Travelogue: El Salvador, May 2007, Part III

Hola Todos Personas!

I think today I will write a frequently asked questions email. It’s a scorching hot humid day – hotter and more humid and less wind than yesterday – so I’m going to burn some time on the terminal de internet.

Question 1. How is the localism/how does one navigate through the locals while surfing?

Answer 1. I’ll admit I’m really out of surfing shape. The two years in Minnesota did not help things. The last year working overtime and ´career-building´ was the icing on the cake. I show up a little flabby, white-skinned, and unable to paddle all the way to the point without stopping and resting. My take-offs? Foot-draggingly atrocious! How do I keep the locals from kicking me off the wave?

Step 1. Get in good paddling shape as fast as possible. This one is easy… just surf as much as your body allows. Stretch. Eat well. This morning, I paddled all the way to the take-off spot without stopping. Surfed for another 2.5 hours – until the noon-day sun was scorching my melon. (why no dawn patrol today? will be answered later)

Step 2. Always control the surfboard. Never let go of it when paddling or ducking waves… ever. It’s obvious to everyone who’s doing it. I will take a set wave on the head and get rag-dolled by trying to duck my hybrid, even when no one is near me – because the locals see who is dangerous with their equipment (and people get kicked out here for being dangerous… as in being surrounded and ordered in).

Step 3. Stay out of a rider’s way. If a surfer has caught a set, you’re inside paddling out… get out of their way! If I can’t reach the shoulder and stay out of possible reach of the rider, I’ll just turn and paddle into the whitewater. Similar to golfing – don’t walk across someone’s line on the green.

Step 4. Talk to the locals in the community – because you will see them in the water. Today, while surfing, I was in the right position and a set wave was coming for me. As I was paddling in and stood up, a young local paddled into the whitewater and stood up behind me (after I was up). muy complicado. I was up first, and on the peak – but the local was now behind me (and thus technically had some claim to the wave). What did I do? I pulled out. I’m not going to hassle over waves. As I was paddling back to the take-off spot, Elias, the local bartender told me it was my wave and I shouldn’t have pulled out. I explained (the best I could with my Spanish vocab) that I was a foreigner and did not live here – the other guy did. Elias told me again I had priority since I was closest to the peak in that situation. I thanked him and told him. Entiendo… recuerdo.

Step 5. When a local tells you to go… you go… no matter what. The next set that came was bigger and starting to break outside. Elias was screaming ´go!´. I almost got bounced on the takeoff when the lip broke on me, but managed to stay up and turn into a nice wall in front of me. Elias gave me a ´thumbs up´ from the shoulder as I raced by…

Anyways, the surf was great again this morning. Glassy, lots of head-high sets with overhead ones 10-15 minutes. Today and tomorrow are supposed to be the smallest days of surf on my trip. Punta Sunzal has a submarine canyon offshore, the waves come in unimpeded and can be a couple feet bigger than anywhere else.

Question 3. You travel by yourself?

Yep. When we all have responsibilities, it’s hard to coordinate two or more people in a trip without a lot of advance planning. There’s an even better reason why I like traveling alone sometimes…

When groups travel together, they can tend to stay in their bubble. When you are by yourself, it is easier just to start up conversations with other people – locals and travelers. I practice my Spanish with the locals, I move on my time, I really do just whatever I want when I want.

This place I’m staying – everyone else is also a solo traveler, with the exception of the 4 canucks that just arrived. With all of the great common areas here, you get to know your fellow travelers. So when we had a massive thunderstorm and power outage last night, we all hung out on the patio (imagine a room with no AC or ceiling fan in hot steamy weather). Sure enough, we had to get a buzz on. Aside from the 4 new canucks (who went out), it was myself, the two original canucks, and another gringo. So we got buzzed and played poker.

Flaco has been here the longest – he’s a tall skinny canuck that has the point and town wired. Locals would stop by on Sunday and bring him a beer to drink with him. Heavy Canadian ´hoser´ accent.

Jersey is the kid of the group – from New Jersey of course. 23-year-old kid who just finished college and is going to start an internship in San Clemente when he gets back. Cocky, a good surfer, speaks in ´bro-bonics´ (with Jersery overtones) and doesn’t hold his booze well – ripe for hazing.

Canuck2 is kind of quiet, so I don’t have a name for him yet. Overall a good guy.

So were playing cards and getting quite lit. The Canadians come back and head to their rooms after chatting a bit. The female of the group comes back down and hangs out on the patio with us to watch the game and get lit (it did not appear she was in a relationship with the guy she was sharing a room with).

This throws the dynamic off into an entirely new trajectory (they’ve all been out here for 2-4 months). FemCan is French-Canadian, speaks very limited English, and studies everyone’s faces for signs of bluffing and laughs a lot with a French accent. Jersey and Canuck2 start jockeying for position with FemCan (Flaco and I both have prior commitments back home). Jersey is so wasted he is ´chair-dancing´ and leaning into FemCan (she just laughs at him and looks to us for confirmation that Jersey is just a cocky pup).

Somehow the conversation turns to swimming in the lagoon under our patio. FemCan mentions something about it and Jersey pipes up about he doesn’t think it would be that bad. (At this point, the water had risen a couple feet, and lots of trash and debris was floating in it – still a couple more feet of water needed to breach and drain into the ocean. It looked and smelled disgusting). So I take a worn dollar out of my pocket and slap it on the table and tell Jersey – “I’ll give you a dollar if jump in the lagoon”. He acts indignant… (only a dollar!?!) then starts bragging that he’ll jump in for ten dollars. It’s quiet and we start dealing another hand when we hear a female voice speak in accented broken English “I’ll give you ten if you jump…”. The peanut gallery erupted in laughter and taunts. I wish I could have taken a picture of Jersey’s face when he realized he was trapped by the woman he was trying to bed! He stalled and complained, we all gave him a lot of shit (especially FemCan), and he eventually sat down and hid his face in his cards and tried to regain his dignity by saying, “That’s not enough money, I’d do it for twenty”. There was a slight pause in the conversation as Flaco and Canuck2 looked at each other and declared “we’ll each pitch in five”. I actually felt bad for Jersey at this point… only a little though. He, of course, refused. He also had to take shit about it for the rest of the night… and the next day… by all of us staying there… and the girls who work the counter… and the security guard (”I’d jump in for 10″), even the owner gave him shit. Poor bastard.

Wow, that is a long email. Most of it written yesterday (Tuesday), but had some internet problems and had to wait.

Today (Wednesday) I’m taking a day off from surfing – it is supposed to be the flattest day of the trip (head-high glass this morning). I’m in the capitol (San Salvador), to find an ATM that works, maybe find a massage for my aching shoulders, and look around today at art and cultural things.

Salud, amor y paz.

(Read Part IV)