had & nice people. So I waited until the last possible minute to get on a bus to the border which was supposed to be 7 hours long & then cross into Venezuela via collectivo and then get on an overnight bus to Caracas which would have been another 14 hours on the bus. So I left in the morning and the 7 hour bus ride through crazy switchbacks in the Andes & an even crazier bus driver somehow managed to take 10 hours. Which landed me at the border at around 9pm and from what I read the last bus left at 7pm. Sooo my backup plan is to just get a hostel room and go a day late. Border towns are hectic & hot around here when I get out a guy tells me there is another bus at another town further away & that he could take me there. I wasn't sure about the money exchange situation and I heard some about what happens in Venezuela with US dollars but I didn't have any US dollars. So I was changing money & not fully aware of all the scamming going on & so I wasn't moving or deciding fast. The rates I was getting made the taxi ride & bus far seem really expensive compared to any other latin country. But I wanted to get to this bus & just arrive rather than dealing with the alternative so I changed my money & took this taxi guys word on this bus. "Confiame, te ayudo" is what kept coming out of my taxi drivers mouth when talking about the bus in the town an hour away. Then he stopped to pee on the side of the room & went into the store & came back with a 6 pack of beer to accompany him for the ride. Night time, switch back mountain roads & beer are a good mix. Getting into Venezuela was an immediate change from Colombia, it was almost like crossing into northern Baja from San Diego. Venezuela is immediately in your face & the border patrols are giving me strange looks & suspicious questions to why in the world would I be in Venezuela. Apparently the political climate is fairly hot towards the USA. But they give me the stamp in & I'm back in the car with the driver & on my way to survive this ride & get on this bus. We show up at 11pm, he still repeating the line above as he sees my doubts and then he drops me off outside of the bus terminal. I've over paid for the ride & run off to catch the "bus" that wasn't there & the night guards at the bus terminal let me know that there hadn't been a bus here for a while. And now I'm standing in the street, taxi gone, after 11pm in Venezuela with my 2 back packs and not in a friendly neighborhood. And because of some of the money exchange debacle at the border, I didn't get much money and though I had enough to get my taxi ride & bus ticket with a few Bolivares left over for some food & then I'd get more money in Caracas. Well the taxi from the bus station charges me a bit because it's late & he knows I'm stranded and then I get to the hotel & I don't have enough money to stay there. So I opt to search for an ATM. There is one near by & in all latin countries I have had no problem pulling out money from an ATM however this one has an additional question about a number I don't know what it's talking about & I can't get money. meanwhile it's midnight, everyone (taxi, hotel guy) has said it's "peligrosisimo" here....really dangerous. And I have a drunk guy trying to get too close to my transaction because his bank card isn't working either. I flag down a cab & ask him to take to another atm, it's just getting later & I just want to get in a room & call it a day. But we go to 5 different ATM's before I am able to get out money. The cabbie came up to help and tried to check out my PIN number & then attempted to "hang on" to my card. I got that back & got back to the hotel which was way overpriced for my exchange rate & now the cabbie wants way to much money because he's taken me around & now seen me with a pocket full of money. He also offers me a hooker or brothel he can take me to. I fight away from another bad deal, frustrated & get to sleep. The next day I can't seem to get anything done right, finding internet to give Andrea & heads up that I wouldn't be at the hostel I said I'd be at proved to be tough to find. Even though I was in a big city. And the friendliness was just not there, asking people for help just wasn't like it's been in all the spots I've been in. So I find a bus to Caracas which will get me there early on Thanksgiving morning. It's a doubledecker bus, nice seats, too much A/C and horrible C grade movies in Spanish. All is fine, I'm sleeping and then we're woken up & told everyone off the bus with your ID. No problem, I'm off & as soon as the military see my USA passport then tell me to get my things from below the bus & go to this trailer. Everyone else gets to get back on & wait for me. I'm brought into a private trailer room & made to first declare how much money in each denomination I have and then pull all of it out & put it for him to count. Stern questioning about what I'm doing in Venezuela, what drugs I have or do, and again what money I'm carrying. I'm then made to strip completely nude so he can assure I have no drugs & then pull everything out of my bags "rapido" onto the floor. Suspicious about me because I have no job yet am traveling, the money doesn't add up. But he let me go eventually & I don't know what or if he took some money but I got away. The bus had been waiting, everyone is staring on my return as I'm the only gringo on the bus and we're off. I sleep, restless with bad dreams and awake to Caracas at 6am. Thanksgiving morning. I decide I'm going to try to find the subway & figure that system out rather than drop more money I don't really have on a taxi ride. So I trudge my things out of the bus terminal, hit the streets ask some unfriendly people where the metro is and eventually find it. It's clean & simple to figure out, I have one change to make & I'm there. The first ride is tough as I have a big pack on my back & a smaller one on the front and the car is jammed full so I'm having to bump everyone to get in & out. I get out, find my transfer and wait in a somewhat orderly line to load and this time I have one back in my hand & the other on. I guess my good luck, comfort in these foreign nations or laziness all kicked in because I felt my wallet in my pocket & thought about the fact that I normally wear my shorts with zippers to close the pockets but this time I wasn't. I'm off 2 long sleepless days of traveling by bus, 23 hours worth of bus time. I do nothing, the door to the train opens, people pile out, a guy grabs my bag to yank it on, I pull back & get pushed around jump on and that guy jumps off. The door shuts, I know right away. my wallet has been picked. So mad at myself at this point. My drivers license, my ATM card, credit card & cash. Not that much cash really but the ATM card & a drivers license are both essential for my trip. Stunned angry at being gotten by that action & then the train ride is over. I find my way to the hostel where my Austrian amiga has already landed and begin calling bank institutions and such. We decide we'll give Venezuela a shot even though it is so far really expensive and my day had been pretty crappy. We catch a bus to a town near the Caribbean and a national park, plan on taking another bus in the morning. However after getting a cab ride to town, we walk around with our back packs to no avail at finding even a remotely affordable place to stay & we're walking, at dark, in a sketchy neighborhood where everyone is just staring at us. Then the rain comes, we still have no place to stay. After some attempts at using the public pay phone to call the bus line & find out about buses to the border of Colombia we just decide to head back to the bus station & hope for a bus. There was a bus, we were just about out of local currency so we sat & ate our crackers and avocado while waiting for another bus. I had some time to reflect on what thanksgiving would have been like at home and for sure missed the idea of spending that time with loved ones & their amazing food! However bad my day was though, I still felt pretty fortunate. I, thankfully, was traveling with Andrea who was willing to help me with money until I could figure out how to get money. Another overnight bus and we arrive to a town called maracaibo which is still like 2 hours from the border of Colombia. We are waiting for the cheapest options so we have a car that will take us but they have to wait for 3 more people. The cars in this particular part of the world are funny, they're all 70's maybe early 80's american big Caprice's or something large & really ghetto. For instance my driver didn't use a key to start the car, he had it rigged up with some wires below. Entire inside torn to pieces, windows don't roll up. The funny thing was there were a million of these same, old, horrible, hoopty, almost non-driveable cars. It was like a junkyard from the states make to somehow work again. Two hours later, penniless in bolivares, we make it to Colombia with no more crackers, money, nada. But I have some pesos from colombia so we're able to get yet another bus for another 4 hour ride to Santa Marta from which we made it to the beach town of Taganga. So thankful to arrive, lay in my hammock, pay 10 dollars or less for the room with an ocean few & just decompress from the madness of the past 4 days. Taganga was planned on my travel route as a destination to take scuba courses as they're some of the cheapest courses in the world. However, getting cash isn't something I can do easily so at the beginning I just enjoy some slow days around here trying to figure out ways to get money or transfer money electronically to Andrea which to do so to foreign nations presents a bigger hurdle. We manage to figure that out, she loans me money as I transfer it online & I'm temporarily back in business. Then we start our dive course. We've now done 6 dives in 3 days, as deep as 90ft which I'm told by another experienced diver was a little dangerous since we didn't know what we're doing and my equipment failed me so I had no air & had to share my way up. It was a bit scary really & my instructors didn't believe me that my equipment was a problem and I didn't have all the underwater hand signals down enough to communicate as you can't talk that entire time. I eventually ran out of air, much much quicker than anyone else and finally I got a breathable mouth piece connected to my guides tank. In the end seeing the underwater world was cool experience & I'm glad I finally got to give it a try. With all the ups & downs, the ups still far outweigh the downs and I'm very thankful to still be on this amazing adventure learning a language, cultures & more about myself. And though Venezuela wasn't great, I did have one magic moment when a guy jumped on a bus to sell something that actually caught my interest - a natural remedy to dissolve kidney stones that comes with ingredients translated to english "Cat's Claw" or "lions tooth" but so far it seems to be stirring something up in me so maybe it will all have been worth it as this fixes my ever nagging problem. Saludos!

Aventura

2009-11-23T08:51:00.000-08:00

Hola amigos! back at it on the blog action & I've been at it in full pace for some adventure action. Colombia has so many adventure activities, really as much as one can handle. There is amazons, Andes mountains, volcanoes, Caribbean coast. I have yet to make it very far, I have been in a town called San Gil and haven't been able to get myself to leave. Here the options seem endless. The first big blast I did (on the 21st of Nov) here was a day of white water rafting on what the rafting people classify as "class 5+". What does that really mean? The classes in rafting don't really mean much to me, all I know was that it had some exhilarating rapid sections that were crazier than any previous rafting sections I have done. The last section of the rapids, we hit a huge 3 meter wave and survived through it but then spun around and the next wave which wiped our entire boat out....except for the guide who managed to jump in the boat and hold on. I went under and it seemed like I was down for quite a while, long enough that I had to think about holding my breath and being spun around under water in rough rapids is a little different than the surf. It seemed like their was no buoyancy but eventually I popped up and a kayak was on his way for me to grab a hold & ride out the rapids in the water. I get back to the boat and my new friend, Julienne, is back on and her finger is bent the wrong way in what we think is a dislocation so I get the pleasure of trying to straighten back. I tried & tried but it kept popping back to a malformed state. In the end it turned out that I was yanking on a broken finger, not a dislocated one. Another guy gets back to the raft & he has a bloody nose & teeth. The rest of us were fine. All in and all everyone was still pretty excited about the entire trip, injuries and all. So after that day, the following day I went caving. Three guys & I head up to the this town & go exploring this cavern that ends up being about 80 meters below the surface. There are bats, stalactites, stalagmites and then in the very bottom there is a 5meter high platform where you jump into pitch black water that you can't see. It was really fun. After the cave we went to the central park of this small town to wait for a bus to get us back to San Gil. School was just letting out & the kids started to stand at a distance and stare at us like we were strange aliens. They slowly moved closer & closer to listen to our English. I was the only one who spoke some spanish so I started asking questions & the next thing you know about 30 to 40 of them had the tightest circle around us asking questions, laughing and just staring. It was really fun, quite strange but fun. I spent about 30 mins talking with all the kids, it was pretty fun. The next day a friend & I went on a little journey to track down some natural slides, pools and mini water falls. The spot is called Pescaderito (the 23rd) and it turned out to be a very chill, quite natural spot. I swam, dove, flipped & relaxed my way in the blazing hot sun. The following day, I still couldn't peel myself away from this area, and we went to hike & search for a waterfall spot. This time we found a bigger waterfall, 5 meters high, that had a perfect set up for some jumping & swimming. The next day I decided to sign up to learn something new, I had seen these safety kayakers when we rafted & I have seen them before and though it looked fun so I signed up for a course. I had my own guide the last 2 days and learned to eskimo roll, ride some small waves, approach some currents and do some little tricks. These are the small kayaks that you sit down in and get strapped in at the waist. They're quite lose, probably a similar feeling to when you first sit on a surfboard, I was all over the place and flipping way to quickly. Which meant I had to learn the eskimo roll quickly & I did learn it but it was pretty scary being stuck upside down a few times. After the second day I got a bit better, approached some bigger sections of the river & flipped my way out of disaster a few more times. It was good fun and now I'm really sore. I decided to take the day off today and I think I'm finally going to make my way to Venezuela tomorrow which means I have yet to make it to the Caribbean for my scuba course I want to get into. I'm meeting a friend in Venezuela and then we will travel back up into Colombia. Then I really need to get back to Peru for my car & figure out what I'm doing with myself next. It's been an exciting last month with sand boarding, rock climbing, treking, amazon action, rafting, kayaking, caving...man it seems like a dream really. Well it's time for me to sign off the net. This coming week is a holiday week and I will sorely miss being with my family and friends. I hope everyone has an amazing Thanksgiving!! Saludos

Bienvenidos a Colombia...again

2009-11-13T08:09:00.000-08:00

Well here I am again, blogging within a week of the last one. I arrived into Leticia, Colombia after my 40 hour boat ride. I spent a night in Leticia, met some travelers from Sweden & Australia and got talked into walking to Brazil in the rain to go see the discotecs. That was an interesting night filled with men dressed as women and an intro into dealing with Portuguese. It reminds me that if I decide to drive into Brazil that I will be starting over with another language, not so sure about that quite yet as I'm still trying to work on my Spanish. After that night I woke up & decided, well it was decided for me as the hostal was full, that I would go up the Amazon. I was told I could go find a local community and would be welcomed to stay, so long as I brought food. SO I shopped for rice, potatoes, tomatoes, more veggies and even picked up some school supplies. It seemed like I had plenty of food. Little did I know the family I would land with has 7 kids and struggles feeding them on a daily basis. Anyways so I find a boat that will take me a couple of hours up the river & then get dropped off alone. I hike up the muddy bank and find some kids & one of which says that his dad isn't there but they would let me stay with them. The first thing he does as I arrive to their "house" is take my food. I knew they would take the food, the idea was they would take the food & then feed me with them. Now this is a hand made shack & not a craftsman. There is one 10x10 room and come to find out that 10 people live in this room & I'm still not really sure how. The family welcomes me to their house but I feel fairly strange as they're pretty much just staring at me and though I try to engage in conversation, it doesn't go far. I don't think they know how to react to my existence. The little ones are interested but the older ones not so much. I try speaking to the grandma but she doesn't even respond, to which I find out later she doesn't speak spanish just a local dialect. Later that day their dad comes home & he's really nice and actually engages me in conversation. He takes me around the town, tells me how part of the land collapsed into the river and they lost their homes and a few people died. So now they have rebuilt homes away from the river. And then back to the casa where I hang out & set up my hammock outside in their "living room" where I will be sleeping. It's time for dinner, they build a fire and begin to cook & I just kind of sit back and watch. We all eat a bowl of white rice for dinner. I feel bad for eating, they seem so starved, and I feel bad in general like I'm this rich white gringo rubbing it in by being there...it's hard to explain. I guess when I show up with 2 backpacks and it seems like I have more stuff than all 10 of them have in their house it makes you feel bad. Over the 3 days they were there, they hardly fed me. I never saw the food I brought, I got a bowl of rice the first night & a bowl of rice and potatoes the second day for lunch. They ate but certainly weren't concerned with me eating and at the same time I couldn't really care. I had a few snacks in my bag and even a snickers bar but I couldn't dare pull it out, I didn't have enough to share and I certainly would have felt bad. My appetite has been huge lately anyway so a good time to taper it back a bit, something I'm all familiar with from my old wrestling days. Now you think having 7 kids crammed into a room that they'd be fighting all the time, I know my brothers & I scraped plenty in our "small" townhouse, but that wasn't the case at all. The 9 yr old girl watched the baby and her 8 yr old brother helped. The teenage kids cooked the meals, dad was working in the jungle looking for fruits and such and the mom & Grandma hacked down some palm leaves to begin separating them into fibers so they could make necklaces, purses & such. The work the ladies put into making just a bracelet was insane to see, so much labor for one little item that they would in turn sell for 50 cents. There was never a cry or a fight from any kid, other than the baby. I slept on my hammock with a mosquito net while the 10 of them slept in the room, somehow. It was a very interesting experience but by day 3 and no food for me I was ready to leave. I decided to catch up a boat upriver more to another town, one that is a little bigger and has a few hotel like places & a couple of restaurants so I could control my own food destiny. This town is called Puerto Narino, it's a very cool eco friendly village. They happen to be having a day of sports, a decathalon of sorts. With all these kids competing in soccer, volleyball & basketball (which was funny to watch). This was all normal, they were solid soccer players at all ages and not so good at basketball. Then later on in the evening they, of course, had blowdart competitions. I watched 10 yr old girls compete with hand made jungle blow guns shot their hand made darts from nearly half court into a target. They were really good at it too. The next morning I rented a canoe & paddled myself up the Amazon which proved to be really tough as I was heading up current. This didn't last long though I did spot some girl wildlife along the way. After that I caught a boat back to Leticia which is where I am now. I fly from here to Bogota today....now that I think about it flying to Bogota, Colombia on Friday the 13th doesn't sound like the brightest idea. It was really good to have someone from home to share the crazy experiences that come about on this trip and I'm still having them. Off to surely have more as I navigate Colombia over towards the Caribbean coast.

