Day 49

As much as I enjoyed having Sean with me on my adventure, I was ready after four days to be back on my own. Although Sean was easy to get along, and we genuinely enjoyed each other’s company, there were two issues.

First, I had become accustomed to doing whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. In theory, I could enjoy that freedom while Sean was with me, but I still hadn’t learned how to tell anyone else what I wanted, guilty that it might inconvenience them. The second issue was something that I couldn’t admit to myself at the time: when I was with Sean, all the guys ignored me. It felt like only one person saw me, but I needed the whole world to see me. I simply liked it better when I had a meaningful relationship with Sean over the phone, but also received all the male attention I could handle, right in front of me.

I drove Sean from the island back to the airport, two hours away, so he could return to California while I continued my solo Mexican journey. Suddenly, the truck lost power. I was going uphill. It was the hottest part of the day. The engine cut out. We were an hour from anything. Without power steering, I muscled the truck to the shoulder and we waited as the engine cooled. I tried to turn the engine over and got nothing, not even a click. Just a moment before, I’d been so ready to get rid of Sean, but was suddenly so grateful to have him with me. An incredible sense of guilt came over me. He suggested that I hitchhike to go find a mechanic while he waited with the truck, the dog and surf gear.

You moron! The Voice began. What would you have done if Sean wasn’t here to watch your stuff?! You can’t do this alone! You are addicted to shallow, meaningless attention, you stupid slut.

I waved down a passing car and eventually found a mechanic. I paid the mechanic to return with me to Sean and the dead truck. Of course, when he arrived the truck started just fine, as dead automobiles do when mechanics are present. We were able to drive the rest of the way into the town of Puerto Escondido. The truck died a few times along the way, but started again each time after cooling. We managed to coast into a mechanic shop late that Friday afternoon. Of course, the mechanic wouldn’t look at the truck until Monday.

Sean took a cab to the airport, and I took my boards, my puppy, and a backpack full of bikinis into Zicatela, the beach neighborhood of Puerto Escondido. Zicatela was better known as the Mexican Pipeline. I found a hostel where I could put up my hammock for a few days. The hostel was right on the beach. For a few dollars per day, I could simply lift my head to check the waves when I woke. The moment Sean was gone, my heart ached to have him back. I was so alone and helpless. With no transportation, my adventure was on hold. With no apartment back home, I was free falling without a parachute. The Voice wouldn’t leave me alone. You’re making the stupidest decision of your life. You’re completely delusional to think you can do this on your own.  

I phoned Sean as soon as I knew he would be off the plane back in San Diego. I told him how much I missed him. I told him I was so nervous about the truck and about money and about no longer having a backup plan in San Diego. In true “Sean form”, he was nothing but supportive. He told me to enjoy this setback as part of the adventure. He told me I could stay with him for as long as I needed when I returned to San Diego. He told me I was doing the right thing.

On Monday, I tried to call the mechanic but couldn’t get a good connection on my American phone. When I finally did get a hold of someone, the only thing I understood was, “Manaña”, tomorrow. This fruitless process repeated itself on Tuesday and Wednesday. From what I could understand, the mechanic’s secretary was telling me that I needed a different mechanic, one who worked with electrical problems. But I really couldn’t pick up much of what she said.

After five days, I realized that nothing was going to happen with my truck unless I made it happen. I knew I needed help with Spanish, so I walked into town and looked around for people I recognized from surfing who might be able to help me. After wandering around for an hour, I saw one guy who spoke English and I asked him for help. He looked me up and down. He licked his lips and said he could help me if I helped him. I felt sick to my stomach and, even worse, helpless. There was no Yelp, no Google business listings, no Yellow Pages. For that matter, there weren’t even addresses. In Mexico, business is based on relationships. There is just the guy who knows a guy who can bring you to that guy. But I didn’t know any of these guys. I was alone.

I was getting really anxious. There were only two places to surf in Puerto Escondido. The first was insanely crowded, and the second was an expert-level, punishing beach break known as one of the heaviest (that is, most dangerous) waves in the world. I tried surfing at the crowded place and damaged my board when of a beginner hit me on the first attempt. On the second attempt, I cut myself badly on a rock, trying to avoid the other surfers. On the third attempt, I got no waves at all. So I quit surfing. The second place terrified me.

Truckless, surfless, voiceless, alone and trapped, I started to get depressed. After several days, I met a guy in a restaurant. The guy said he had a friend, Manuel, who did towing and who could help me move my truck to a different mechanic. He told me his friend spoke English. I sent Manuel a WhatsApp, and we made plans to meet at the useless mechanic’s shop in the morning. I took a cab to the shop but realized that, in my panic of dropping off the truck, coasting in on a prayer, I had forgotten exactly where the mechanic was located. Not only that, but I had given Manuel incorrect information about where to meet me. To make matters worse, my phone wasn’t getting any coverage in that area.

The cab driver dropped me off in a place I knew I was relatively close to the shop. Walking down the dirt path along the side of the road, I jumped as pitbulls lurched at me from behind barbed wire fences. Men whistled, and calling out “Güera” (white girl) from the second storey of concrete buildings. My skin crawled. A green truck that looked like it had been hit on all four sides drove by slowly, the driver craning his neck to eye me as he passed. I saw brake lights and then reverse lights as the truck backed toward me. Adrenaline pumped through my already stiff body. I pulled back my shoulders, sucked in air, looked straight ahead and started taking longer strides.

“Mela?” The driver called at me.

Apparently, there weren’t too many other big blond white girls walking around the neighborhood that day, so Manuel was able to recognize me, even at 35 mph.

“Manuel! Gracias a Dios!”

