Of Argentineans, Bad luck, Coke Cabbies and Dope Doctors

And I can say that routine has not settled in as I feared at first!!!
One morning I woke up and there were 3 different groups of Dudes from Argentina who ran into my crib at the same time. The very same night, as I didn’t have anything to do anyways, nor anyone I could grab food with, I joined the horde and started chatting. They loved the grill that the hostel had standing in the backyard and used it for about a week to Barbie their food. That first night it was “posho” night and 15 half birds were send to hell.

For all the non-spanish speakers “posho” means “pollo” and stands for chicken. Also, the crazy Argentineans have a wide variety of words they pronounce differently which for peeps from non-spanish countries bears a nice challenge to understand what’s going on…

Anywho, aside of my work at the Surf & Dive Club and my new cooking homies from one of Argentina’s biggest student cities, there was something else happening. Right above my little room there was another certain group of Argentineans who rented the apartment and who spiced up my life significantly by making me part of their vacations 24/7, this time in a bad way, though. In the morning, they woke up early and cranked up the music, during the day they stayed home and drank and at night they preferred to get plastered on their balcony until 4 in the morning.

I on the contrary, usually went to bed around 12 because I had to get up around 7 to get to my boss’s place and prepare everything for the dives. As you can imagine these two lifestyles can’t really co-exist without one suffering and lacking sleep… In this case me…

I tried all I could, with earwax, listening to music and I don’t know what else. Even the Hostel-host Manuel and his wife Magdalena moved out because of the group and slept across the street at a friends place. Luckily for me, they stayed for only a few days and so I could get some rest after being very edgy for a solid 5 days.

After I bought my own surfboard just at the beginning of new years, I finally came to the idea that I could use my GoBandit Camera to go into the water and get some filming done. Mounting the Camera holder was no problem and the next morning I went for the early-bird surf at 7am. To be honest, this is not my favorite time of the day and as clouds were hanging low over the coast and rain was falling sideways, I didn’t expect much. Despite this shitty set up for a wake-up surf it still turned out to be the best surf session of my life: There were 2,5m barrels blasting into the bay, all breaking beautifully to the left and right, instead of the annoying close-outs that usually make waves unrideable.

So I went into the water and furthermore was rewarded with amazing footage of turtles popping out of the water next to me and pelicans almost landing on my board. Also, I got videos of the locals ripping the waves like there’s no tomorrow. Along with videos of me blasting through the barrels and duck-diving under the waves to get back into the line-up. And after 45mins of pure liquid enjoyment it happened in my last wave, on the way out. I bailed and the waves beat the shit out of me and my board. Unfortunately, it was too much pressure and so it came that the case of my camera broke and it got lost in the ocean… Summing up: best day of my life, everything on tape and the ocean takes it all away.

FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!!

To cheer me up, I wanted to accompany Chris on his way to the Cotapaxi and had already planned how to get to Quito on the WE and climb that bitch Saturday morning. I was just finishing my work at Victors place, sanded the last of 3 boards I was working on and bit into a mango, when unbearable pain rushed through my face. It instantly became clear that I broke off a tooth and that I needed to get to the next proper dentist I could find around here. Victor suggested to get to Salinas, about half an hour south of Montanita, because he knew a capable Doc there. A quick call and 5 minutes later Carlos, one of Victors cabbie friends showed up and offered to take me to Salinas and back for 30 bucks. I didn’t know what to expect from locals dentists and how much it would cost, if I could pay with credit card or if I had to pay in cash.

To be fair, the dentist should have been my last worries, because as soon as Carlos and I rushed away, he stopped at the nearest gas station, coked up and blasted towards Salinas. He went 50 km/h over the speed limit and almost killed a motorcyclist along the way. I didn’t really feel comfortable in the shotgun seat but I my mind was revolving around the thought of some butcher fucking up my biters.

In Salinas the assistant yelled out of the window to get the doc from his coffee break back to work and an astonishing 15 mins later my tooth was back in place and looked like nothing ever happened. Even better, the whole operation only costed 20$, which in Germany usually will only get you into the waiting room and not further. Although I’m sure the coke kinda had already worn off when I got back down, Carlos again rushed back to Montanita at the same speed like before.

Again, I did not really get to take pictures during the time, except from one with my missing tooth. I’ll try to make it up to you next time and post some more impressions. J

Kind regards to all of you!!!!

El trabajo comienza...