planes, trains, automobiles...canoes and boats

2009-11-08T10:29:00.000-08:00

Have you ever sat or laid in a hammock for 40 hours straight?? That is what I just did to get from Peru to Colombia via the amazon river. It might sound relaxing and granted it wasnt stressful but after a while being crammed like sardines with a million local people on their hammocks swinging into mine, I just wanted to get out and exercise or move or something. But as I was told a million times, I had to keep an eye on my things so I didnt really want to go do a titanic flight on the bow of the boat or anything. Right now I am typing this and every letter I type my body reacts like I stair Ive climbed, its 1 billion degrees and I´m sweating like nobody´s business. So since the last bloggio, I had my first visitor from home and who else would pull it off but my adventurous MOM!! We have traveled a bunch in the past and are good travel partners, easy going and low maintenance but this one started off a little slower. First off, mom picked up a cold-flu or something and then I got hit with my kidney stone probs (boo, old story). Add my pain to not being used to traveling "like a tourist" and head with an english speaker to the most touristy place in south america...Cusco. Cusco also brought some altitude sickness our way so along with suffering from other ailments, we were hit with headaches and tiredness. I also was a little snappy because Ive been training to travel "like a local" and not be treated or act like a tourist that doesnt know whats going on and then I started off putting an unrealistic expectation on mom to just be the same as me, which wasnt fair. It was actually a good thing for me to let go and enjoy the gringo trail for a change. It made me look at myself and check my ego. So after a couple of slow days and early nights to bed in Cusco, we started our trek to Machu Picchu. Day one consisted of mountain biking, all down hill, for 4 or 5 hours on constant switch backs that reminded me of the tour de france. It was really fun. At the end of this day we lucked into a "free" couple of hours of white water rafting on classIII/IV river called Rio Urumbamba. The white water rafting was so much fun, constant excitement and the guides were trying to make it fun. They are not worried about insurance liabilities or lawsuits, they are trying to get us out of the boat and tip the boat. Day 2 consisted of us treking on an Inka Messenger trail that huggled along the river with amazing views, tricky steps and lots of heat in the highlands jungle. We even got to cross the river on a cable car which was pretty cool & then we ended the day in some very nice natural hot springs. Day 3 we hiked along railroad track and that is when my kidney stone decided to paralyze me. I wasnt sure if I was going to make it or not but in the end I pushed through, at my own slow pace, and survived in hopes of being good for our day 4, Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu day started at 4am hiking up 1800 stairs, not an easy task really. Then we did our tour around the city and chose to do another sketchy tough climb up a peak called WaynaPicchu. This climb is straight vertical, consists of ropes/cables to help you not fall to your eminate death and even a climb through a cave to get to the top so you get an amazing view of the lost incan city. All in all a pretty amazing trip for us. That night we took the train back to Ollaytatambo and then took a crazy ´collectivo´ back to cusco which got us there late at night only to get up for our early flight the next day. We got to Lima and werent able to get on the flight to the amazon so we spent a day in Lima, sleeping thru the night at 5pm again, and then the next day off to Iquitos. We land in Iquitos in the jungle and the very first distinction is the insane HEAT. It´s like 95 degrees and humido! The sweat begins (and still hasnt stopped). We then land ourselves on a trip 240km downriver to a lodge starting the next day. We have our own guide and have lots of things they say we can see and do there. Our guide is a guy born in the jungle and he is a legit man vs wild guy. He climbed a tree for a sloth so we could hold him, jumped in the water for a caiman for us to hold, cut trees that had the freshest coolest water to drink from its branches and knew every sound and deadly creature to warn us about along the hikes, canoe paddles & boat rides. The one thing I really wanted to see was these alleged pink dolphins. Louis made sure we found them, knew how to lure them towards our boat by playing a game with them and I even managed to snap a few photos. Mom & I swam in the amazon with pink river dolphins, pricess part 1. We went out on adventures a few times a day, saw eagles, hawks, monkeys, toucans, woodpeckers and a billion other birds. Then he took us fishing on this little lagoon. We had our wooden sticks with a string and hook and some chicken meat. The piranhas were biting like crazy. Mom and I both caught about 4 piranhas each within the hour or so, even tossing back some little ones. The piranhas are just as aggressive as you think, they are snapping there teeth at you as you try to get your hook out. We caught them, kept them, fried them, ate them and then kept there teeth as souvenirs, owned!...priceless part 2. So because I am always looking for any solution for my ever nagging, coming and going kidney pains I decided to ask these people about any local natural medicines. So they say sure, there is a Shaman who knows many natural remedies from the jungle and so I say bring him on. The last night, this crazy Shaman arrives to give me a "cleansing". We are going to drink Ayahuasca which I have some sort of idea what might happen, you are going to clean out your body, possibly vomit, and then feel million times better the next day. Uh huh, right. So the ceremony begins with him whistling and then singing in local dialect and some spanish and then we take a shot of some bitter liquid. He is smoking hand rolled tobacco cigs, I am already doubtful of the entire thing but when in rome.... So its dark, I feel nothing other than my seat is shaking because we are on an elevated platform and he is dancing his feet to his whistle. Then the vomiting begins and more and more. And then the hallucinations begin and they are unwelcomed. I´m spinning like I´m on that ride in Kings Dominion (VA people know) that you spin and you stuck to the wall except this ride never ends and I just keep vomitting and when Im not vomiting, I am tripping like someone slipped me an overdose amount of LSD. I mean crazy visions, scary visions (no thanks to the book I happen to be reading), each ex girlfriend from my life flying at me, I am told some evil spirits by this loco shaman and all I keep thinking is, I PAID FOR THIS? Then the other thoughts I keep having is, I want to get up and go to my room but though my mind is going crazy, my body is a limp noodle. At this point I feel like the shaman is a demon and I want to get away but cant. And so eventually I get the attention of a guide who isnt doing this crazy drug and he drags me to my room and I spend the night awake staring into what I thought was outer space, aka my ceiling. And so do I feel great the next day you ask? uhm NO, I feel the opposite of great for the next 2 days...exhausted, weak, slightly still hallucinating and still wondering why anyone would ever suggest that as a "healthly cleansing". So yea, that was an experience I wont be doing again. Are my kidney stones gone you ask, I dont know but I dont that had anything to do with my kidney stones and more to do with my "evil spirits." So anyways, that was that and the next day we returned to Iquitos and got to visit a crazy local market which had unheard of things going on from a US standard which was the last crazy experience for mom before she flew back to Lima and then the states. It was really good for me to have someone with me from home, especially my mom. I hope someone else makes it for a visit!!! Now I am in Colombia and I am trying to figure out what else I can do in the Jungle before heading towards the caribean coast. Hope all is well on the homefront, stay away from Ayahuasca! Saludos!!! (pictures later when I have internet with my laptop)

Border Patrol

2009-10-22T16:30:00.000-07:00

Hola my people. Hope this blog finds you all happy & healthy. As always, I have had quite a few adventures since the last blog. I made my way back up to Northern Peru where I left my car and had one big task to handle before heading south again. That dreadful task was to cross the border into Ecuador and (hopefully) renew my temporary car permission into Peru. Why? because with my upcoming plans it was necessary to have more time. So I got back to my temporary home in Lobitos and hit the road up north for Mancora. My friend in Lobitos was also in need of a renewed passport stamp so she came along & then also a new friend I made from Austria decided she would come up to Mancora and meet up with me as well. She had plans to go into Ecuador. SO the 3 of us spent a night in Mancora and then decided to make our way to the lonely planet labeled ¨worst border in south america´and why not show up mid day on a Saturday right? So first thing that happens is the road forks and I follow the motorcycle in front of me which stays to the left and leads me directly into oncoming traffic which was fun. Crisis averted and find a cut across the dirt to my side and continue on. THe girls have no clue what its like doing this in a car rather than on the bus. Next we arrive to the border and its absolute madness, with millions of people all trying to get my attention, markets and people walking everywhere making it hard to pass. We manage to get out of Peru, ourselves, but some guy hassling me about my car in street clothes I chose to ignore and continue on. THen I make it to Ecuador side, enter the country, exit the country and chose not to enter my car technically. So as we leave, the road has a median wall and I realize I cant drive forward because my car and us are actually not in the country. So what do I do, I see a gap a hundreds back and reverse outta ecuador and flip a u turn. Ofcourse with oncoming cars honking the entire time. Good fun. Now I cross the bridge, stop by aduanas which is who does the car things and they are furious at me. They start accusing me of being a drug trafficker and say I have already crossed into ecuador before they could look at my car and now I´m ¨frito´(fried). Over the course of the next 45 mins I am told I am frito over and over and that I am not allowed back in peru and that everyone is always innocent etc etc. Power trip for the customs agent. The girls are forced outside, I get the pleasure of arguiing inside for a very long time. Many words exchange, much discussion about the drugs i have left n Ecuador and somehow I manage to get the guy to relax and believe me...that and 10 soles helped as well which is like 3 dollars. FINALLY, after some worrying on my side that I wasnt getting my car back into Peru, they finally let me reenter. It was quite a nightmare but in the end I guess its all part of the experience. So we returned for anther night in the touristy twn of Mancora and then my austrian friend Andrea and I hopped a bus for Lima....a 17hour bus ride. Yea, I left my car in Lobitos again. We got to Lima and took another bus south to Hauncachina so I could get into some snowboarding. This very small town is surrounded by massive dunes so I spent the day today climbing up, which is extremely hard, and getting some time riding down. It was a bit like snowboarding and really fun. Tomorrow I hit some local wineries & then part ways with my travel partner to head back up to Lima to meet up with my next partner, MY MOM! Exciting. She gets in tomorrow night and then we are flying up to Cusco to acclimatize and get ready for our mountain bike and treking to arrive to the ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu. good fun! I have gotta run. Hope all is well on the homefront. Saludos!

Solitude in the mountains

2009-10-14T08:49:00.000-07:00

Hola people who still read this. This blog has been going on so long that it seems like I shouldn't keep writing, it's almost like this isn't a 'trip' anymore but just my life. So I made my way up to Huaraz here in Peru which is up in the mountains in a range of mountains called the Cordillera Blanca. This area is home to some amazing treking and there are loads of crazy people doing long mountaineering excursions on the glaciers and massively high peaks. I, on the other hand, did not want to mountaineer but went up there to give some rock climbing a go. So I arrived and the first day I went on a couple hour hike and ended up running into the strangest fiesta in the hills outside of town. There were guys in crazy masks, a band, local indian people and everyone was dancing. The guys in the masks were drunk, being crazy and it was like some alien world for me. They, of course, looked at me like an alien & I drew some attention from the drunken masked guys who came over to try to talk to me and....ask me for money! I took some photos & video and then the rain came so I bailed. The next day I finally got to go out & rock climb. It was my first time doing this and it was challenging & fun. I really like how you have to use your brain to figure out your route. I really want to do more of it. That night I met some more travelers in my hostal and one girl had signed up for a trek so I ended up signing onto the same one as it coincided perfectly with my travel plans. We would squeeze a 4 day trek into 3 days and get back to town hours before my overnight bus was leaving. So the next morning we were picked up at 6am and off on a few hour bus ride into the mountains to begin. I wasn't really prepared to go treking, I don't qiute have the gear but I figured I'd be okay. It turned out to be me & 3 girls on the trek together - one from Austria, one from England & one from the USA. We spent 3 days treking somewhere around 45 kilometers up to a glacier (first time for me) and even heard loud booming cracks until a slight avalanche came down. The scenery was amazing, especially as we got to the top at 4700 meters. Sweeping views of massive snow peaks and amazing remote solitude. Our group had fun making up games and Andrea, from Austria, kept with me the entire time so we pushed each other to make it through the tough climbs throughout the day. We had a 430 am start yesterday and hiked to our highest point & then down for hours on end only to end the 8 hour day with a steep hour long climb. Then our transportation never showed up so we had to take a local bus. I already had my bus ticket to travel overnight and time was really close. I was worried I wasn't going to get home to shower before leaving, which I desperately needed but those worries subsided quickly as I looked over the cliffside to my imminent death thru each hairpin on this crazy bus. We stopped for a bathroom break on the bus, me & 20 local men & women jumped out and claimed our territory in a funny fashion. We got back to Hauraz with just enough time to take a freezing cold shower & jump on the overnight bus. Now I am in Trujillo on my way back up north to my car. From there my plans continue to be tight for a change, no more just cruising at the moment. My mom comes in a week, i have to pass the border to hopefully obtain a new permission for my car & then head 20 hours south towards Lima. I hope everyone is healthy & happy. Salud

Change of pace

2009-10-08T06:19:00.000-07:00

Hola buen dia! So as always a bunch of time has passed since the last blog. One reason for this is I've been staying in a place that has no electricity or water, much less internet access. So I left Lima on my last blog and I decided to head up north towards Lobitos/Mancora area. This particular area I missed on my way down and the family I met in Lima said I could stay in their house up there and there are supposed to be good waves. So I drove and drove and drove and got stopped by police after police all telling me I needed something and trying to get money. I did spent a few days in various towns & even spent a day hiking to some old pyramids which was pretty cool (well really HOT actually). Eventually I landed in Los Organos where this amazing house they own is and all I had to pay was for water to be brought & electricity. The only problem with this spot was there weren't any waves nor people so I would be hanging out in this lovely tahitian style house with a nice view solo and no surf nearby. So I spent one night there and decided to drive 30 mins north to Lobitos to check the surf. This area is really small and remote, all dirt roads leading to who knows where but I managed to navigate my way there. As soon as I drove into 'town' I drove right past a friend I had made 7 months earlier in Nicaragua. She was riding her bike & I passed her and we both couldn't believe it. Anyways she works for this local voluntoursim organization that works with local kids teaching them life skills, surf & water safety and English. I decided to rent a room in her shared house and stick around for a few days to see what this town was like. The surf in Lobitos is pretty epic really, though the local crowds don't use the world wide known surf "rules" in the water so the lack of respect is something you do have to adjust to. I wasn't really that excited about fighting for waves, I had been solo for a long time and getting aggressive for cold lefts wasn't really in my motivation. So I decided to dedicate my time to a new project that was starting up with my friends Organization. They were just beginning, the day after I arrived, to build a surf shack for the kids. One of the volunteers is an architect so he drew up some plans and they had already bought materials. Being that I could help in translating, as the lead architect has limited spanish, and I could be a helping hand I decided to help out on a daily basis. A lot of manual labor involved, digging holes, carrying cana, carrying rocks and carrying more rocks, sawing, hammering, etc. One day we hired a mule for 50 soles to do 6 trips to this spot we found nice large pieces of rock to be our floor. We found relentless winds on a daily basis and found it really difficult to work with kids in a foreign language when in reality you need skilled labor to build a shack that isn't going to fall over. And the kids weren't that exciting about collecting stones, the one thing they could do. They want to saw, hammer, paint and do all things they can destroy :) Beyond the project the house I have been staying in is very basic....VERY basic. There is no electricity which is alright but there is also a water problem in Lobitos. Meaning they have a busted pipe and water shows up twice a week in a truck to fill up tanks. So for our house one of my chores is to go into a tank in the backyard with buckets to fill and then transfer that into a trashcan inside our bathroom for "showers" and into the kitchen to wash dishes. The "shower" consists of a hanging plastic water bottle with holes on the bottom to act as a shower....so you pour water into the bottle and it drizzles out for 30 seconds at best. Challenging at times but for 4 dollars a night and a few of the point from the front porch, it's not that bad. It's been really nice for me to sit still, not spend money on gas or get hassled by police and do something with some meaning with the community. I've been invited into families houses for ceviche and rice and more rice. So after a week or so of working and surfing on the daily, I decided to pick up and go do something away from the beach and away from my car. One thing I learned upon arriving into South America is that it is a HUGE continent and I can't just drift aimlessly like I did in Central Am. I spent 7 months drifting planless through central america so if you look at that size in comparison to South America, I would be drifting for years. I mean, Brazil is basically the size of Australia. So with the LOOooong drives, expensive gas in Peru and wanting a different experience I ditched the car in Lobitos and took an overnight bus to Trujillo which is where I am right now. I'm headed up to Hauraz in the mountains which is supposed to have amazing rock climbing action, something I've always wanted to try. So this bus/back packer thing is totally new to me & is already bringing on a completely different experience to traveling. SO I am off now, with my heavy packs to go do some site seeing and going on my first 'tour' on this entire trip to pass time until I have another overnight bus to the Cordillera Blanca region! I have some other exciting plans coming in the near future as well but I'll wait for them to pass and blog about them. Hope everyone is doing well!!!

Mucho Mejor

2009-09-17T16:22:00.000-07:00

Buenas So I'm back to the trip. My last blog I was just returning to Peru from the states which was indeed an interesting transition. I had to get my senses aware and focus on my Spanish. Right away at the airport I start dealing with people trying to sway me to go to one hostel or another and of course saying some are closed or whatever. It's always some sort of scam, so it seems. Anyways a day into the return and I woke up from a long night of sleep with a sore throat. I ate a little breakfast, was thinking of getting out to do something but decided to lay down first and that turned into sleeping another 8 hours after the 9 hours of sleep at night. Woke up freezing cold, though thoroughly bundled up, with a fever, headache so bad it was painful to open my eyes and really tired. I stayed in bed all night in & out of really strange sleep with what seem like hallucinate-like dreaming. The next day I woke up the same, too tired to get out of bed and no energy to go down stairs to make some food. Oh and where was I? I was at a house of a friend who happened to be out of town. It's like a real world house, 10 people from all over the world live there studying at a university. And the ones that were around were up all night with loud music & partying like no tomorrow. I guess everyone thought I was gone because nobody saw me. I was in a room of a guy who was out of town, on an airmattress and not having fun. I guess these are the times when it'd be nice to be home or somewhere where someone might help me out with some soup or something. The second day into this sickness I really started to worry about another case of Meningitis or even Swine Flu. Swine flu info is all over when you're flying. My symptoms did remind me of Meningitis & I started to get a worried but I didn't really have the energy to get out and figure out the hospital thing plus I wanted to see if I could just kick it myself. So I laid around for days. Another thing happened, twice in this week 2 different students from the house got robbed around the corner. The second time was after I was there and I already had my set of spare keys. Well while I was down, the owner of the house changed the outside lock because the girl lost her keys when getting robbed. So when I finally did try to go out to get some orange juice, I didn't even have a key to get out. So basically I was locked in & nobody knew I was there, I was sort of wallowing away in my room. Finally I saw the maid & she helped me with a new key so I could go to the Pharmacy and to the store. I had met this older guy, who is originally from the states but lives here, up in Northern Peru before I left on my trip home & he had said he could help me investigate some things I was thinking about in Lima so I finally called him back. He & his wife came over, picked me up & took me out for some food...their treat. Which was nice, they were helpful and got me my first meal in a few days. They also went into to the place my car was parked and haggled for a lower price, which was funny since it was only 2.50 per day. Oh yea, my car was there intact with everything in it. I was able to get there & see that before I fell down sick for a few days. That was a nice relief, I was a little worried about my car while away. So I finally got up the energy to leave the house, I couldn't take all the crazy loud partying all night and I especially couldn't handle stereotype fitting LOUD annoying Americans in the house. The people from the other countries were telling me they didn't understand, this is something that people abroad tend to say about people from the states - we're really loud. And sure enough there was a guy who was loud day & night. Anyway I got myself up, left the house and went to check into a hostel in MiraFlores until I was fully on my feet. Now I'm back to feeling much much better and finally got myself active again. The couple that I spoke of earlier has a son who surfs so I went exploring with him & his friend and they showed me some pretty solid surf spots. Not the most amazing scenery; the beaches near Miraflores are gloomy, cold, and seemed to be littered with dead seagulls & a few dead seals but the surf was really good & it felt good to do something. It's been nice to have the local family be nice to me, have me over for a couple of meals & to take me around to run some errands I needed to do. They've been really helpful & generous with their time. Now that I'm about back to 110%, it's time for me to get out of the city, get back on the road & continue the journey.

