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!!!!