Weheeeeeell, after we had some really fantastic days together getting on the piss again, it was finally time to get serious and start doing what I came here for. And since New Years also rang in the High Season in this joint, it suddenly got insanely crowded. And I´m not just saying this, I really mean it. Whereas Chris and I cosyly strolled past other people on New Years, I now had to fight my way through.
The upside of this is of course, that a lot of people want a lot of holiday experiences, such as diving and surfing.

For those who didn’t speak Spanish, I was the one to give surf classes and translate during diving classes or discovery courses (Translating here means to rephrase Victor’s explanations [= Dive Instructor] or give further information on a topic to make it easier for anyone to understand). And although there’s a shitload of latinos here, the one or the other European or Northern American came through and demanded classes in surfing or wanted to go diving.

This new kind of occupation (I mean actually working ^^) demanded a little change in habits, of course, and since we only went diving in the morning there was no room for party during the previous night. This was actually not too bad, becuz my bank account already started to suffer a little bit, despite the cheap prices here.
A little anecdote right here: Before my first dive with the team, I didn’t really sleep much and still had some buzz in my blood, which on the little boat of ours, made me seasick like I’ve never been before. The ride out to the dive spot was horrible, the first dive was even worse, and the break after was an absolute nightmare. I suffered so much and during the second dive session and I almost threw up in my regulator… So, first hand advice: rest enough and don’t drink (too much) before diving… ;-)

Concerning the surfing it was more or less the same: people came, wanted to go surfing, we met up, I explained theory and we hit the water for about 2hrs. All of my students more or less did a really good job, enjoyed their surf and got up on the board, with just enough good waves, that it made them hungry for more… I’d say: mission accomplished, another one is hooked by this beautiful sport.

Apart from that, I had two very memorable students, and both for different reasons:

The first one was a 37-year-old American called Dena who not only booked a diving course, but also 5 surf classes in advance. She spoke a little bit of Spanish, which is why my collegue Michelle (19-year-old local surf instructor) took her surfing first. Later though, Dena switched to me, cuz one day Michelle wasn’t available and someone else had to give the lesson. The memorable thing about Dena was that during 5 sessions she managed to display an absolute “dis-talent” for board-sports. In every session she got up on the board about 2 times each (with 2hrs per session) and otherwise slipped and slided around on the board and either landed on her ass or elsewhere in the water.

This not only made it hard for Michelle and me to keep our cool with her (you always need to be re-assuring and stay positive… -.-‘ ) but her own frustration also made her even more sloppy and careless with the board. So it came that Dena managed to almost kill herself by holding the big-ass board in front of her, while an even bigger-ass wave rolled in on her. The same thing happened again, but this time the waves blew the board out of her hands and into my direction. After it only missed my head by a few inches, I politely asked Dena if she had any grudge against me and made it clear, that her behavior (not paying attention and thus putting other people in danger) is one of the most common reasons for injuries among surf students. So many times, I see locals giving surf classes to like 8 people at the same time, who then go in the water and almost beat themselves to death with their boards flying around everywhere.

Anywho, so much concerning my first memorable experience. But as Dena was the bad student to remember, the second person will be kept in good memory: It was the 24-year-old soon-to-be-wife of a 27-year-old Canadian. HE wanted to take classes although he already took one class about 5 years ago and considered himself a semi-pro, and he just dragged his fiancé along. SHE didn´t like boards at all, but somehow had a hidden talent in picking up sports. Because after a few tries in the whitewater she got up on the board, like she never did anything else in her life and thus left me positively surprised and her fiancé absolutely speechless. After about half an hour she switched her big-ass beginners board to a smaller one (less bulky and easier to maneuver in the growing waves) and also killed it on this little bad boy. The result of two hours in the water were a very pissed off and intimidated soon-to-be husband, an absolutely thrilled and exhilarated soon-to-be wife and a sparkling surf instructor whom the Misses gave a 10er extra for his – and I quote - “excellent instructing skills”. :D

Well, so much concerning the days where I actually did have clients. During the other days I would fix and repair some surfboards that were lying around in my bosses basement and who’d been viciously raped by time and the countrys insane humitidy.
In between, I also celebrated a few days of being sick from a light flu. I understand that it does not sound that bad to be sick in tropical climate, but the previously mentioned humitidy here makes it impossible to just lie in bed and get well, but makes it unbearable to stay inside during midday. The only option I had was to sit at the beach with a scarf (in the shade of course) and hope for a breeze that will cool me down a bit. Eventually I got better and even got out during the evening once in a while to grab some food.

Summing up, I don’t think that there’s much more to tell, it’s like kind of a routine has settled, which worries me a bit, as I started to travel to escape and prevent myself from a routine life… We’ll see how the next days pan out, maybe some life-changing stuff will present itself… Cheerio Everybody.