Locisimo

2009-08-19T16:29:00.000-07:00

Hola well I´m here in Peru. And I have done a lot of driving. The terrain in Peru changed drastically from any other country. It has miles upon miles upon miles of sand dunes. I mean like hundreds of miles. And there isn't much vegetation. Peru has been a little more difficult for me. It´s not as touristy, at least where I have been, which makes finding something somewhat normal kind of tough. My first full day in Peru, I got searched by the police. And they tossed my car, more so than any other on this trip, and I have no clue what they took but surely something because it was a few of them 'searching' and another guy trying to distract me from watching. Afterwards I made it to a beach near Chiclayo and surfed my first surf in Peru on this trip. I met some guys that were asking me about my truck and they told me where some better surf was so I hit the road for a place called Pacasmayo. I was about to arrive around 430pm, excited to get there in time to surf before sunset when at the exit for PacasMayo I got stopped by police. And of course, for no reason. He starts pulling out some book and telling me I´m missing an insurance for tourists. Nobody has mentioned this at the border, the other police, etc. And surprise surprise, they can take my license and car OR I can pay right there. They wanted 450 soles which is about a couple hundred US dollars. These situations are always tricky because I could pretend not to speak spanish or I try to speak well so they treat me different than a normal tourist so I did that and it didn´t work. Sometimes I just pretend I don't understand anything but then they start writing numbers down which is universal. I argued and in the end, had to give them 50 soles (17ish us dollars) to get my license and papers back. And I missed the surf, it was late. So I started off with a rough day. The next day I got some amazing surf, long lefts reeling across this reef. I surfed it with 3 guys who were on vacation from Florida. I spent the day with them & then I hit the road again to continue south. Another day in the car heading southbound and another encounter with the Police. This time the policeman started off saying I passed in a no passing area but that was a lie. Mind you I was in the middle of miles upon miles of emptiness and sand dunes for as far as the eye can see. The road was so long and straight it appeared like there was water at the end in the distance but it was just more road. I have an attitude of I'm not paying anything this time so I stand my ground tough. The guy circles my car looking at it and starts to tell me I need permission to have my windows tinted. It's the factory tint. I just keep saying "no entiendo" (don't understand) and standing my ground. In the end I got off without paying anything but was a little flustered again. These run ins with the police along with some other travel woes made me tired and really want a break. I took a look at my frequent flyer miles and saw that I could use them to book a rountrip flight from Lima to Norfolk. So after thinking it through, I jumped on it in order to make our family vacation in the outerbanks and I was southbound in a few days to figure out what to do with my car and catch this flight. Arriving in Lima was crazy, as it is going into any foreign city with my big truck. I randomly reconnected via email with a girl I met traveling in Panama a few months back and she's now living in Lima. SO I had a destination, the plan was to stay the night at her shared house (with 10 other students from around the world) and park in a lot behind her house. It all seemed too easy because it was. The lot wouldn't let me leave my car there for 2 weeks which was a bummer because she could see the car in there from her room. So they pointed me towards another place that I showed up to and as always I'm greeted with interesting reactions over the site of my truck. They wanted to hear about it since it has California plates and they wanted my papers to be left with them so I had to fight out of that one. In the end I left it, took my paperwork, gave a little money up front and have to hope that my truck and things are there when I return today. The time away from Latin America allowed me to let some of my travels sink in and reflect on what I've done and how far I've come - distance and personally. It has been strange to be back in our culture and see how much we have at our fingertips. I have missed the Latin culture while I have been in the USA but I do love home and I always will. The south, with my family and friends, is always a place that I love and always feel comfortable here. The weather has been great and the trip was exactly what I needed; a break from the madness of traveling in a foreign nation with a car. The outer banks is still one of my favorite spots and the week we spent down there was amazing for surf and for quality time with the family. It's nice to be reminded of the southern hospitality and friendliness that comes with being here but now I'm ready to get back to my journey. Keep your fingers cross that my car is intact along with my things!

Los Andes

2009-08-16T09:11:00.000-07:00

Hola whoever still reads this! Well after a few weeks on the coast of Ecuador i dropped Emily off at the airport, got chased by mangie street dogs on my run in the hot bustling city of Guayaquil & then decided to head to the Andes since there wasnt much swell on the map. Having Emily leave makes the trip different, again. One thing for sure is that I´m going to lose more veggies now. If there is one thing that Emily does not like, is letting food we bought go bad. Logical right? But she sticks to that like a drill seargent, even if it means stuffing me with 10 plaintains a day especially when they´re near rotten and now ´maduros´. Whatever it takes to eat this 70 cents worth of veggies. I am surely giong to sell out more often and lose a few cents worth of veggies here and there. Em has some addictions that I got to know during our few months traveling together. AVENA, heard of it? aka oatmeal. Needs this every morning like Sully needs coffee. It´s funny, unless she didn´t get her avena. Whats not as funny is the addiction to peanut butter. Which only comes on rare occasions if she crosses the line and samples peanut butter when I´m having a pb and banana sandwich. She has the "once it hits your lips its so good" Old School Will Farrel thing. One bite leads to spooning down the rest of the jar. Its like me with chocolate. So it was good having a travel mate and a newbie surfista to watch go thru the stoke, frustration & fear that goes with being in the ocean. It was fun sharing my knowledge of the ocean & the sport.
So after she left I dcided to start driving towards the south east. There is this small remote town in the Andes fairly close to Peru where they say people live to be over 100 yrs old. Vilcabamba!
Getting to Vilcabamba took longer than I thought. It's different navigating alone. Though I didn't get too lost, only lost about 20 mins once, but the roads were winding up high elevations and I definitely miscalculated that. Plus they're still working on some of those roads. The temps dropped down to the 40s from the 80s during this trek. Of course I have on boardies, T and flipflops. Passed through some really cool towns & breathtaking views all along the way. Saw a lot of indigenous people herding sheep or whatever. I arrived late so I ended up at a place that I didn't really like but I was over it to go searching. I did meet a mom and daughter from ecuador who now somehow live in Richmond, VA. Strange and they were nice to talk to and work on my spanish with. I left there the next morning and found something more up my alley. Some cabins that you have to hike up to and you listen to a river running. I spent the day hiking into this park. I made it to a waterfall and on my return I ran into a big group of local kids on a hike. So I spent the next hour walking with them, having a bunch of 10 yr olds push and shove (almost off the cliff) to talk to me. It was a good test for my spanish. Funny thing is they ended up talking a bunch about Michael Jackson and singing Thriller along the way. Good times for me in the mountains for sure.
Today I left Ecuador and headed for Peru. The drive was way longer than I anticipated passing through mountain pass after mountain pass. One painful lesson I learned is up in these parts, gas stations are closed on Sundays. And because gas is so cheap in Ecuador, I planned on filling up my tank & my spare, which I had just used for this purpose, before getting into Peru. Gas in Ecuador is 1.48 per gallon, about half the price of everywhere else. I made it to the border, decided to pass since this border was the easiest one I've done yet. I guess because it's a small one in the mountains, their aren't many people hassling. The down side, is there weren't money changers hassling me either. They are usually a rip off but it's good to get some local dollars...especially when you need gas. Sure enough I drove and drove with no ATm to be found. I then came upon a toll both and I have no loot, I was worried but got lucky they weren't charging for my direction. Then an hour later, still no atm, another toll booth but I got lucky again. So now I'm in peru, found a hotel and going to regroup at daylight. Definitely been missing my friends & family!

Ceviche heaven

2009-08-05T13:37:00.000-07:00

Well here I am again, sitting at a computer with a loss of what to blog about. I always think of some thing to write in my blog but I'm never near the net. Internet has been a little tougher to come by here in Ecuador. At my last blog, I think, I was still fighting my car out of the port and into Ecuador. That proved to really test my patience and push my Spanish. I am thankful for my time spent with Ricardo and him training me how to interact in Spanish more like the way they do it. It's not so eloquent but it's direct and to the point. Everything is direct and open here and in all the Latin countries. The communication is different, people don't get offended at small things. If someone wants to strip their child down right next to you, at a restaurant and wash them by pouring water on their head then they will do it and nobody will care. Everything is direct and there aren't any hidden messages. If you want your bill or a refill, you get up and tell someone and they don't get mad. And if you want to get anything done at the port, you have to push your way through many windows with a bunch of other people doing the same & get your stuff looked at and dealt with. if you think there is a line, you will be waiting all year. This training with Ricardo definitely pushed me through on getting through the nightmare of a process to get my car but I finally got it and immediately hit the road. Unfortunately the last day I didn't actually get my car until 8pm which meant I was already breaking one cardinal rule of the trip, don't drive in foreign lands that you're completely unfamiliar with after dark. However my options were limited and I chose to shoot the 3 hour drive to the beach town Mantanita rather than spend one more hot and noisy night in the port town of Guayaquil. Driving at night here is dark, no street lights and I am not sure where I'm going so I do what I have done at least 10 thousand times on this trip, I start asking directions. Yet again I'm aware of my surroundings and looking for the worst thing to happen to me as I pass through a small town and the people are all walking on the streets because not many cars really pass through, especially at night. So I am forced to slow down and endure all the stairs because as has been amused a lot on this trip, seeing me is like them seeing a UFO. I ask someone how to get out of this town and on my way to where I'm going and sure enough some guy on a motorbike offers to drive in front and have me follow him. This has happened to me so many times on this trip. It reminded me of being in Panama City when I was searching either for an office or police station or hotel and more than once after driving up next to a car in the city, waiving my hand to have them roll down their window and asking for directions and they offer to just drive me there because explaining how to get this is harder. And these are never just a couple blocks away, I'm talking all the way across the city. I had one guy drive up next to me after he saw me asking another guy and he asked what I was looking for so I told him and he drove us there, to the police station and even got out to tell me to be safe because this particular part of town was dangerous, called the red district. After these things happen, I always sit back and wonder what would happen in New York city if you waived at someone in another car and tried to get directions from them? I always think about blogging something but it's hard to say what to write. I've just searched just about all of the pacific coast for waves, driving on beaches and off road a bit. I could focus on that in a blog. Or focus on that I've probably cooked at least my 200th meal out of the back of my car this year which isn't an easy way to live but it works. Or that my skills with a coconut have improved, I open, drink & eat them quite often. I could write a delicious blog describing every incredible bowl of fresh ceviche I've eaten here in Ecuador. But what always seems to be missing from my blog, that which seems tough to relay, is all the sites of people & towns I pass through. I'm fairly sure this is how UFO sightings get posted, someone like me flies through a town where the kids are working hard with a machete & farming tools at say, 6 years old, and everyone is awestruck just stares with jaws open at the truck & me while I pass thru. I have passed through a good deal of Ecuador in search for surf which has been hit & miss. The sites are still amazing though. I still come across people bathing themselves & their clothes in rivers. Millions of shacks hand made from bamboo or something similar. I'm still avoiding hitting dogs, pigs, goats, horses, cows, and many many people on bikes on the roads. Everyone, every age rides a bike and usually the bike is too big or too small. And there is hardly ever just one person on the bike, a family of 3 or 4 will ride down the road on a bike. And in between all of these views of the local people, and the conversations I try to have to get directions, find bakery's, or anywhere else I might be looking for, I am in the water surfing. After spending my last blog talking about how I can't meet other travelers abroad my faith in there being some other nice people abroad was restored. After an argument over price in a hostal in montanita, one that I was thankful Emily had to handle for a change, we bolted out of there in a hurry. Instead of packing up my truck and reorganizing as I had intended, we split paying less than the guy all of a sudden wanted from us, and I drove a bit and then turned down a beach road to regroup. Up walks a couple, a guy and a girl with a surfboard and surely not from Ecuador. They had seen my truck, as is the case with everyone, and starting asking about what I was doing there with a California plated vehicle. One thing led to another and we hung out at their house for a few nights, 'camping' in the truck. Tom & Shannon are down in Ecuador from California. It was really refreshing to meet some genuinely nice people for a change. After a couple of days together exploring the area for surf, I invited them to go on a little journey with us. They jumped in and we were off. They got to see first hand how fun it can be in a car but also how not easy it is with a car. Searching for places to sleep that are safe and have safe parking. Being lost constantly. I have basically been lost for 7 months. Asking for directions a million times to get anywhere. Being stared at all day. It's fun, it's frustrating, it's exciting, it is still an adventure. 5 or 6 days with those guys & it was time for them to head back to their current house down south so they split on the bus. It was a good experience after I had so many not so good experiences with travelers abroad. Now it's down to myself & Emily. Emily has been traveling with me for a couple of months and now her time is coming to an end as well. She is done with this leg of the journey in 5 days and then it will be down to just me. It's been amazing to have a woman's touch to my casita & to improve the health of my eating, let alone a companion to get through this adventure with. But now this part of the journey will be taking a new turn. So things will change again soon & who knows what effect it will have but the only constant I've had on this trip is....CHANGE.
PS: missing the birth of my brothers baby & Justin's baby definitely makes me miss home. I think and talk about you all constantly....surely to the annoyance of others around. Hopefully I'll meet these new additions sooner than later.

Patience is necessary....

2009-07-21T17:58:00.000-07:00

Hola my people. As always, I let so much time pass that too many things have happened. Typically so much happens in one day that I think or say "I should blog about this" but then that happens 50 million times before I sit down and write out here. Well in a whirlwind turn of events, I am now writing this from South America. After my time in Mono Feliz, Emily and I hit the road south first for the Azuero peninsula to do what I do...search for more surf. We spent a lot of time alone with the animals of Mono Feliz that I soon realized why I loved that so much. First, beyond local police, customs officials and people in general wanting money from me, all back packers seem to have an alterior motive to talking to me when they realize I have my truck. I am pretty numb to this by now which has unfortunately made me unfriendly and very untalkative. I never talk about my travels or having a vehicle but it inevitibly comes up or is just plainly seen....my truck does stick out like a sore thumb. People always see me and think they can hitch a ride to the store, to the surf, out of town, etc. So at this very cool eco lodge in Azuero, I realized that I cant socialize with anyone there because they just leech onto me quickly. One of the beauties about having the car is being able to have food to cook. And their was a communal kitchen at this lodge and rather than giving people rides to the store, which I was asked a bunch of times, we started offering meals for sale that emily was cooking. First it started out with a few for breakfast and then it quickly turned into big dinners serving 7ish people. Worked out nicely for us, it basically paid for the trip out there. To get away from everyone, we split in the car to go explore for waves. We drove and drove offroad, enjoying the truck as always, and saw massive waves breaking over reef so we stopped and walked the beach to check out it. There was NOBODY around until on our return someone came down the beach saying "is that jesse" and it was a guy I met a few weeks earlier that is driving to south america and we had discussed sharing a container to save money since you cant drive through the darien gap. One thing led to another and I jumped on the opportunity and the following day we were headed to panama city to start sorting it all out. The process has been numbing, disorganized, senseless, time consuming and really a test of my patience. First off, dealing with a 3rd person comes at a price and he quickly jumped on my coat tail to lead him thru it all since my spanish is better. A nightmare day in the ghetto of panama getting the police to inspect the cars, a weekend in the city and a nightmare of a day in the slums of Colon to get the cars exited from panama and into a container. The days were FULL days of frustration, spanish improvement, and patience dealing with everyone. The following day, we hopped a flight to Columbia. I decided against shipping the car to Columbia and went straight for Ecuador and because of wanting to see the country and having a week to pass before the car arrived in Ecuador we split for Columbia. Landing in Columbia was a stark contrast from what was in Panama. The people were rich, trendy, good looking with plastic surgery contendable with Orange County. Columbia turned out to be really clean, good streets, cheap, loads of great fresh fruit from street vendors and plenty of great sights. After a 17 hour day on the bus to get to Quito Ecuador I quickly realized I miss my truck and dont think Im much of a backpacker bus taker. I also soon realized I really love traveling at the beach and the cities are cool for a minute but not much longer. So the flights were dirt cheap from quito to guayaquil and time was running out so we opted out of the 12 hour bus trip and took the 45 min flight down. I had some notion that I would be driving my car out of the port on Monday, since the boat had arrived, but that dream has been crushed for 2 days now. This process is crazy beyond belief and I have to pull all the wait and keep things together as my co-container bud spins out of control time and time again, annoying officials in the process. 8 hours at the port today and we were denied, told to return tomorrow. Emily couldnt stand wasting another day away from the beach and staying in hot dirty loud quayaquil so she split on a bus. I am close to at the end of my rope and hope that tomorrow I can get my spanish understanding and communications across to get everything else we need done, done, so that I can get in my car, drive to the coast and go wash the filth of this process, shady people, dirty ports and annoying people off me in the pacific ocean of Ecuador. The ocean is my therapy and I really cant wait for my next session. Hope everyone is happy and healthy at home. Miss, talk and think about you all the time. salud

