Patience is necessary....

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

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

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

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

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)