I’ll give this place some credit. its fucking beautiful. White faced howler monkeys, Kaw-Kaws, beautiful sandy beaches with clear cool water. Afer my good hike went to dinner and ran into Andy and Erica–the Canadian couple I met on the farm (they too were done with biting insects and encountered many more on the Carribean side of the island). They were on some other shit….super drunk and high…..they invited me to the hostel where they were staying the Hotel Lucy. It seemed like every riff-raff on the island stayed at this place. A squatters paradise, like being on the Drag on Guadalupe st. in Austin. I indulged. I imbibed. and before I knew it I was asleep in a hammock on the beach.
I couldn’t remember much about the night before. I remember the Canadians
being very touchy-feelly, to the point where I was a little uncomfortable. My days of tag-teaming women were well behind me(even if my days of banging other dude’s wives weren’t).
Woke up and went back to the cabinas for a little pinto gallo and herbs….the collective plan was to venture out to St. Theresa beach and cool out. Surf lessons seemed to be in the not so distant future……
Rented a nice board and hit the waves. It was nice to be able to get out there and not have to worry about the threat of sharks. Much easier to relax. I’d only been surfing before once. with some buddies out in Galveston. The waves were pretty choppy and the water was brown (though my buddy Paul contends that the water was cleaner than the Atlantic Ocean.
That time it was a chore to just get up on the board. I had managed to stand for a millisecond before falling back into the water and scrambling to shore for fear of a shark attack.
That had been almost ten years ago, and I had nearly forgotten all the techniques they had shown me for “popping up” on the board.
So I ventured out. Stone free and at one with waves. I naturally picked up the remnants of those memories, going with the flow of the waves further and further out until I was a great distance from the shore. I paddled out as far as I could and then tried to catch waves. After a couple of failed attempts at standing up. I resolved that this day would be reserved for just practicing getting out. Technique is everything. Where your shoulders were positioned, your feet, your torso, your belly. This was important to learn correctly much like putting your socks on your feet as to not get blisters. It was fun. Lots of fun. and I’d forgotten how fun it was to try and learn such a difficult endeavor. Surfing is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever attempted and I’m resolved to learn how to do it well before I meet my maker.
The rest of the afternoon was spent playing soccer, and then we headed back to Montezuma. The crowd I was with wasn’t so bad either. The kids that were from L.A. ended up being lots of fun. The guys from Calgary were pretty cool and that evening Sushi night was a big event at the hostel. I decided to go out by myself and grab a quiet dinner to reflect on the things and gear up for the approach of my 33rd year to live. It seemed like a good idea to grab a cold mixed drink and smoke one of the Cubans that I grabbed off a guy in St. Theresa. I was going to be 32 years old, and it felt good.
Nuclear Polio Vaccination 