Coco Loco

2009-07-06T05:13:00.000-07:00

Buen Dia familia y amigos! Well it's been a while since I've last written in this thing but it hasn't been because I'm putting it off or anything, it's because of the last 30ish days I've been without electricity for about 25 of those days. We decided after seeing some beaches and some 'normal' spots on the travelers path here in panama that we just loved mono feliz & would go back there & explore more around that remote jungle on the beach area. We negotiated our way into a cabina this time, no more camping! The cabina is similar to camping but much better with all the rain & really nice to have a porch to relax & read on, daily. Having no electricity was something we hardly realized, you just wake up with the sun, go to bed at night & we're out and about all day. Maybe the only time we even thought about electricity, was the nightly cold shower. But really it's a nice way to live but does prove challenging when you have no chilling element to your food. We built ourselves an outdoor kitchen area which made for some amazing camping food, regardless of having nothing that could be refridgerated. The food is something we really focused on & it turned out to be pretty amazing meals. We lucked out on getting some fresh caught fish a few times, Emily made homemade dough & I tossed a pizza that was cooked over a fire, we have the most amazing fruits & fresh veggies and these meals were better than I would eat out of a real kitchen. Our pizza's over a fire turned out to be amazing & spurred a lot of talk of opening a pizza place in Costa Rica. Anyways dreams aside and food aside ( you can tell I'm hungry while writing this) we had some adventures, as always. The first adventure was arriving back to Mono Feliz, the tide was low but rising and we were trying to get all the food/etc done and get back out there and we pushed the LIMIT on this low tide drive. The tide had risen a bit too much, we were long on the beach driving when we realized it was maybe too late but there's no turning back. In some scary river mouth passes on the beach I had to drive in a few feet of ocean water, really tense moments thinking my car my get stuck or might not pass and then what? The tide's just rising more and the beach is about to disappear. It's not fun to drive your vehicle in the ocean but 'trust the truck' made it, again. Then came the extremely deep "puddle's" after the beach section which get deeper & deeper as rainy season pours. These are about bottom of the door deep but you don't know until you're in it, scary again. My truck has survived a lot of abuse to arrive at mono feliz, its a beating on her. So coco loco comes from a scary moment. Another lovely day and we're sitting on the porch in our chairs, emily is eating a coconut that I've just drank & opened. It's one of those amazing days instantly turned into a nightmare. I hear a scream & look over and emily has a volcanic-like eruption of blood coming from her hand & panic sets in on here. These coconuts are really hard to get out of the shell & on one side they also have a little hole where you drink from. Well she was using a skinny knife I have (had) and it stabbed right through the coconut, into the front of her hand & out of the back of her hand! I popped up, tried to calm her down & had her put pressure on it while I looked for my first aid stuff. She immediately went into shock, which I really didn't know what to do and that spurs another thing I want to learn - better first aid skills. She lost a HUGE amount of blood and then started sweating profusely and then got really white, I mean ghostly white. Her face was white, lips were white & she was passing out which all looked really scary. I didn't really know what to do, I kept talking to her and trying to keep her awake & and all but I couldn't. The scary reality set in that we are so far off the beaten path that there is no help or hospital near by. To make things worse, it's late in the afternoon and the tide is too high to drive out so I know we're stuck for atleast 12 hours until the next morning. It was a bit unnerving to realize this but no time to worry, it was time to figure something out. So I ran up and got 'mama-Luz' who is the local lady who has been my pseudo mom; she's helped me with kidney stone remedies, digestion/hiccup problems (another story), rashes and other jungle related problems. In this case I ran to get her, we ran back and when we returned Emily looked dead and mama-Luz freaked out. She grabbed some alcohol and woke Emily up. Then she made some soup & hand feed her and we cleaned her up and she started to come to & be a little better. The next morning we hit the road and went to the hospital, 2 hours away. She was actually really lucky that it was a clean cut and no major damage appears to have been done. So the scare is over & back to our place to try to have relax again. Funny how quickly everything can go from amazing to disaster in an instant. So back to the adventures in punta Barica, we spent one amazing day with Miron (local kid who lives where we're staying) walking to Costa Rica over beach, rocks & slippery reef. We hiked, at low tide, for 2 hours into costa Rica to surf this surf spot called Punta Mangle. It was quite an adventure to get there & pretty cool to hike into another country though at the end of it all the waves weren't that good. But I did get some quality time in with Miron who was teaching me how to get into coconuts much easier. It took Emily & I about 40 minutes to get into the one we were working on & then he comes up and does it in 2 minutes. Another skill I learned, been learning some good useful skills on this trip with Miron, a kid grown up there living off the land. We ate a lot of coconuts, though emily was banned from doing anything but eating them, and we walked and found mangos, got starfruits, mamon(sp?) and lots of good fresh fruit. Mama-luz would give us avocado's from their tree & lots of little fruits and things here & there. Miron would bring me a fish, cleaned and ready to cook, and generally they were so nice to us. It was really nice to work on spanish & spend time with the true locals to this area. I really connected with them, helped miron with his surfing and spent time getting to know mama-luz. She nearly cried when I left, I think she kissed me 10 times all over my face & made me promise to return & write a letter when I felt better from the kidney ailment. OTher than that I was learning more than opening coconuts, I was having to be creative to do just the most 'normal' thing stateside. I bought some coffee as a gift to send back to the states from Costa Rica but I never got to sending it. And on a rainy day I decided I wanted to drink coffee but it's hole bean and I have no grinder plus is/was a present. But after some brainstorming I decided to break into the stash (sorry sully, will send you something else), dump the beans in a half coconut & smash them with a shell. Fun way to earn my coffee, plus I didn't have a coffee maker so I had to use this 'sock' like filter that mama-Luz had and she said her mom always used it. Just one of the many times of getting creative to get a quick addictive fix! All in all it was an amazing time spent in Mono Feliz, more trips to the island and surfing my wave, exploring other reefs, reading, more reading and loads and loads of amazing food with fresh ingredients. We even had dogs the entire time. Now it's southbound to explore some new areas. Going to hit the road & see if we can find and explore the Azuero Peninsula and then after that leg, probably onto the canal & panama city. Happy 4th of july, we celebrated with what I thought was sparklers but when I lit them turned out to be incense :) Hope everyone is having an amazing summer. Pura vida!

10,000 miles later & no more training wheels

2009-06-10T14:54:00.000-07:00

Buen Dia! It's been a while since I've been on the blog or even on the internet really. I've spent the last 8 days camping in Panama back at the same spot that Ricardo & I first found a few weeks prior. Which means my time in Costa Rica is now over! My temporary permission for my car expired so I left on May 30th. My time in Costa Rica was pretty amazing. I'm definitely going to miss Ricardo, Hannah & Kalani. Staying with them & Ricardo's mom got us all close, I was treated like family. I'm going to miss Ricardo's moms daily lunches. Their main meal of the day is lunch & she makes a full on meal every day along with some fresh fruit drink as well. I became part of a little community there in Costa Rica, started to know some locals & really got to work on my Spanish. My Spanish improved tremendously and it's funny that I've learned Spanish on the streets so my lingo is much more like the locals of Costa than say someone who just studies Spanish in School. It's like they say "hello, how are you today" and I say "What's crackin homeboy" I'm thankful for that time to learn Spanish with Ricardo & his neighborhood friends. I've enjoyed learning this way and now it's time to put my Spanish skills to the test. I've essentially taken off my training wheels because most of this trip I've had a native Spanish speaker with me. I had Ricardo & Fish that entire trek down from the States. Now it was time for me to face a border on my own & figure out how to get around using my newly fresh talking skills. I don't have a map or a plan, so my method is to talk to people. I ask people on the streets for directions & if they know anything about potential surf. I basically can strike up conversation with anyone, even if it's to ask a blind guy walking down the street in the rain for driving directions. Which was funny, I pulled up next to a guy walking with an Umbrella in the rain & slow down and yell "Senor, una pregunta. Para llegar a David" (Sir, a question. How do I get to David) but during the middle of my question he looks over at me and I notice he's completely blind. What do you do? Do you stop your question because not only does he clearly not have a car and drive because he's walking in the rain but he now also is blind to go with it. Or do you keep asking him & potentially offend him by asking a blind guy for driving directions? Well I just asked & guess what, he gave me some really detailed good directions. And like about everyone I've encountered, was really nice & helpful. The people are so approachable & warm when it comes to me asking for help & them seem to respond well to the attempted Spanish. In my last leg of Costa Rica I met a fellow traveler taking surf lessons from Ricardo at La Escuela Del Mundo named Emily. We started surfing together, or I was surfing with their surf classes, and after some time of becoming friends I invited her to travel with me if she so dared. She thought it over, talked with her family which was reluctant as she had some plans to go work in Maine doing some research and in the end she decided to take a chance and go on the adventure with me. So I went from having a tall black Venezuelan Spanish speaker copilot to having a white gringa with similar Spanish skills to me. It draws a new level of attention. In the past seeing Ricardo made people shy away, now it's 2 white folks in a big black American truck. So we left Jaco after her month of surf training was completed & I was due to leave Costa so we went south & spent a night in Dominical & then hit the border crossing to Panama. Thankfully I had been here twice before and was somewhat familiar with the madness that would no doubt occur. I get mobbed as soon as I pull up but now with my rapid fire slang I'm able to say something to all these guys surrounding me that let them know I'm not going to use their assistance. They immediately left me alone. It felt like a good start for me & my spanish. I was told by Aduana's that I could not return for 3 months, they just wanted to be clear. At this point my car was no longer in Costa Rica & we had been stamped and I had some anxiety over getting into Panama & not getting stuck in no-mans land. Through a few dollar bribes to officials in Panama, we get in Panama without a glitch. This made me happy as you never know what's going to happen at these borders. Now that we're through my plan is to attempt to reach the beach & head towards the same place I had before near Puerto Armuelles. This meant all of this border crossing timing was around the tides because we have to drive on the beach during low tide on the reef to reach the place we're going to camp, it's impassable on high time. We drive through a restricted Oil area & then off on the beach for a long run on sand & mainly reef. It's really a crazy drive & rough on the truck. We stop along the way when we're almost to the end, we get off the beach onto a 'road' where there are only cows & horses and mango trees. Emily climbs on the truck and pulls a good 20 mangos off the tree which we use for our daily intake of 2 mangos each per day. We arrive at our location which is a property owned by a gringo guy who lives with a panamanian woman from the area so her kids, nieces, nephews, brothers & sisters are around. They help us work on spanish engaging in many different conversations ranging from surfing to the local people to the United states to fixing my stove. My masterplan, which I never have, was to camp on this spot they have there with small pebbles & the oceanfront view to the island I want to paddle to. There was one problem, when we got to this place there was a guy who was already set up in that camp spot. He is the only other person at this place as it's extremely far & remote but he's a backpacker with a surfboard & he somehow landed there. That sort of deflated some of my excitement because we ended up make shifting another camp site which was on dirt and that only matters because it is now full on RAINY SEASON! So dirt is really mud and it was a dense tropical area so the spot had it's fair share of bugs & things. I wanted to settle in for some quality time in this area to explore around this place. So my plan was for us to stay for as long as we reasonably could. This area is really just magical & I was super excited to get back there. We saw 3 types of monkeys, turtles, other wildlife. We had an exotic island out front to paddle to and have to ourselves. The views were insane, the area was majestic & it was all ours...almost. It's one of those places where I felt like their couldn't be a more beautiful place. And though there was 1 other guy cramping my style, camping in my space, at least he didn't have the adventurous spirit to paddle out to that island and find the wave that I had found the previous time. He had been surfing some other reefs that are right off shore and much smaller. I made the trek to the island and dragged Emily along so she could work on her paddling conditioning. It's a long somewhat eery open water paddle between land & the island. Especially so because the first few minutes we were there Emily found a sharks tooth. Luckily for us the first day the brother of the lady, Luz who's place we were camping on, was going out to the island and picked us up as we paddled a little less than half way. He dropped us off, offered to snorkel and look at the rocks but I told him I had surfed there & it wasn't necessary. Another dream for me, sitting in this lineup & looking at a empty beach lined densely with palm trees. I had brought a bag with bottles of water, fruit & a knife so while Emily didn't yet have to endure the pain of getting in and out of the water on the jagged rocks I got to go in & stash it on the beach & left her to soak up what is actually happening. The waves were small & perfectly glassy & I was yet again overcome by amazement with this find. That day we ended up on the beach after surfing eating our mangos & oranges & drinking our herbalife. A couple of kids, of the guy who drove us in his boat, turned up on the island and hung out with us. It was a good day of practicing spanish for me. They were young & came right up and approached us and offered to help me find some good coconuts. I had a knife & the kid I was talking to was 11 and he wanted my knife to open the coconuts we found. I was hesitant to hand over my knife to a kid but I realized in minute that he knew what he was doing. And more so his older brother, 16, showed up with a machete a little bit later & handed that right over to his kid brother so he could easily hack it open with a drinkable hole & then get the coconut meat out for us. They didn't want any of it, they just wanted to get it for us. There is just a difference in kids that don't have all the luxuries that our kids have these days. They were so engaging & friendly, I mean he fought into that first coconut for a good 15 minutes before the machete turned up. We all laid around under the palms until it was time for them to go, they had been waiting on us but I told them we were going to train & paddle back. Now back to Camping in the rainy season; it poses an entire new element that makes camping less enticing. But the thing I love about camping is that you just do your daily chores, build your home, make your place to eat, dry your clothes, etc. It's really simple but it's rewarding. You constantly try to better your situation by figuring out ways to keep the place dryer or to keep your food secured from bugs to fixing a broken stove. My stove broke and at home after tinkering with it for a short time I would have surely just bought a new one. But here I am in latin America and one thing I've learned is that they don't just buy new anythings without giving it a serious go on fixing it and they end up fixing it. Now I have time and not money, though cooking without a stove leaves us with less options to eat & there is a bit of time pressure because I assured Emily we were going to have a lovely clean campsite & a kitchen-like stove to work with. BUT the other vagabonder was in my site & now my stove wasn't working, right away too. With the help Juancho (the gringo owner) & Miron (Luz's 18 yr old son) we tackled the rusted screws of my old camp stove. The thing is I walked up to the kitchen area & Miron was there & I started to explain I needed tools to try to take apart this stove & he just dove right in, without any hesitation. He started wrestling with my rusted, striped screws and we spent the next 2ish hours until dark (no electricity) taking every piece apart & testing the flow. The problem was my stove had a blockage on it & in the end we sort of ghetto rigged it up to work. Then it broke again and in clearing the blockage I managed to take down the entire piece needed for to compress the gas tank so my next fix included a tiny seashell. The problem we had now with the gas was that it was leaky & flow wasn't controlled and losing gas more quickly is a problem. And speaking of problems, after we camped for a couple of days we had the luxury of not driving which was great but led to my battery dieing. Now mind you we are in a place with no cars, people come by delivering food for Luz via horse. We actually had 2 problems, the first was the keyless entry wasn't working because the battery was dead & my key wouldn't manually open the one door with a key hole. I never use the key and it turns out at some point someone tried to break my lock because it had been dislodged & was loose & the key wouldn't work. So here I am with a hanger trying to unlock my door. I do manage, after repeated failed attempts & a good hour or 2 to get the lock reset into the correct spot & get in with the key. It's a good thing I'm no auto thief, I couldn't get the hanger trick to work for the life of me. The beauty of failed battery was that after my battery problem on my way to Bocas del Toro months back, I managed to buy this portable battery charger/compressor on a trip to San Jose with Ricardo. The problem was that my battery was really dead, enough so that the door wouldn't unlock. But after a half hour of charge & attempts to start, we were back in business. I'm sure by now Emily was doubting her decision to stay - we're camped in a muddy/buggy spot that's soaked, my stove is broke, my car door lock is broke, my battery is dead and I'm sure I'm looking far less enticing than I originally represented. Somehow we pulled through all the problems & even our other backpacker left a few days later without ever coming to the island to find my break. We moved our home, cleaning & airing everything out & we were blessed with a rain free day to do it. We posted up on a bigger, more spacious spot with gravel below instead of dirt & a breeze to die for as I am/was always burning up. It felt like such an upgrade, it was in a way nice to have to experience the less than perfect spot in such a perfect location & then get to 'upgrade'. Bringing a girl, or anyone for that matter, camping in the rain can be a big test but Emily withstood all the bad stuff and still saw only how insanely lucky we were to be in this majestic place. She also eats really healthy & has been enjoying having time to cook so I've been benefiting from this immensely. I've still been battling the kidney stone problem, impassable I suppose, and I've been taking many natural remedies daily from some plant from peru, linaza (linseed), aloe very drink, squeezing lemons into water, herbalife , eating as a vegetarian, & eating an endless array of daily fruits. I feel great beyond the one major problem. It feels good to eat healthy & exercise. At the place we camped in they have monkeys passing through daily. Some of which keep us up at night, those loud howler monkeys, but they have these adorable squirrel monkeys which they say are endangered. We were able to feed these monkeys bananas as they come passing through the area in packs of 50-70. It was surreal, having these monkeys jumping from all directions onto your head and shoulders, being swarmed. This became a daily occurrence when we were around & not off surfing, running, or doing yoga. After days of exploring reefs, paddling out to the island & surfing alone, and soaking up the surreal surroundings we were faced with a decision about leaving or getting more food & returning. Even the shells in this place were amazing, it's like constant sensory overload here. This is a place that made me feel like I couldn't go anywhere and find anything better. That's a bad feeling to get when you're on a journey anticipated to extend our further. It's like, why continue the search when you've found the ultimate place. From a surfer & explorer's perspective, this was the end of the road. After my first visit here & return to Jaco with Ricardo, I was a bit down. I was tired from the trip & unmotivated to surf back there & it just seemed uninteresting after being in this other spot. But this time we did have to contend with the rain however we were fortunate enough to have nice facilities built on the grounds for shower & bathroom which helped keep us clean & happy. But at some point you're ready for a bed & to be out of the rain. So we decided we would leave the following day. Our final full day there, Emily decided to go for a run on the beach but I was still relaxing from surfing so I hung back. Then a bit later, just before sunset, I decided to go run on the beach. It was a nice way to soak in the scenery & let some perspective sink in. I got in the groove, running over reef, rocks & sand and decided to go further than normal. I eventually came to pass another casa looking place & when I ran by a guy came out & flagged me down. He had a bucket full of baby black turtles & said he was about to release them and they are his last batch. It's some volunteer spot for turtles. He asks me if there is anyone else with me at the place I'm at so I tell him that I'm with a girl & she would love to see these too. He asks if I can run back with the box & release them there. He wanted someone to really enjoy it. So I head back, already with a few seashells, with a box of 50ish baby turtles going crazy in this plastic tub. It was about a 20 minute run back, this was the tide they were supposed to be released in. I saw this before when I was here with Ricardo which was a full moon night & we figured out that wasn't a coincidence, that the turtles were being released again a month later. The sunset was amazing, flaming reds & oranges across the sky as you ran up the beach & as I returned we had a full moon rising over deep purples & blues. And in the middle of the sunset & moonrise clashing was my island. I returned to our camp, interrupted emilys ab exercises to surprise her with a bucket of turtles to release. She was over the moon, claromente. We took some pictures, released the turtles & watched them hobble their way to the water & be swept away. The full moon rise was a great final touch to an amazing adventure, the following morning we woke up said our goodbyes to the locals & hit the road err or beach for a drive. Now we've landed in Santa Catalina which is a surfers town far off the map but known to many & it's back to 'reality' of sharing breaks with other surfers and staying in a hotel room with A/C! Sorry this episode was so long, too many things happen in a short time to get by with a short story! Salud

Addicted to the feeling

2009-05-11T09:33:00.001-07:00

So since the last blog I had an amazing random adventure to Panama. This spur of the moment run to an unknown destination turned out to possibly be the most amazing adventure exploration on my trip. I've explored a lot of remote areas for surf on this trip but this one certainly sits near the top of them. Last week Ricardo started talking about wanting to leave the country to get a renewed stamp on his passport so he can stay legal while they're processing his citizenship here. On Thursday he convinced me to go to Panama with him. I really didn't want to travel like this, fast short long distance trips because they're not economical & I have to time to travel slowly. I'm not working so I'm on a totally different pace. But I figured I would go, see about renewing my 3 month temporary import of my car into the country & search for surf. We had been to Santa Catalina in Panama on a previous trip but that was far for a 3 day weekend so we looked at the map for a beach close to the border. We found a small fishermans town on the map named Puerto Armuelles & decided we would aim for that. So we wake up at 3am on Friday morning & hit the road. By traveling at this hour we can blaze fast through the dirt roads with no traffic, never have to stop at the one way bridges & make it to the border in nearly half the time as mid day. We arrive at the border & I find out some news that will alter my direction. I was under the impression that I could come back into the country for another 90 days so long as I left the country for 3 days. This is true for me but not true for my truck. My truck has to exit the country for 90 days to be able to reenter again. And my truck's importation is set to expire on May 23rd. So now I am happy I came on this trip because I was planning on going to Nicaragua for a few weeks & then returning to Costa Rica to hang out with Rob & Cheryl when they're here. I would have found out at the border that I couldn't return which wouldn't have been cool. The borders are always a bit of chaos & even though I've been through this border before it doesn't make it that much easier to deal with. Always harassed for money & people pretending to be officials to "help" me get through the border. The guy who inspects my car just flat out asks for some money to buy a drink before he stamps my papers, the usual really. The first interesting thing upon entering panama is that the main highway is blocked from driving, there is some sort of peoples protest going on. Our original plan was to start asking people about Puerto Armuelles but maybe if that didn't work out go somewhere else. Now the only road open was the one to Puerto Armuelles so we're going there or back to Costa Rica. As we drive in we begin to ask people about surfing there & there is little hopeful response. The only thing we found on the internet was boats and offshore islands but more for fishing. Per the usual we are stopping every so often and asking people the same questions, how to get to the beach, do people surf there, etc. We arrive to the beach only to see no waves but we keep asking locals & they keep pointing us to drive north, telling us to pass through a restricted oil area & keep driving on the beach for an hour or so. And they say you can only pass on the beach during low tide which luckily it is low tide at this time but also means if we go on this drive, we can't return until another low tide. So we decide to hop on the beach & start driving on sand & reef. It's something like I've never driven on before. We pass off the beach onto a horrible "road" beside the beach & come upon an older local guy & he asks for a lift. He tells us there is a place to stay if we keep driving on the beach for a while, until you can't drive any further. Come to find out we get to spots that we think you can't drive any further but there are no places so we're forced to try to pass which we do. Eventually we land in a beautiful tropical jungle on the beach area and there are 4 cabinas & a camping area. At this point we're thinking we've been quite an adventure to get here but we're still not real hopeful on surf based on what we've been seeing. The camping is right above the beach & directly in front of us is an island. It's hard to say the distance but we decide we're going to paddle to this island & see if there are waves on the other side. Packing food would be ideal as it looks like a far paddle & maybe we'll be out on this island for a while. But we can't really come up with a solution for that so we pack a knife as the island is covered with palm trees & we're going to get coconuts for drink & food. We paddle across open water ocean in an odd zone of currents as swell that wraps around both sides of the islands & collides with itself in the middle on our side. The paddle turns out to be 30 mins long, the landing is on reef & rock which makes walking around the island another difficult task. 45 minutes later & we're on the back side of the island with sites of massive rocks sticking out of the waver & big glassy waves breaking all along this side. For me excitement kicks in immediately, for Ricardo he seems to be more concerned about the ability to surf with all these rocks sticking out of the water. We continue hiking around to look at all the spots & we see what I think looks like a rideable section of surf. There are rocks showing in the inside but it appears the outside is makeable. The fact that we're on this deserted island of extreme tropical lushness & looking at what looks like incredible surf I can't wait any longer and decide to give it a go. Ricardo opts to watch for now as he's not convinced it's safe which is true, the walk over rocks & reef isn't fun to get out & the site of dry rock while surfing an unknown spot definitely keeps you on edge. And for me surfing alone in what felt like so far from anything or anyone was a bit scary & exciting. It felt like what I would imagine somewhere in Indonesia might feel like. As I paddle out I realize the size and power is bigger than I anticipated which is typically the case in surfing, it always looks easier from shore than when you're getting smashed on the head by sets & too nervous about rocks to duck dive properly to get below the waves. A bit of struggle & I'm beyond the break. I finally paddle into a steep, glassy wave and have an amazing ride all the way into the rocky inside section & jump off the back of the wave unscathed. That's when the feeling of realizing all the travel, adventure, patience, fear, & exercise it took to arrive to this spot was worth it & I was truly living a dream. It's one thing to follow the rainbow but it's amazing feeling to find a pot of gold at the end of it. I'm overly excited & paddling like a madman to get back out & catch another, though really that was unnecessary as the waves were nonstop & there was nobody out. After 20 mins or so, Ricardo joins me & we trade off some amazing waves pushing ourselves wave after wave. We are in complete disbelief & have huge smiles painted on our faces. I guess this may seem like a bunch of surf chatter but really it was just an amazing adventure to arrive to a deserted island & find fairly uncharted territory. Surfing is so dynamic that it's really hard to find good surf. You have to have the right swell direction, right tide, right wind & these are ever changing things. So we were over the moon that it had all worked out for us. After surfing we collected thatched palm leaves to lay on top of the rocks to create a space to lay & rest. We hunted for Coconuts as we need to rehydrate. Finding good coconuts proves to be tough, Ricardo spends a lot of time fighting coconuts off the trees with a long stick. We fight to get in them & end up drinking coconut after coconut and eating the meat as well. Sitting on this island, opening coconuts I began to wonder what my friends and family were doing. It would have been nice to share this with everyone & I was certainly reflecting on what an amazing group of friends & family I have and how I do miss everyone. I was able to get a little bit of video footage of most of the adventure. It turned out, as always, to be hard to get good surf footage of us as sitting on the inside with my camera meant you dealt with rocks underneath and massive waves in the head. And we weren't typically surfing alone with the other filming. After surfing we have to paddle back to the mainland which is not so fun after surfing until exhaustion. That night camping there was a full moon (pictured) that lit up the beach & our camp, amazing night to go along with the amazing day. We had a sloth perched up on a tree above our tent & walking to the bathrooms I spotted an anteater, which is a first for me. Waking up the following morning to the intrusive sounds of howler monkeys & we're ready to do it all over again. Another paddle, though we're both fairly sore from the day before, another hike & hopes for another fun day of surf. The surf got bigger & we had another day of euphoria on a deserted island. The trip was short lived, we camped 2 nights & we were back in the car retracing our steps driving on the beach for an hour or so & heading for the border. Double check at the border that I have to leave which is a firm yes so now I'm back in Jaco at Ricardo's and sorting out what I'm going to do next. It looks like I'll probably be heading to Panama & I'm excited about getting back into the adrenaline of traveling in foreign land, I'm addicted to this feeling right now.

If you've made it this far & you have a few more minutes, check out some footage from panama --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4t5Zm4ygog

Mindfulness

2009-05-03T20:10:00.000-07:00

Hola todo del mundo. SO I've been slow at the blog thing because I haven't been doing as much traveling. I suppose that when I'm not mobile, less crazy stories happen. But all the same I've still been meeting people from all over the world, surfing, reading, eating rice, beans & fried plaintains and enjoying the healthy lifestyle. One of the refreshing things about meeting travelers is that everyone lives on the bare minimum budget. Nobody is shopping just to shop or spending money frivolously. You buy food, you find budget accommodations, travel by bus, etc. It's good to be around that kind of financial mindset as I've been guitly of spending too much on things that I don't need. The funny thing now is I'm living on so much less than I ever have but I'm having a trip of a lifetime. I'm also reading instead of watching TV. I have no clue what's on TV, never watching any depressing news & really can't believe how many books I've read. Probably more on this trip than over the past couple of years & it's been enjoyable. What else has happened, oh I went from not eating tomatoes to eating tomotoes. When I started this trip, I didn't like tomatoes. But everytime I ordered something "sin tomate" people must have thought my spanish was wrong because they always gave it to me with tomatoes. And no matter how many times I told Fish or Ricardo on the road that I wasn't into tomatoes, when they cooked I somehow always was served tomatoes. Eventually I just gave up & started eating them and now I find myself slicing tomatoes for my sandwiches, go figure. Well since my last blog some changes, inevitably on this trip, have happened. I was suppose to start house sitting but it seems to have fallen through which I found out the day I was moving to the house. I'm quite sure what happened but something between the owner & the contractor who's getting paid to stay there so I've been in Jaco. I did do a trip down to Dominical with a friend I made who only had a few days left on her trip. It was sort of soured because the Dominical I described to her was ruined by a fiesta of sorts built in this chill town to promote a paved road being built in it. Instead of stars on the beach, it was discoteque on the beach. Plus I was again fighting kidney stone pains which I've been trying get to pass thru a variety of natural 'remedies'. However, The waves were really fun & we found a chill waterfall spot to spend a low tide morning. That and my aussie friend made me laugh a lot during my pain to help. It was interesting on this little trip because I never felt like I had such an accent until I spent time chatting with this girl from England both days in the lineup & then with my Aussie friend the rest of the time. They made me repeat what I said about as much as I make people repeat themselves who talk to me in spanish. I never thought my english was difficult to understand but apparently it is to some. Also Tania, my aussie friend, couldn't help but repeat/mock almost everything I said because of my áccent. The English surfer girl literally asked me to repeat everything I said but she was so cute it didn't bother me :) So the day before Dominical we & another girl from the school of the world did a day trip to manuel antonio national park to hike; we saw 2 types of monkeys up close, some other strange animal that is a cross between a deer & a rat and saw some really nice tropical beaches hiking along. Since then it's been back to Jaco & back to a somewhat normal routine with Ricardo. I did just got an email from an old boss who is now a VP at a nonprofit public healthcare facility. He said he has a Director position that he'd love to talk to me about. For someone jobless and being that I've never held a position quite that high up in my field, it's a great offer. But here I sit enjoying my days and thinking about jumping out of this for that is a tough thought. On one hand I could take the job, live like I live now on very little and truly save up some money. However I've yet to volunteer and I still have a long way to go on my spanish & want to travel more. Ricardo's advice today was "look you put all this effort into wrestling and you were successful at that. Then you put all this effort into this career and you made that happen successfully. Now you're putting your mind into getting better at surfing & you're improving. So don't worry about money, when you want to put your mind on making money you'll make it." I had also just read a quote from Dj's facebook that said "we do the things we HAVE to do so we can do the things we WANT to do". This made me think a little too, right now I'm not doing anything I have to really but I know at some point I will. It's strange right now, I don't have a cell phone, don't watch TV and am really leading a different healthier lifestyle and it would seem odd to get sucked back into something less natural. I've also been told by more & more people that my stories "should be a book". ~Seems to be what I've heard a lot. Maybe I should be putting energy into that or something along the lines of that with Hurley, Chevy(suggestion from someone), adventure mag, etc. A guy just left here saying he has some background & contacts in writing and gave me his card. Though it seems a bit egocentric to think that my story would be of that much interest. Quien sabe? As for now I don't know my next step since the house sitting gig seems to be just about totally under water. Salud, Yyyesssii (somehow my name is turned into yesse since Jesse is a really hard name to pronounce apparently)

episide number ?

2009-04-16T14:49:00.000-07:00

So it's been a while since I've been on the bloggio. Since the last time I've been on here, I've been spending a good deal of time with Ricardo, Hannah, & their baby Kalani. Ricardo & I have been surfing a lot, I've been working on my spanish which is going okay but I need so much work to actually have extended conversations. I mean, I can say "donde esta el bano" with the best of them at this point but I'm trying to get to that next level. So I've had some close encounters with the crazy howler monkeys which has been fun, got some good photos here & there. I ran into my first real hiccup which was my bank card expired. Ooops. Not sure how I let that one slip by but on April fools day my bank card pulled an April fools "no hay plata para ti" prank that wasn't a prank. At that point I realized not being able to get money is going to damper things a little bit and maybe I need to figure out how to make some money while I figure out how to get my card. I got really lucky though, Hannah's mom was coming down in 3 days from Boston so I called Dj, asked him to search the mail for a new card & overnight it to her. He found it, dropped it in fedex and saved me big time. It got to her the day before she left, she brought it and I'm back in business. Minor scare averted. Shortly after was a holiday week here, semana santa, & Ricardo had a long weekend so we went on a trip. He wanted to exit the country to renew his passport here because he's dealing with a crazy mess between his bank, citizenship, his son & some other stuff. Anyways we decided to go to a place neither of us had been, Santa Catalina Panama on the pacific Coast. We woke up at 3 am, hit the road and made some great time to the frontier. Crossed into Panama no probs & started making our way. Things change drastically when you get into this side of Panama from Costa Rica. The highway is newly paved & driving there is almost like driving in the states. The gas stations are from the states & their money is the Balboa aka the US dollar. Again we're lost & end up taking a long route to get to Santa Catalina but we finally arrive & it's beautiful. Perched up on a cliffside, palm trees, outer reefs, outer islands & hardly anything there. Ricardo & I get to a place that is full, because of the holiday weekend, but the guy lets us park & surf. Waves are really good but the crowds are actually really bad. After our first surf we run into our first problem with being in such a small town so far away from any real town, we can't find any food! We have a few things in my car but didn't really plan on camping & surviving on our own. Turns out the few places that serve food didn't want to serve us because we were at a weird hour & we weren't wearing shirts which I finally read in my book is 'illegal' or not the norm there. After searching for a place to stay we realize everything is full & we're going to have to camp. Thankfully a place that has rooms also has space for camping & they have a kitchen that serves breakfast & lunch. It's a bit hot for camping but the spot was amazing with great views of the surf & sunset. Surfing a reef reminded me of Hawaii & the abuse I took also reminded me of being in Hawaii. I was having a little too much fun & caught a wave I shouldn't have, ended up too far inside & and turned around with a huge set coming. The water disappeared from under me and I was on dry rock which put some major abuse on my board & me. Came out alive but my board was in bad shape but fixable. A few days here & it's time to head back towards Costa Rica. We decide we'll try to spend our last night at Pavones in Costa Rica so we leave 1 day early. Get to the border a bit faster this time, cross without any hassles and we're off to Pavones. It's about an hour & half drive to Pavones from the border & we get a mile from seeing the waves when 2 cars drive by slowly staring at us & a guy jumps out with his badge & stops us. He's a customs official, Ricardo is driving my car and the questions begin. I have all the necessary paperwork, we're both legal with fresh stamps on our passport BUT apparently Ricardo is not allowed to drive my car. So they start saying they are going to take my car. I guess I could say I'm happy that at this point my spanish has gotten better & I'm understanding what they're saying though I'm not wanting to understand it. We're arguing back, Ricardo tells them I was having pains from kidney stones & had pain medicine which was in the center console but they don't budge. They spend some more time talking away from us & we start getting a bit suspicious. The guy with the badge & pistol is driving a car with Panama plates so I'm saying to Ricardo, isn't that weird? There are 2 ladies driving another car which does look like an officials type car from Costa Rica. Anyways they come back to us & say we have 2 options; one is they take my car back to the border or 2 we get escorted back to the border. So we obviously choose number 2, they drive in front & back of us and escort us all the way back which was frustrating because we just wanted to see the waves & it was almost dark so our plans were ruined. During the drive looking at the panama plates we got more & more weary of the guy and started talking about what we might do if something weird starts to happen. The prob was the women had Ricardo's passport & my car permission so both of which are important documents. Back to the border, we pull up to a customs official there & tell them we think these people are weird but apparently that guy is driving a car with panama plates because he had just taken that car from someone else. More madness begins there, they are researching Ricardo's citizenship & other things which he's in the process of trying to get approved. More people get involved, they keep having meetings in back rooms & it's getting blown out of proportion considering we both have all the legal paperwork and I can totally drive but he was driving, which they told us a million times. At this point it started raining like crazy, super dark & downpour which seemed to fit the situation well. We argued, discussed, got lectured about if anything happens to me he can't drive my car and they let us go. So our plans for the day ruined by we're happy nothing worse happened, no fines, no nothing other than time lost & gas lost I guess. We drive north in the rain & shortly after a police car with it's lights on drives behind us. We're both thinking "oh great, here we go again" but it follows far back and never seems to want to pull us over. It's pouring so Ricardo is thinking they don't want to get out in the rain, there are no places to stop just a really narrow road. When I pass slow cars, he passes and so on for an hour of stress until finally we arrive at a gas station & I stop and the police doesn't . Whew, crisis averted. We spend the night in Dominical, have one more checkpoint hassle about the car & Ricardo's passport and we make it back to Jaco safe & sound. The trials & tribulations of having your own car I guess. It looks like what's next for me is I'm going to house sit in Dominical for a little while. A friend of Rob Williams has a house down there & I've been emailing with him & it seem like a decent option to relax and not spend much money. In the meanwhile my exercise group in Ricardo's neighborhood has grown to 4 & maybe six tonight. I'm the "entrenador" and having to use my spanish with everyone so it's good practice. I hope this episode finds everyone healthy & happy. Pura Vida!

Rumble in the jungle....almost

2009-03-19T15:03:00.000-07:00

Hola familia y amigos! Well I just got back to Jaco today from another interesting adventure. This time I ventured south on the pacific side to the end of the road, literally. The spot is Pavones, a famed "longest left" surf spot, and with a south swell looming, it already closing out at the beach breaks in Hermosa & Dominical, I decided hit the road for a solo trip to Pavones. Another nice drive along the beautiful lush green jungle countryside, sunny blue skies and for me excitement to see this place. Upon arrival I find that though pavones is small & remote, there are a lot of surfers there ready to see this long wave in action. It's mangroves, palm tree's, black sand beach and cobble stones that help create this epic wave. When I pull up, the swell has already arrived and when I see this place it looks unbelievable. South swells wrap into this bay, break on the cobble stones and peel for what seems like an eternity. The arrival into a new town is always a strange feeling for me. All of the people stare at me & my big black truck & when I park and talk to this gringo guy, he responds with someones going to break into my truck if I park where I'm at. There are quite a few surfers in the water, spread out throughout the different takeoff zones but certainly a large amount. Being a new person, the surf community doesn't quite accept you right away. No surfers really want to see more surfers show up, especially when most gringo surfers tend to be coming to costa rica to learn to surf and inherently make the lineup more dangerous. As you walk to the line up there is a wall off the only restaurant right in front of pavones and there are a grip of people that sit there and watch the surfers & also stare at me as I walk by. So being a bit worried about my truck and things in it, then paddling out without very many friendly faces starts me off a bit weary of being here. Then as I ease into the lineup, not nearly up at the point, I watch as person after person fails to link up waves, fall on drops and surf really bad considering these high performance gems are firing through the lineup. After a couple failed attempts of sneaking into a wave, I finally snag a nice reeling left and get a good ride down the line in front of the restaurant crowd and all the way into the bay at the end. It's like you can feel all the eyes on you to see if you meet the approval. After that first ride, all the worries and fears of whether I should be there are gone and I'm just so stoked to get to see a wave that breaks like this. Faces turn friendly, rides get longer & the day turns brighter. After a solid surf in the water it's time to find a place to stay. I find a room in a cabina for 10 dollars per night with what seems like a really friendly crowd. The cast of characters that "live" in pavones at the cabinas are fit to make a reality TV show. Everyone is super friendly but as time passes, you start to figure out that they are either a drunk, drug addict, hidden away from trouble, a combination of all of these or a die hard surfer. There is a regular group people hanging out at the cabina and there is a lot to laugh about with this group. First there is a resident named Dave who's from South Carolina with a refreshing strong southern accent, this guy should have a tv show about him. He says the funniest things and has the craziest stories. He's a little guy and as the first night gets a little late & his beer consumption has gone up, he begins to tell me a story where he confronted all the local guys at the Cantina about people stealing things and them not being cool. He told them that if they want a piece of him to bring it, "weaponize" and bring all your amigos. So later that night while he was at the bar, a fight started with him getting hit in the back by a 2x4 and then he proceeded to fight 6'ish guys. The details behind what exactly ensued are different depending on how drunk the story teller was and which drunken story teller told me. I was fed the town gossip by quite a few people because I made friends quickly after my surfing was up to par and people started making friends with me. As the weekend wound down, the visitors left and it was back to the just the regulars and me. It would be easy for me to stay in a town like this, it's extremely relaxing and stress free and most of the people are really nice and trying to tell me I should just stay there and surf all these other secret spots. The surf is incredible there and I've just had the longest rides of my life which really makes it hard not to have a big grin on my face. The rides can be somewhere between 200 & 300 yards/meters. So long you have to walk back up the point, it's pretty amazing really. I paddled out with my digital video camera one of the days, put it in my mouth, paddled into a wave, stood up & started video'ng and the ride ended at 34 seconds long. And that was a 'normal' wave there, not caught from all the way up the point. I was really happy that I felt fit because this wave proved very challenging from a paddle perspective and from your legs burning on such a long ride. Paddling up the point was like paddling up stream, extremely strong current directly against you. All the surfing and training Ricardo & I had been doing seemed to pay off as I was able to last out there for hours at a time and usually spent about 5-7 hours a day in the water which put me on a lot a good waves as most people faded out of the lineup quickly. I still managed to put in my exercise routine after surfing too & I only mention this because of some of what unfolds later. The testosterone level at the cabina seemed to go up when 2 new guys moved in, one of which is helping run the place. So now I little crazy southern dave, about 5'6 & 150 lbs. There is big bill who runs the joint, he's a dopey older guy, tall, 220 lbs and moved out of his parents house to be the mgr of this hostel for a friend so he's not the sharpest tool in the box but he seems nice, seems being the key word. Now i have mateo, aka romeo, who is a typical surf dude that lives in pavones. He's from the east coast of the states, blond hair, tan and full on surf guy talk. Then his friend sloan is there visiting too, which he's a slow minded meathead of sorts. There is a couple from Holland also staying there which means we have 1 female around but the dude level was a bit too much for her to hang with all the time. I sit around at night with these guys as they continue to drink, as they've done all day really, and I like to fuel the fire as they start to make claims of how tough they are. First, sheriff dave as I call him after the town fight over stolen slippa's and the likes, says 2 months ago he was doing 1500 pushups in an hour, think about that. But I know better than to say much cuz I have an inclination that there is something I don't know about this guy. Sloan is a muscle kind of meat head can't believe that and stars to challenge him on it, and dave rattles off he'll go diamonds, one armed, whatever you want and sloan starts to back down. I believe him on his 1500 pushups because he seems to be so into it, but as I sit back and think I start thinking that someone would need a lot of free time to build up to something like that...like jailtime free time that is. This night I'm back to kidney stone pains and they're bad, real bad. I've surfed all day, exercised before dinner and now am in need of some sort of pain killer. Sloan offers me a pain killer which I accept, though he also thinks this opens the door to us being buddies and shows me this "awesome" thing he bought at the pharmacy which I don't know what the box he's showing me means in english and I open it to find a needle and liquid. It's steroids and he's trying to sell me how great it is to use these and pump up, it will give me so much engergy. I'm looking at this clown, who's done nothing all day and I say "man I woke up at 5 am, surfed 7 hours, did pushups, situps, lunges, squats do I really look like I need energy from steroids?" Back to the gang, these guys keep one up'ing each other on how tough they are (or were if you ask me)and because I'm the only sober one I just keep picking and pulling more out of them while I say nothing. It finally dawns on sheriff dave that I'm sober and everyone is starting to be bothered by the fact that as they say I am "being so healthy." The one thing you realize is other people start to feel guilty about not doing anything when someone else is exercising in your face all day & if they're not as drunk or on drugs like you are. It's not my fault though, I'm just doing my thing and not saying anything to anyone. All in all, I'm having fun laughing with these guys and laughing at them claim to be so tough and how fit they used to be in another less alcoholic state of their life. I did ask sheriff Dave if he was locked up in order to do those pushups and he told me he spent the last year in jail, details unknown to me. That's how you get to a point where you can do an insane amount of pushups, I knew there was no other way. You start to realize a lot of people in such a far off place like this are running away from a previous life. It makes me wonder if that's what I'm doing, but I then realize I'm on a completely different life journey than these guys. But it does make me sit back and think about what am I searching for on my journey and I had a lot of good time to think about some things. Pavones is a sort of town that everyone speaks english, it's a problem I have spending all my time in beach/surf destinations. Not enough chance to practice my spanish. SO I walk around, meet some locals and ask them if I could hang out and practice spanish which they loved the idea. They proceed to tell me how most of the gringos don't speak any spanish or even try & how disrespectful these guys that move here can be. They also tell me how the locals don't like sheriff dave or Bill, who I've been walking in & out of town with a handful of times. Anyways it was a good half day of spanish practice as the waves were smaller & I was unmotivated after great 6-8 foot faces of surf the past 5 days. So with the swell fading away and I'm a bit surfed & even though I could get stuck in town like this easily, I figure it's time me for me head north. The holland couple needs a lift out of town so I agree to let them ride with me. Well after driving for a few minutes, I realize I left my pots and pans in the kitchen and have to turn back. Coming back down the dirt roads, I make a turn only to see dopey bill steam rolling along in his 1980 van. We see him, then realize he's not looking or doesn't see us and I pop the truck into reverse and he finally starts to skid and bam we have a head to head collision. Mind you I'm really mad but since it's a guy who's been nice to me, I jump out of the car and say nothing just look at my front end that he's just smashed. He jumps out of his van asking if I have insurance then a few minutes later he wants to talk and asks me what I'm going to do to which I respond "nothing." My bumper is bent in to the point that my tire can't turn without obstruction. These local guys delivering flowers drive by, see us trying to bend my bumper back and in typical form them jump out and have a clever way of 'fixing' my problem. It seems when there is no mechanic or AAA around, everyone's resourceful. Bill asks to talk to me and starts getting weird, saying this was my fault and I'm going to need to pay him. We argue for a second & he says I'm going to get the police to which I say go get them. Meanwhile, our cars are blocking the only intersection in town and the news of a fender bender spreads thru sleepy hollow quickly and we have hoards of visitors. people come and go and bill finally returns with the policia. The beauty of this situation is Bill lives there but speaks no spanish and the police, thank god, speak no english. And my spanish is good enough to tell them the story and actually talk to them. At first I'm still being nice, translating for bill what they're asking him and translating back. The police look at the situation like a very small one, tell me that we need to come to our own solution and move on. But Bills only solution is for me to give him money and everyone in my car and the guy in his car all agreed it was his fault. He doesn't care, he's being an idiot. Bill is now saying he's going to take me to court. There are 2 diff types of policia in costa rica, one for tourist and one for traffic. These police in pavones are tourist police and the nearest traffic police are 2 hours away. They can call the traffic police to come out, write us each a ticket but they're telling me it's pointless to which I translate for Bill but he's being stubborn now. So he wants them called, wasting my day to wait for the traffic police. Even the local police didn't want to wait, they were hot in their uniforms and they asked me at least 10 times to come up with a solution. As the heat kicked in, the anger started to set in a bit more for me & mainly because Bill was lying about what happened. He said I hit him when in fact I was in reverse when he smashed me. The people in my car who also stayed at his place were arguing with him about it. I decide the nice guy thing is over & I start not translating anymore for him & when I do, I just tell him he's been drinking all morning and he said it was his fault to which they laugh. what kind of jerk moves to a country and doesn't speak any of their language anyway? And now I won't tell him what they're saying, he's asking me & I'm starting to give him mean responses now. Mind you this guy is 6'2ish and 220 lbs ( I know his weight because in macho man talk it came out). But I also witness the fact that he could only surf long enough to catch one day each day, then it was back to the chair and the beers so I knew that I had the edge & I knew that though all these guys were tough, only one of us was actually doing anything and that was me. Sheriff dave pulls up on his beach cruiser and is devastated that Bill & I are at ends. At this point my blood is boiling, Bill is being stupid, he's wasting my day because he thinks he's going to take me to court in Costa Rica. I am talking really loud to Dave & telling him that I'm about to snap on Bill. Dave was the ex con who fought 6 guys and I just tell him, look none of you guys can take me & I'm about to snap. I said while you've been drinking all day, I've been training and I have skills up my sleeves that I haven't been bragging about like all you guys. He knows I'm serious and says he doesn't want to be involved and leaves. 3 hours later, all the while I'm getting more and more mad, transit cop shows up. He, like the other cops, laugh at the fact that we called him for such a minor fender bender. I'm not helping translate anything, they all like that I speak spanish and finally Bill says another lie and even though they can't understand him I can't take it anymore so I get in his face (or chest really) and tell him he's one comment away from getting a beat down. I just told him with his beer gut, lazy ways & slow movement that I'm going to kill him & that he better find some friends or a weapon or both. The funny thing is he got really scared, after all this tough guy talk for days I had to endure when push came to shove, he was scared. So he tries to tell the cops on me but guess what, they can't understand him and when they ask me what he's saying I say that he is saying that he drank too much beer this morning. They laugh at me, tell me to relax & not fight him but at this point I'm ready to smash this guy's face in because he deserves it. I ask the police if we can just fight and the winner takes the money but they just keep laughing at me, especially pointing out how much bigger he is but of course I tell him he does nothing but drink and I'm not worried. He's cowered away now, under the bushes afraid to be near me. The transit cop writes us both a ticket that we can take to a town far away, he's trying to ask for a court date but they don't understand his terrible attempts of reading words from his spanish dictionary. They then tell me in spanish he can't do anything, I don't need to appear with the paper if I don't want to and this was all pointless. I translate for him that he needs to go to court at 8am in a town hours away to present the ticket. We part ways, I hit the road angry that I didn't just fight him but happy that I kept a cool control over a jamie correll like tempter that popped out of nowhere. So now I have a nice truck with a slightly damaged front end but it's not that big of a deal. I've headed back up to Jaco to spend a little more time with Ricardo & family. The time I spent in Pavones made me realize I probably should hit the road and head south, i want to get to panama, see the panama canal & the locks there and then try to figure out how to get my car shipped to ecuador. We'll see though, so many options! Sorry this story was so long & I never reread or proof read what I type so hopefully not too many confusing errors, my brain gets scattered! Hope everyone is happy & healthy

Bienvenidos a Costa Rrrrrica!

2009-03-05T15:56:00.000-08:00

As always, so much has happened since the last post. Since then I've passed through the entire country and entered panama and back. Costa Rica is different than all of the other countries, it was immediately apparent that I was in Costa Rica the very first night after crossing the border. We went straight to Roca Bruja after crossing the frontier, the drive to witches rock is horrendous really. There is a reason that many people don't go there even though it's a magestic jungle/national park and is a world class surf break. Access is just difficult almost impassable and is impassable during the wet season. The drive there is terrible and here we are doing it at night, it's super slow technical driving that should be on a commercial for Chevrolet 'like a rock.' The reason it's apparent you are in Costa Rica besides the road conditions is the wildlife. Immediately there are night animals out running as we drive into the park. Camping there and you wake up to the sounds of unfamiliar birds and howler monkeys. If you've never heard howler monkeys before, this is a sound like no other. Seriously, the sound they bellow makes you think you are being stalked by a dinosaur or some massive wild beast. I can remember the first time I heard this noise on my first trip to Costa Rica while hiking with Camille, we were freaked out wondering what in the world was coming to get us from the jungle. Waking up to this sound made me realize I had finally made it to costa rica and here I am waking up at Roca Bruja, a place I've always dreamed of surfing. I had no idea this surf spot came with an amazing jungle atmosphere with constant noises, movements and sightings of animals. There wasn't much swell at Roca Bruja but you can get an idea of how perfect the surf could be. The winds were too strong offshore and the swell wasn't big enough to make more than waist to chest high perfect little waves. The second morning we walked to the surf spot at 530am, which is a pretty long walk, and halfway there, along with seeing puma prints in the sand, we stumbled across a giant sea turtle climbing up the sand, dig a perfect hole with her back flippers, lay about 60 eggs, fill the hole and drag herself back to the ocean. What a cool sight that was to witness. So with no waves for 2 days and Fish having zero dollars more, we were faced with decisions of what to do again. I wanted to stay at Roca Bruja and hike and just hang out in the jungle but fish couldn't afford more and since there were no waves he wanted to bail. We had plans to drive the entire northern peninsula but the surf forecast was small and Fish's lack of money situation was putting a cramp on my plans so we opted to bypass a big part of Costa and drive straight to Playa Hermosa to drop him off and for me to go to Ricardo's pad in Jaco. This was a good regrouping point for me and I was ready to travel alone again though it seems I never make that happen. For the next few days I surfed hermosa, esterillos and jaco with Ricardo and at times all of the girls that are taking lessons in the school of the world. I figured I'd be nice and "help out" :) A couple of days meeting the students, hanging around Jaco with Ricardo and his family and I started to feel like I hadn't done anything. I guess the feeling of constant adrenaline of traveling by car had been so much that 3 days of somewhat routine like familiarity started to make me feel like I needed to do something again. Sunday morning Ricardo and I had plans to surf at about 530 am but when I woke up he said this guy that we had seen surfing the other day just walked by and is taking the bus to Panama bocas del toro and he's going with photographers and the waves are supposed to be good. A minute of discussing and we hop in the car and go track him down at the bus station to ask him a few more questions like can a car make it on the island, does he want to split gas, etc. He's amped on me wanting to go and drive and within 10 minutes I decide to go and start packing. Ricardo can't come, he has to work and the family and all. So before you know it I'm in the car with this kid from Costa Rica and his 2 Argentinian photographers. JosyMar, from Costa, is apparently ranked 3rd in the open surf division and is trying to make the most out of his surf career. He's a funny character, thinks every girl loves him and talks to everyone with beach slang spanish which later I'm told that's the kind of spanish I talk. So anyway we're off in the car, seems like it's going to be a fun trip and the first thing that happens is he falls right to sleep. I have no idea where we're going and I keep trying to wake him up but first problem is he can't keep himself awake, apparently he was out all night the night before and hadn't slept yet and the other problem is he didn't know how to get anywhere. I guess he's always on the bus so again, like always, we are lost and asking people for directions which spins us in circles a few times because somehow nobody knows where the ONE road to the Caribbean is. I don't know why I thought this trip wouldn't be long but traversing across this small country is no easy feat. It's a beautiful countryside with ever changing climates; we crossed through mountains, jungles, cloud forests, rain forests, sun, rain, dry, humid, & paved roads and unpaved ones. On the drive there I nearly ran over a sloth, it was in the road and on a paved road which meant I was moving along pretty fast. Sloths are the strangest alien looking things to me, more sloth encounters later. Over to the Caribbean which is a first for me and the first noticeable difference is that it's totally different, as far as the people around. It's now more black dready guys and you don't see the Tico looking people much anymore. We went to look at the infamous Salsa Brava surf spot in Puerto Viejo which is know as a really heavy wave sending a lot of people home with injuries. That wave wasn't really working though the town of Puerto Viejo looks like a cool spot that I would like to spend more time in but not this day, only about 20 minutes and then I'm convinced that even though it's 4pm the border is close and we'll be surfing in no time. I try to tell these guys that passing a border with a foreign vehicle is usually a long dreadful task but they respond with "tranquilo maje, pura vida" so we head for the border. We arrive at the border at 5pm and costa rica frontier closes at 5pm, Panamas frontier closes at 6pm BUT there is a time zone change for one hour so 5pm in costa is 6pm in panama. A "helper" guy starts saying he can get us through, we have to run quickly though he's missing a leg so I'm running and he's crutching super fast. We get the car exported from costa rica, and head across the craziest bridge ever to get to panama side. More on the bridge on the return. We show up at panama right when the guy that does the temporary importation of the vehicles is leaving so he's not happy about having to work on this plus his wife is there waiting. So as usual he keeps me in the room, the other guys all waiting outside, and begins to lecture me about coming on time and him having to work late now. At least now my spanish is much better but I don't want to understand what he's saying because he's asking me for 20 dollars since he has to work late. In the end he won't approve my car until we give him some money so I get the guys to chip in and we come up with enough to make him happy and we're in. The legless guy at the border says the ferry for bocas del torro leaves at 8 and it's an hour away plus it's just about dark. Back to the car and there are kids at about age 7 to adults all saying they watched my car for me and want to be paid. So brush that aside and we're in the car heading somewhere and none of us know how to get there. Now mind you my lonely planet book says plain out not to drive your own car in panama, it's too dangerous. So we drive, ask for directions at least 10 times and it gets dark which I'm not happy about but we arrive to the Ferry before 8pm. We speak to some people around and find out the ferry does leave at 8 but it's 8 in the morning and there is already a line of truckers that are sleeping over night and the girl tells the guys I'm with we should just stay in line so nobody wants to drive back 30 mins to the hotel options. Soooo we sleep in the car, on a road, in Panama and I'm thinking for sure this has to be the dumbest thing I've done yet on my trip. How easy of a target are we? Another prob with that is it's off and on raining and my car has power windows so if anyone wants to roll up or down, they need me to put the keys in. So it's a long night of sleep, I have a bad feeling when I wake up about the car battery. At about 7, an hour before the ferry, I try to start the car and the battery is completely dead. Now I'm really thinking we are an easy target, we're sitting on a street with a dead car and everyone in the world thinks I'm a millionairre. But just as I'm having all these bad thoughts, anyone and everyone around begins to help us. I'm thinking it sure would be nice to call AAA but I don't think they have AAA Panama. So First we ask the guy in front of us to try to jump the car and no luck. We're working against time, thinking this trip is just turning into a disaster which it partially was already. All these people, speaking spanish at me really fast and one guy says to pull out my battery he's going to bring his, try to start my truck and then switch back to my battery. Anyone that knows me knows my car skills are that I don't have any, so just pulling out the battery is something I know nothing about but at this point I have like 20 mins before the ferry leaves. This guy comes running back from far away with a giant battery from his semi-truck, I have my battery detached somehow or another and he links up my truck to his battery and it starts. We switch the battery back to mine, which I didn't know you could do this while the car was running. So in a flash, I learned a little more spanish, learned a little about car batteries and learned not to judge an entire country by alleged bad news when in reality these people were much more helpful than I could have possibly experienced at home. That is a difference I've noticed being here and being at Ricardo's place, there is a community and people help each other out with everything...it's much more personal than at home where we don't really talk to our neighbors anymore. So back to the trip, we made it on the ferry and off to Isla Colon, the primary island of bocas del torro. The time spent there was pretty cool, though it did rain almost the entire time. We drove offroad, major mud driving and surfed a bunch of spots around the island only accessible by 4x4 or boat. The people there were all Rasta afro caribbean decent but when they spoke it was pure spanish. It caught me off guard, I guess I have an image in my head of what someone is supposed to sound like by the way they look and it was way off. I guess what's cool about this trip is meeting so many people, especially staying in hostels and traveling around. I find myself hanging out with people from germany, france, netherlands, iceland, australia, canada, argentina, chile and so many other places. It's interesting to meet and talk to people from around the world, it definitely changes you're overall outlook. Some of the nicest people I met were from France who typically don't like americans and Ricardo is from Venezuela and our countries are at ends but yet the truth of the matter is that people are people and you can't judge a place or person by some idea of what you think of it in your head. There is a personal transformation happening with me as I travel and learn more about other places and about myself. It's hard to explain it all but it's happening and I'm sure I will reflect and see it better after this trip is over, if it ever ends. So we stay a few nights in Bocas and start the trek back, nothing is easy with a car. The ferry leaves at 4pm, takes 2 hours to hit land again and the frontier closes at 6 BUT somehow my latin american copilots can't seem to do that math and think we should just go to the border and they'll get us through somehow....to which I laugh. They don't want to spend money either so they would rather try the border and sleep in the car there if it doesn't work out. The drive towards the frontier was crazy, dense dense fog through a rainy rainforest with no street lights and zero visibility. We get to a town and head for a hotel as I refuse to go to the border and sleep in the car, I would rather fork out 10 dollars for a hotel room. So the border the next day, all goes pretty ok as far as borders are concerned BUT the bridge between panama and costa rica causes us a brief scare. It's not a car bridge, it's a railroad bridge perched about 50 feet above the water. Your car straddles the rails but with my big boat, when it is driving there isn't room for all the people walking so they have to hang over the ledge to let me pass. Well one guy just refused to move so as I was trying to avoid him, I manage to slip my right 2 tires over the rail which was an immediate disaster waiting to happen. I have 3 people yelling stupid instructions in spanish, like go to the right but what they don't know is my tire has no room to turn right and when you look left half of both tires are over the edge and the edge isn't straight so sometimes even more. it was so sketchy, I was certain we were going to flip off this bridge into the water. Now I have about 9 different people inside and outside the car yelling different directions at me in spanish, so of course I'm ready to kill them all. We're all sweating, could never get back over but in the end we made it to the end, at times with 1 entire back wheel in the air off the bridge. The scare was over, we enter costa with minimal headaches and back to drive across the country. While passing through the rain forest I see a kid with a sloth in his hand, so I stop and rewind back as Josymar would say or reverse back and got out to meet these kids. They had a little family, a dad, mom and tiny baby latched to the moms stomack. Sloths are crazy creatures and seeing one up close and holding it was quite a surreal experience for me, such an odd animal. That done, we traverse back across the entire country and I'm back at Ricardo's to regroup, change my oil, fix my tail light and clean my truck. I think I have my first visitor coming down, Dj is trying to come for his birthday at the end of March so I have some time to travel around until then. Pura vida!

Constant surprises

2009-02-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

Well I'm sitting on the back open air area of this amazing casa in Nicaragua, on the beach with an infiniti pool with nothing around other than the people that invited us over who happen to be big time Surf industry execs. Crazy how these things happen. Back to that later. So since the last blog a lot has happened. After leaving the worst concrete hotel room in the border town, finally in Nicaragua, we start driving towards a beach named Pochomil. Again on the search for waves & on the search of how to get there. Nicaragua has a lot of ox-cars or "pickups" and like all these countries is starkly different than the one before. First impression is how friendly people are, again. We don't have a gps or cell phones or internet to help us get around so we're constantly asking someone for directions, surely a few hundred times now. Constant interaction with someone new who reacts to the site of us in a variety of entertaining ways - kids yelling and waiving, people smiling, etc. So we are driving and get stuck in this city, leon, trying to pass through towards our beach destination. I stop and ask a woman for directions, working on the Spanish still, and she is responding in a way that let's us know it's not easy. This guy on a bicycle starts talking and tells us to follow him, he'll ride in front of us and show us out of town. Mind you it's 100 degrees out, midday and he peddles for a good 2 km's with a number of turns. He eventually stops & waives us up to tell us the rest of the directions, out of breath and sweating, so of course we give him a little money which he's amped on. Just typical niceness we come across almost everywhere. Next down the road we get waived over to the side of the road by the Nica police, which we haven't had any encounter with yet. Sure enough they come up with a "ticket" and a bribery situation. We get off pretty cheap and move on. Shortly down the road we see a couple hitch hiking, young couple that I saw ride by in the back of a local pickup truck while we were dealing with the police. He had a surfboard and they had their back packs. I drove past them, still a little rattled from the po po incident and probably drove about 5 Km's until I said to fish " I think we should give them a ride." I guess I felt like they were in the middle of nowhere and I guess I could use the good karma. So we pull over, shuffle some things around in the car and turn back to get them. They're over the moon to have us scoop them up. Turns out to be a young couple from Chile & they're headed to Pochomil too. So now there are four, they are really nice and pretty young about 21ish. We head to camp pochomil for a couple nights the camp site on the beach was probably the nicest set up we've had on the trip yet. The waves that were supposed to be good, never really turned up & we explored around the coast after breaking down camp and decided to head south towards popoyo, a couple hour journey off the coast and then back in and the chileans join us again. We land in Popoyo, a really small cool beach town, dirt road and a few places to stay that are all really cheap. We land at the popoyo surf camp, good vibes and prices....cost 2 dollars a night for a hammock or you can spring for a room with a bed for 5 dollars. The surf here is really fun and the people I met are really nice. Really fun times surfing 3 times a day and made new friends from the netherlands, a couple from france, a couple from england, a couple from germany (the german guy puts on and enters fingerboard skateboarding comps), and a girl from western australia. I was surfing with the aussie girl a bunch and hanging out too and while we were surfing these guys turned up in a boat and made some talk with her and invited her and friends over for dinner. Well she asked me if I wanted to go so I said sure and fish joined too. We headed for an adventure to meet these guys at another beach, driving on dirt bumpy roads, through rivers and we land on a beach but the guys aren{t there. There are these little groms from nicaragua though, all amped on surfing. They{re about 10 years old and all have 5 foot surfboards. I tell them whoever gets the best tube, because it was beach break barrels, gets a hat. One of the kids had a full on standup barrel and exit, it was better than my barrels. I have some great photos with those kids, we hung around for a while trying to figure out how to track down the other guys. I can{t upload pics until I get my laptop online. So we ask around this community on the cliffside about these guys, they tell us they are staying in another gated community so we start driving towards that. We get to the first security guard and let Naomi do the talking, shes blonde from australia and speaks pretty ok spanish so figured the guards might let us through. We get through gate #1 through some negotiating. we hit another gate and they{re reluctant to let us through but we talk our way in, now we are driving around these amazing houses but dont know where these guys are. A security guy sees us cruising and comes to talk to us and knows the guys and drives us to their house. The house is amazing, infinit pools, huge massive thatched roof, etc. And the guy just happens to be Bob Hurley and 2 other guys, one is Steve who started a bunch of magazines - water, waves,etc and their friend Mark. These guys all live in Newport on the beach in the 60s street. Funny that I live 1 mile away from them in costa mesa but took being in nicaragua to meet them. They have a cook, the full on rich lifestyle going on and they welcome us in for dinner, pool, etc. Of course at some point it comes up that Im friends with Dj who works for Bob, hes stoked on the connection. Hes interested in my travels, makes me show him pics which he loves and we talk surf. The funny thing was that the night before, my wetsuit jacket was stolen from our hostel. The water in nicaragua with the strong offshores has been chilly. I was telling bob about my jacket being stolen, only in the context of telling him how stoked I was to be on this trip and was saying that even though my jacket was stolen and i was bummed for a little bit, I couldnt stay mad because I was here in nicaragua surfing these great waves and having this great adventure. Sure enough he walks away and comes back with a jacket of his, that he gives me. Tells me its a prototype for a new one theyre coming out with. So I get robbed the night before and get given a new on the next day. Its cool how things like that work out because I have been giving people things along the way - hats, tshirts, stickers, rides, etc and I was bummed my thing got stolen and then I met someone who could hook me up for a change. Another generous gift was that Naomi has this terrible surfboard she bought in puerto viejo costa rica and she got ripped off on a repair job of the fin plugs...the guy didnt fix them and one of them was loose and couldnt actually be fastened in. Horrible board, terrible condition and when we showed it to bob, he kind of laughed and before they left he gave her his brand new Al Merrick surfboard....this thing has no pressure dings, no nothing and is perfect. She is over the moon about it obviously. Another similar siutation to mine, I get robbed and I get hooked up, she gets taken advantage of and in return gets an insanely nice gift. If I hadn{t been robbed, I wouldnt have gotten the jacket and if she didnt have such a crappy board he wouldnt have given the other to her. Funny how things work out sometimes. The night has more stories that are in my journal but We stayed the night at his place and surfed the next morning before they left. Back to popoyo to hang out with all the travelers, its fun talking to everyone about their travels. You learn a lot, especially being from the states and realizing what a big impact our presidential elections has on everyone and how close everyone follows it. The surf in popoyo was really fun, nicaragua boasts offshore winds everyday all year. Popoyo is a fun right with a better left, breaking over a rock shelf. The water was oddly a little cold though, we needed a little rubber to stay in for hours. This morning fish ran out of money so we decided it was time to move on, we might be heading to costa rica today. After popoyo it really made me realize I want to be traveling alone and not have someone else to worry about what they want to do. If he wasnt here I probably would have stayed for another week or 2. But Im also looking forward to costa rica and hopefully getting some waves, especially our potential first stop at Roca Bruja. Im also looking forward to ending my travels with Fish and doing my own thing. Nicaragua is a really cool, cheap place and I plan on returning. Nos Vemos, Pasa buen dia!

drive thru

2009-02-17T06:30:00.000-08:00

Look at this, Im back at the blog and its only been a couple of days. But in this trip a lot of crazy things happens in a couple of days. El Salvador was great, the surf set up there is dreamlike....its basically like trestles or rincon, like 20 of them, but minus the crowds. The swells aren{t really hitting right now though, its not the time of year but still we caught really fun surf. Stayed at these cabañas on the beach with good waves out the back. so we explored around el salvador, which is a really small country, for a few days. Back to the road after the swell forecast is small and we cant wait everywhere forever for waves, even though I want to. Driving in central america is pretty crazy, constantly avoiding cows, lots of cows, horses, dogs, more dogs, goats, pigs and people. I nearly hit a pig today, it was realllly close. So driving through el salvador you see a lot of women, similar to guatemala, balancing things on their heads as they walk. Whats crazy is a lot of them are carrying huge bundles of wood and its like 100 degrees out. Im in my car with AC crying about being hot. anyways we drive through el salvador without much problems and then its another border crossing, this time without Ricardo who was handling it at the others. We get mobbed again and these guys are really pushy, they make it hard to say no because when the official is telling us what they need they just start saying come over here for copies, etc etc etc. So this guy is running around with me, we havent agreed a payment, Im low on actual cash in my pocket and dont have any honduras money. El Salvador actually adopted the US dollar as their money so that was strange but easy, no conversions all the time. Anyway we run all over and then the guy tells estaban that he wants 20 dollars and that we agreed to it. They argue, fish isnt the nicest guy in the world, the guy is telling him he knows his people are nice and blah blah and one thing leads to another and the guy leaves with nothing and we are not done getting through the border. So now we are on our own, the girl who is filling out my car info is talking on her cell phone the entire time and she stamps my passport and papers as all done which we find out later is not true. So now we just have to drive about 2 hours in honduras to get to nicaragua and again we are fighting against the sun and dont want to be out at night. We get stopped by police about 5 mins later, at a check point and they say I need triangles and an extinguisher in my car or its a ticket. I have triangles from the emergency road side kit Stephen gave me but no extinguisher. I had just bought this quick fix flat tire thing and told them it was an extinguisher, I didnt really know what they wanted so I just picked it up and said "esta¿" (this) and they tried to read it but it was in english so they let me pass. Then they said they wanted to take everything out of the truck and when we said sure no problem they said, nevermind but how about you just give us money for some drinks. 3 dollars later we are gone. Next police checkpoint pull us over, fish is driving, and they say he was speeding then they say we didnt do everything at the border and someone called them. Well come to find out the girl that wrote on my papers left out a number on my VIN, left a number out on my passport number and so he said fish needed to pay a fine. We are both a little short on actual cash. A lot of arguiing and we get out of there 30 dollars later and its getting dark, we both want out of Honduras. Next police checkpoint, same thing...we didnt do our papers properly so they say and they want money. Its getting really old. We pass them with no money and get to the border, finally some people that are decent and nice and the guy tells us we missed a step at the other border but since the girl stamped my papers it was her fault, because they checked us when we started driving and they saw the stamp and said move on...plus I had paid all the enormous fees which were way way higher for honduras than any other country. basically 50 bucks to get in with my car, plus 33 more in bribes. These guys get us all straight, making phone calls and sort out the papers, we are so happy they werent also going to be corrupt because we were both done with that business and so ready to leave Honduras, most expensive country yet and only for 2 hours. They get us straight and we are off to the nicaragua border. I got to import my car in nicaragua while fish is getting our passports stamped by aduana and I dont have all the right papers, honduras kept them. Soooo now we have to start explaining ourselves, who we are, what are we doing, whats in the truck, etc etc etc. FINALLY we get approved to enter, we have almost no money and its dark. We ask if its safe to drive to the town we wanted to go, about an hour away and the guy at the border said " maybe if you drive real fast". I didnt want to do it, fish did and I made us stop this tiny town on the other side of the border. Hotels are full except one, which has to be the worst place ever...well about equal to the cheap place fish brought us to in Manzanillo that rented rooms by the hour and I threw up all night on KFC. Anyway, its only 10 dollars which we have and we chose to stay in this dump with pigs running around and sketchy people. This night I need some beer to be able to sleep here. Anyway no we left that spot, stopped at an internet cafe to look at surf reports and maps. Hope all is well with everyone and make sure you appreciate having a nice bathroom with a flushable toilet, hot water showers, roads without potholes, cows, chickens, goats, pigs, dogs, etc to dodge and all the other luxuries we live with on a day to day basis.

and then there were two....

2009-02-15T10:47:00.000-08:00

well once again it's been a while since I've written in this blog and soooo many things have happened since the last entry. I have passed thru an entire country since the last post. Crossing the border from mexico into guatemala was a crazy experience. When we drive near the border, we get mobbed by people and I mean mobbed. All people that want to "help" us cross the border since the process is confusing and you have to go to different places for immigration and for importation of my car. But in general people mob me everywhere and stare at me everywhere. I don't know if it is because of my good looks, bald head, white skin or big black truck with cali plates but I guess it's probably a combination of all. So when these "helpers" see my rig pulling up, they all fight for our attention by surrounding the car and yelling things. This is when it's great to have ricardo because he takes over but because it's my car, I have to do everything with him with my title, passport, license, etc. Anyway we run around here and there with all this madness and in the end the lady that approves the imporatation of my car wants like 180 US dollars to approve it. This, of course, isn't documented anywhere and we are fighting back and forth and offered 20 dollars to which we were denied. Finally Ricardo being fed up with all the back and forth tells the guy he's going to tell everyone in the building what they are doing to us if he doesn't get us in sooooo we slip a 20 dollar bill in my passport, hand it back to the lady and viola we are approved to enter with my vehicle for 90 days. That sort of rattles our start to guatemala, leary of sketchy people after that. We get in much later than we wanted and end up trying to find a beach with no luck so we head for a pay phone to call estefans cousin who lives in guatemala city, which is like 2 hours from the beach. We end up going to his house which was an adventure driving into that city, which is nestled between 3 volcano peaks. The next morning we leave at 4 am to head to surf and can see lava exploding from one of the volcanoes which was amazing, I had never seen anything like it. The beach was empty of anything remotely related to surfers or surfing except the fact that the waves were firing. Possible the best waves of the trip have been in guatemala. beach break barrels, just us & the dolphins surfing....really really fun. After that we head back up to antigua which is outside of gautemala city, it's an old coblestone city also nestled between volcano peaks with markets and mayan decendent people that reminded me of peru. Felt like another planet with lady's carrying things balanced on their head, markets like you'd never see in the states and madness in general. Driving is crazy in these countries too, speed limits are merely a suggestion as well as all driving rules really. Estefan was telling me his cousin or her friend took a driving test and there was a question of how many people can you put in the back of a truck and she answered zero which was wrong, the correct answer is 10...and I saw much more than 10 crammed in a lot of truck beds. We had a crazy adventure there trying to get to the volcano, always an issue trying to go places with my truck which everyone loves...and that is not a good thing. I was ready to kill everyone in my car because they're all yelling different things in spanish and english because we're in sketchy neighborhoods heading to the volcano which we couldn't visit because in the end it was too dangerous to leave the car. The next day Ricardo & I go to surf, estefan goes to the embassy to take care of his visa for nicaragua. Another day of firing surf, just 2 of us. We get back, pick up estefan and head for the border. We mistakenly cancel my temp car import in guatemala since I don't think I'll be driving back thru within the next 90 days and we are in know mans land trying to get into el salvador....and they don't let Ricardo in. Apparently venezuela started requiring salvadorians to get visas to come there so they returned the favor. so we have to go back to guatemala and we drive 100 yards back and they won't let me and my car back in since we canceled the permit 30 mins ago. They want ricardo to go in alone to guatemala city which is 3 hours away in my car, the embassy is closed for the day so it'd be a day or 2 before he could return. We beg and plead and finally they let us back in, we drive all the way back and get back to estefans familys house. They're really nice to me, give me their bed, feed me, and talk to me in english even though I ask to be talked to in spanish. Ricardo calls home and Kalani, his son, is sick and they don't know whats wrong. He starts feeling really bad being away having fun. The next day we go get his visa, which was a hassle for him...I went for a run in guatemala city while he's doing that and when he's done he decided he was going to fly home. So we find him a flight for the following morning. That evening estefans cousin, Tomas, took us all skateboarding in guatemala city which was really fun. I have my long board, he rides long boards and has these gloves that make it really fun to do slides and we go shred the town. Fun experience for me, I can remember saying how cool is it that I'm bombing hills in guatemala city? So the following morning he goes to the airport, estefan and I head for the beach for one last surf in good surf again and then we head for el salvador. And then there were two. I wish it was ricardo and I, rather than estefan and I but I don't blame him for leaving...fatherhood. Things change constantly and you just have to roll with it. We leave guatemala and I cancel my permit for my vehicle again and this time they tell me I can't return before may 9th so I'm for sure not driving back before then. El salvador is so close but so different, the people, the beaches, everything. We get stuck at the border for a really long time doing the paperwork and we already have conflicting views of where we want to go so some how or another we broke all of our rules and got caught driving at dark, camping in a country we said we wouldn't camp in. We stopped at some ladys casa to eat dinner and she let us camp there....among the chickens, roosters, dogs, goats and other animals. It was night a good night for sleep for me, being a sketchy place andbeing 90 degrees at night. We survived though but it was a reminder that I wished Ricardo was still with us to keep estefan and his cheap ideas in line, he doesn't want to spend any money and Ricardo is more concerned with safety than anything. So I now have to take on that role and just make him go where I want, which is what I did yesterday. We landed at El Zonte and arrived to great trestles like waves with zero people out. Salvador has right pointers everywhere, rock reefs like trestles or rincon that just form great great waves. There isn't much swell, if there was a south this place would be a dream. So we're staying another night in an airconditioned room there and not sure when we'll head out. I'm not looking forward to more border crossing and we have to cross into honduras to get to nicaragua. Well this has gotten way to long, I'll stop now...there is always more to type but I'm sure nobody wants to read more. mas tarde, salud.

buenas ondas

2009-02-07T17:11:00.000-08:00

Well I guess it has been a little while since I have updated the bloggio. Im just not good at it. We are relaxing in the 95 degree heat at barra de la cruz waiting for waves. This trip has been like the Fuel Tv show Drive thru, a lot of driving and searching and definitely some headaches and some mood swings depending on how hungry everyone is combined with how lost we are. So it has been sort of nice to just chill in barra de la cruz with no waves, though I would rather have waves. But it has been nice to swing in the hammock and really slow down. We are constantly meeting people which is always interesting. Our new guy we have meet and been hanging out with is a guy named Ron, he is from Canada. He basically looks like einstein, crazy unbrushed gray hair and he acts like larry david with really dry sarcasm all the time and you never know when to believe what he is saying. He is constantly messing with us about waves and forecasts and anything. He makes these sculptors out of copper so he sits around talking about days that the waves were good while he is welding this cyclest that he is current making. He spends half the year selling this art in the states and the other half relaxing in mexico, not a bad life. Ron is staying at the same cabañas we are and we have been the only ones there for the past few days until today. Pepe is the manager of the place but ron acts like the manager, he shows everyone their room and even takes their money because pepe is always out doing some work. What{s been funny is that since there has been no surf, I have been exercising a lot...well most of the trip I have been. So everyone else feels lazy watching me and they end up wanting to exercise too. So I have been assigning activities to everyone, including ron. Ron and Ricardo jumped rope for 20 mins yesterday which was really funny. What happens is I wake up and run to the break and if it is flat I extend my run and then come back to the place and do some other stuff. When I get back they all are just waking up and see that I have been exercising and know the waves are flat so they figure they should do something too. So when I am done ricardo is first, he puts on my shoes and does a run or sprints. We all do pushups and situps, even fish is joining a little which exercise is not his thing but nobody wants to feel lazy. Ron says we are the first people to ever exercise there, other than surf. Since we wanted some exercise Pepe took us with him and his cousin on a little hike where they got us coconuts from the tree. Pepe had the machete and he cut those things like butter, perfect crisp cuts and had a perfect drinking hole within seconds. It was pretty cool to watch his skills. We all had to chug our own entire coconut. It was actually really good, me and my new aussie buddy were way slower at chugging this thing but we managed. He said he had to think like it was beer to get it all down and I was just hopefull that it might help with my kidney stones. I guess I forgot to mention that I have been having kidney stone issues still so they thought maybe coconut would help. Anyways in return for the coconuts and just because we wanted to help out, we all dragged these huge 15 foot palapa branches back to the cabañas for pepe to put up more shade. So we took a few trips, it was pretty hard work actually but it was nice to do something nice for pepe because he has been really nice to us. Crazy ron also had a remedy from the local curandero from his kidney stone incident last year so we have been making this natural tea remedy and I Have been chugging it like nobodys business. Ron swears by this natural remedy so I am giving it a go. Hopefully it will dissolve my stone like he said it did to him. Sorry this is so long, I guess this is why I need to type more often. We spent a few days in Puerto escondido which is a chill little surf town with a heaving wave similar to newport....not really my favorite kind of surf. We met some people there too, hung out with this german girl Aña 2 days and celebrated her birthday with her and her friends. She is a doctor in the bronx trying to open a practice in puerto soon, it was nice to at least interact with a girl since all we have seen is guys 99% of the time. Today some more people showed up in barra de la cruz at our cabañas, I took everyone to the beach with people standing on the outside of the truck holding onto the rack and carrying their boards. We surfed small barra rights but it was fun to get out. There is a nice couple from victoria australia that I have been hanging with all day, they remind me of my aussie friends. There is a couple from holland hanging out and a dready US girl just showed up from the jungles of belize. Her travels have sounded fun. I helped this older grongo guy that lives here, he is probably 60, set up his new ipod shuffle today. He didnt even know how to use a computer muchless have music but I got him set up and got some jefferson airplane and the likes of from rons mac (which he didn{t know how to use either). So all in all a lot of nice people, the people of mexico have been really nice. The lady who makes food on the beach wants to hook me up with una femina de barra which ricardo says is going to be interesting because they will probably really have someone that wants to marry me and move to the states. I have been talking with her to practice spanish because she doesn{t speak english and once she found out I was single, she started asking me if I liked gordas o flaucas or que te gusta (fat girls, skinny ones or what do you like) Ricardo being the clown that he is has been having a field day with all this. He makes everyone laugh, its fun. We have been getting along really good, as to be expected, he is just like a life long friend we just gel really good and have fun. Though he is obsessed with my iphone so I always have to go looking for it, he calls it his iphone. In the next day or 2 we will be driving south out of mexico and into guatemala. The aussie couple just came back from there with some great photos of cool places, though we don{t have much time so not sure how much I will actually see this time. Well we have a kitchen at our disposal and went into a nearby town to the local market for vegatables and such so I am off to cook, it is so nice to have an actual kitchen rather than cooking on the stove on the back of my truck. I did get a few, very few, pics uploaded from a wireless connection back in puerto escondido...check it out and hopefully I will have more pics up later. http://gallery.me.com/jessec#100065&bgcolor=black&view=grid luego

A few funny things

2009-01-28T11:36:00.000-08:00

One thing I forgot to write about jose in my last post was that after a week of traveling with us back to his house in Cabo San Lucas, when we arrived there were people staying there that he didn't know. We showed up, he went in & argued with them some of which I understood and then he left to sleep in the back of my truck for another night. Only in Mexico, well maybe. I guess he paid someone to take care of his place & he came back earlier than he said since he got a ride with us. He's not like on email or chat or anything so nobody knew he was coming back & the guy he paid to watch his place rented it out to some other people. And becuase he doesn't email or anything he came back & was asking around for his girlfriend who apparently went to Acapulco for "1 months or 2 months" as he said to me. Funny stuff. Speaking of funny, I'm traveling with 2 central american guys who don't eat mexican salsa, ever. If it has "picante" (spice) in it, they won't touch it so they ask for ketchup & mayonnaise at every taco stand which, of course, gets them odd stares & smiles. Then the gringo guy, me, eats the mexican salsa on everything. I can't get over it & have to give Ricardo crap every time he puts salsa tomate on shrimp tacos which is like 10 times a day because he eats a lot of tacos, I've got pictures to prove him pouring ketchup on them. Speaking of pictures, I have so many good ones but haven't been at an internet with my laptop to upload. I just got lucky to find wireless once with my iphone to upload a couple but I hadn't taken many with that. Yesterday morning the waves were tiny so this local fisherman took Ricardo & I out on his boat to go see whales, something I've been wanting to do. He brought a couple serious fishing rods and we fished first. The second my line hit the water, I had a bite & so did Ricardo. We pulled in like 6 mackeral (sp?) each with in about 30 minutes which was a lot of work. Then off to track down some ballenas, whales, which were amazing. They are so huge, breaching and spitting, and we got within about 10 yards of a bunch of them. Good pics to follow for sure. After that we decided to leave San Blas & head south in search for better surf options. We drove through Puerto Vallarta which is gringo central, has like outback steakhouses & I think I saw 10 senior frogs while driving through. Ricardo drove like fast & furious because we're not doing any driving at night and we had a timezone change & were trying to make it to Pascuales, we're I'm at now. But we ended up having to stop in Manzanillo which has walmarts, boarger king (as pronounced by my travelling buds) and places like that. We went into walmart which was funny & the other thing about my non salsa eating friends is they want to go to bourger king or mccy D's the couple of times (cabo san lucas & here) that we've passed them. Which I'm so against. But last night it was already dark, we didn't know where we were going to stay & everyone was really hungry so I got convinced to eat at KFC. It was terrible, I ate about half a sandwich to suppress the appetite & tossed the rest in the trash. Guess what next, I woke up at 4 am puking my guts out, or the kfc out, and have been sick every since. I've been vomitting all morning, had to stop the car on the way here to vomit on the road. Seems kind of strange I've eaten octapus ceviche made on the beach by a guy who didn't shower all week, have eaten at taco stands on the side of dirt roads daily & the place that ruins me is KFC. I will not be doing that again, if they want booarger king I'm just going to wait it out for a dirty little taco stand on the side of the road. Anyways, we got to Pascuales which has heaving barrels that look pretty hard to make & I'm stuck in the bathroom while the boyz got to surf. I even ran a fever that I've just recently sweated out. Atleast this room, on the beach with air conditioning is only costing us 27 dollars for the night....I didn't want to camp being sick & 27 divided by 3 is something I think we can splurge on, and the amigos agreed. Hopefully I'll be back in action soon, I realllllly need exercise because it's been about 2 or 3 days now with nada. Oh & to add insult to injury I've been dealing with kidney stone pains while being sick all night & day. Oh well, I'll survive I guess. We're going to head south towards a surf camp spot called La Ticla, probably tomorrow, hopefully I'll be ready to get back into action. Mas tarde

blogless blog

2009-01-26T12:45:00.000-08:00

man, getting to this blog thing has been tough so far. i´m more concerned with trying to find a bano or ducha, much less worried about updating a blog. And now, what 10 days later or something, I have so many stories I could write a novel. I´m pretty sure it´s safe to say we´re the only car with a usaán, venezuelan, costa rican and mexican driving down baja or driving anywhere. so to start, we met a guy named Jose in ensenada on our 1st day and he surfs, lives in cabo san lucas and we hung out surfing and skating with him and his friend. he needed a ride to cabo so we decided to bring him with us since he seemed to know where to go. one thing you learn in mexico is that nobody knows where to go. everyone says different directions and distances and jose always says in his broken english ´¨it might takes 2 hours o 4 hours¨to get anywhere. we drove the roughest terrain possible in baja, always lost and always worried about gasoline. camping under more stars than ever seen, waking up only to see giant pelicans gliding on huge swells with not a soul in sight and eating more shrimp & fish tacos at 10 pesos a taco than you can imagine. the surf has been good, the weather really nice, the driving good some & mostly bad and have met so many nice people. We were offroad, like 4 hours off the only paved road and didn´t know when we´d see people or gas again and stopped a shanty shack to ask for some help. these people gave us gas out of a tub and fed us fresh caught fish and lobster in their back yard or should I say dirt in the back of the house, not really a yard...and of course with homemade tortillas. I gave them maui surf and skate hats for the hospitality and got some classic pics of the old mexican lady rockin of the hats. Haven´t been able to upload any photos yet. Everyone everywhere has been so nice, people driving in front of us to show us where to go, being helpful, letting us use their bathroom or whatever. All the military checkpoints were easy and eventless and the only policia action has been us stopping to ask them for directions. Jose brought nothing with him other than surfboards, skateboards and a back pack. I wondered if he´d try to eat our food but no, he jumped in the water and got clams and abalone and even an octapus....made ceviche and I even ate all these things with him. we borrowed a fishing line from some nearby fisherman at el conejo and caught fish off of our surboards after finding bait in the low tide rocks (hermit crabs). Surfed with whales breaching in the background, huge jellyfish which stung the hell out of me, seals, jumping fish and really really good waves with no crowds. We met a guy pablo and camped in front of his families trailer in san pedrito. He & his wife and kids were really nice and cute, they have a laid back lifestyle that I could see myself doing. He hooked us up with the guy we just met today, on mainland mexico in san blas who runs this surf camp. This guy is telling us all the safety tips, which we ask everywhere and is already going to link us up with someone to stay with further south when we leave. last night we rode the 15 hour ferry from la paz to mazatlan. whew, I know that´s a lot but maybe nobody is reading this ...I was going to put a smiley face there but I can´t figure out how to do it on this spanish keyboard. My spanish is coming along but not fast enough, I guess I need to be patient and not expect to learn a language in 10 days but if john travolta could do it a day in phenomena, then why can´t I in 10 days¿¿¿ I also am realizing that the spanish my friends from costa speak is a little different than the people in mexico, different slang I guess and john travolta didn´t have to deal with that. mas tarde. salud

Jumping off

2009-01-13T20:49:00.000-08:00

Well the time is actually here that I'm leaving. Leaving for this trip isn't like any other trip I've left for. Not because of the destinations being new or potential length of the trip but because I've just packed up everything into storage & I'm hitting the road. I'm essentially homeless & jobless, both of which have mixed feelings for me. I've been anxious wondering if I was really going to do this, I even had a great job opportunity pop up at the last second to tempt me to be "sane" & just stay stateside. In the end I couldn't let that potential job opportunity prevent me from doing this, this trip was already happening. So I feel like I'm at the edge of a cliff, how I might feel if I was bungee jumping. I wouldn't want to jump, I'd be scared & excited but I wouldn't want to do it. And I would make myself do it anyway, out of my comfort zone, & surely I'd be so stoked on the results (barring the rope didn't snap!). That's where I am tonight, the night before leaving. I'm so excited & so prepared but I'm also really anxious and I am going to have to throw myself off the ledge. Except the difference is that I don't know what what lies beneath this ledge. Anythings possible, adventure is guaranteed & I'm ready for the good and the bad as best as I can be. If you saw my packing list, you'd know I have way too much stuff for any potential disaster along the way. Ultimately I don't know what's going to happen, I guess that can be said for anyone but in this case I won't have a regular routine & a comfort zone, it's all unknown territory. All I can say is that if you're reading this (you're bored j/k :), you're probably someone close to me & I hope this will inspire you to put yourself out of your comfort zone some time this year in hopes to gain personal growth & experience more. All you have to do is jump!

The Truck Bed Platform

2009-01-02T11:57:00.001-08:00

On NYE 2008 Rob & I started brainstorming the million ways we could put a platform in the back of my truck. And Rob does have a million ideas. The theory behind it is that the platform will act as a security feature, you won't be able to see anything in the back of my truck & if I want I can also sleep on top of it. The considerations on how to build it had to do with how many pieces, how to support weight & how to save enough room so that my surfboards can still go in diagonally under the platform bed which makes the support thing a little more tricky. Plus I wanted this to be easily removable & not a permanent fixture. I could not have done this without Rob's help. He has the tools necessary - skill saw & circular saw plus some other power tools needed - and he's creative with building & this project took a little creativity. After 2 days, a few design changes, couple of splinters & a couple of trips to Home depot, we have it finished. The only thing left for me to do is paint it black. The platform was built with 4 removable pieces of ply wood & a support cross bar underneath. And at the end we ended up adding doors so that it was a complete box. It came out pretty good.
If interested, you can see the platform photos in my gallery - http://gallery.me.com/jessec#100037&bgcolor=black&view=grid

adios corporate america

2008-12-28T14:09:00.001-08:00

I'm sitting here trying to figure out what to even say in a blog. I'm no longer working in corporate america, at least for now, & I'm taking a new direction and will see where this take me. I want to learn another language, volunteer, get healthy, surf, see, explore, & challenge myself. I went hard for a decade on the career thing & now I want a break for a little life experience. So I'm heading on a journey south of the border. My friends are flying up from Costa Rica to northern Baja Mexico & we're driving back down to Costa Rica through Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicoragua, Costa Rica & Panama. We have roughly a month to get back to Costa rica so we will stay & drive whenever we feel like it, mainly based on trying to find surf which means our trip is going to stay on the pacific coast side until Costa Rica & Panama. We are driving my Silverado with the camper shell which is 4x4 so we shouldn't have any driving terrain cause too many issues...hopefully! I am bringing tents, air mattress, a cot, camping stove & cooking utensils, more camping gear, surf boards, portable shower, safe box, camera equipment (point & shoot, dlsr, water video cam), my laptop, portable speakers, a soccer ball, frisbee, hammock & some other things. I've got my lonley planet books for central america, baja mexico & mexico pacific which I've read numerous times. I am making copies (physical & digital) of all my important documents, letting my credit card companies & bank know I'll be out of the country, putting my things in storage, getting my truck ready, reading forums & talking to people that have done this type of trip, and brainstorming with my friends to make sure I'm as ready as possible. But I'm not actually planning exactly where I'll be when, that I'll figure out as I go. The first month only has one plan; get from Southern California to Costa Rica. At that point my buddies will be back home (Costa) & I can figure out my next step.

My life in 2008

2008-12-28T13:00:00.000-08:00

In 2008 I went to Hawaii (Maui & Kauai), Aspen, NYC, the Outer Banks, Virginia Beach, Costa Rica, San Francisco, the rest of the cali coastal towns south from san fran to Santa Barbara to San diego. So I must say it was an incredible year. I also had some bad luck - meningitis took me down for a while (including my 30th bday on my death bed), kidney stone's are the worst, I got laid off (bad luck or good luck?), lost a grandparent. But this year I've surfed all over, had incredible days in the water from Ventura point to Jalama to steamer lane to san francisco to trestles to San diego to Maui to Kauai to Costa Rica & locally in Huntington. I love surfing, it's the only sport that when it's good & all the elements come together it can make me giggle. I went to so many great shows this year- Erykah Badu, Citizen Cope, Damon Aaron, common, Alice Russell, Little Dragon, G love, Ooklah the Moc, Katchafire, UB40, Barington Levy, Beres Hammond, Quantic & some others that I can't think of right now. I have really enjoyed what California has to offer & been so fortunate to have my friends & be able to do what I have done. My life always seems to be like this, I have the best fortune ever & then I have the worst. I spent some good quality time with my nieces & nephews this year, my family & friends over good food & drinks and lots of laughs. Overall 2008 was a great year and I'm always appreciative of my life but now I'm really excited where this new endeavor in 2009 takes me.