Manuel and I found the shop where my dead truck languished. Unfortunately, Manuel’s English turned out to be no better than my Spanish. Manuel and the mechanic spoke for a few moments, and Manuel informed me that we would need to go to another mechanic, a few miles away. We dropped off the truck at the new mechanic, who said to call him the next day. Manuel drove me back to my campsite on the beach. In typical Mexican fashion, the mechanic’s “next day” turned into several next days. Each day, communicating with the mechanic was difficult, at best. Friends from the hostel helped me with the phone calls, but still I couldn’t understand what was taking so long.

After another three days, I felt more hopeless than ever. The surf was too crowded and too scary, and I was trapped without my truck. I went back to the shop by cab to pick up my truck, broken or not. Once again, I hadn’t made a great mental note of where we had left the truck, and I wandered around for an hour, under a beating, 95 degree afternoon sun, in sweltering humidity. I stopped twice at corner stores, pounding water and asking for directions, but no one seemed to know what I was talking about. When I tried to call the shop number, my phone wouldn’t work.

Finally, I walked by a house, in front of which a man rested in a hammock in the front yard. I called out to him, telling him that I was lost and that my phone wasn’t working.  He invited me into the yard. Because everything in Mexico is relational, no exchanges ever occur without some initial chitchat in a hammock. The man gestured for me to sit in his spare hammock for a while, and I did my best to make conversation. Then, he took the mechanic’s number from me and called on his own phone. In two minutes, the mechanic came to pick me up at the kind stranger’s house. Another crisis solved by the kindness of a strange man.

Solved, except that two days later the mechanic told me he couldn’t find the problem and that I should try to find someone else. He knew a guy, but he was busy and wouldn’t be able to get to it for another week or so…or so?

Yet another day passed, and yet another guy–this time, one I met at a surf shop–told me he knew a guy who was the best (no, truly, this one was the best), and that he would meet me at 2:00pm and take me to the mechanic on his moped. Two o’clock rolled around, and surf-shop-guy didn’t show up. At 3:30, I was still waiting on the steps of the surf shop when another young man noticed me. He told me he had seen me out surfing. We started to chat, entirely in Spanish. I told him why I was waiting, and he said he could help me. Of course he could. He knew a guy who was the best in town and he would take me there right now on his motorcycle. Of course he did. At least that’s what I hoped he said; I was really only about 60% sure, but what other options did I have? Desperate, in flip-flops and and shorts and with no helmet, I jumped on the back of a crotch rocket, behind a man I had met four minutes ago.  I was completely and utterly helpless. I felt totally out of control. And I was starting to like it.

I giggled with terror and glee as motorcycle guy whipped around turns showing off all the way to the shop. I followed him in my truck to the fourth mechanic shop. Once again, I was told to call tomorrow. After a few tomorrows, the mechanic informed me that he also couldn’t diagnose the problem. This process repeated itself one more time, with another ride, with another strange man I had only just met and with whom I couldn’t communicate. To another mechanic shop, the fifth, where I was informed that I should check back tomorrow. That particular “tomorrow” was the day I met Diego.

T Minus 4 Years

I felt disgusted with myself. Peeling off my wetsuit, I stood on a towel, trying to stay out of the red Baja dirt. Kurt was still out surfing. I watched from the back of the truck as he danced to the nose of his longboard. Why couldn’t I get a wave like that? I shivered, hating myself for getting out of the water so soon. I was freezing. The water in Baja Mexico was even colder than in San Diego. I was shaking, missing waves and completely exhausted by the time I got out.

Meanwhile, Kurt was having the time of his life at an uncrowded right hand point break. The break was located right where we were camped. What a miserable failure I was. I couldn’t catch waves, and now I was too big of a wuss to push through the pain or tolerate the cold. I pulled on some dry clothes over my size 2, skinny butt, then hopped in the cab of the truck to avoid some attacking flies. I was starving. By this third day of our trip, we had already eaten all the healthy food I had packed. I was left with crackers and cheese. Dairy and gluten. I felt cold and fat, extracting three crackers from the box and slicing three thin slices of cheese. I watched Kurt take another nose ride. I stared at my wet wetsuit and thought about going back out. I grabbed three more crackers but skipped the cheese–too much saturated fat.

Go surfing, go, that’s what you came here to do! Seriously, you are just gonna sit in the truck and consume calories instead of burning them? You are out of control! The Voice was powerful in my head.

Control. Control seemed like the answer. I ate a few more crackers and swore to myself I would go on a juice cleanse the very moment I got home to undo all the crappy food I had ingested while camped out.

Upon returning to the States, I immediately headed to the grocery store to load my fridge with green veggies. The veggies were for juicing, and definitely without fruit, because fruit meant sugar. After two days of pure, white-knuckled willpower to chew not a single thing, I grew high from the control buzz. A three-day cleanse extended into twelve days of starvation and eight pounds of weight loss. My size 0’s fit again–victory! Maybe I sucked at surfing, but I had at least some control in this life!

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Back in Oaxaca

Diego was gorgeous. Like most Mexican surfer dudes, he was chiseled. His shoulders bulged and his abs rippled. His skin was was the most incredible shade of maroon. But his smile…oh, that smile. It took up his whole face. His voice was raspy and so sexy.

I met Diego while surfing, on the day that the fifth mechanic failed to help me. Having no other options, I was trying to make the best of surfing the insanely crowded point break. Diego paddled over and greeted me in Spanish. Ears full of water, I struggled to respond intelligently, so he switched to English. We chatted about the conditions that day and for how long I was in town. After a few minutes, he caught a wave and threw a ridiculous aerial maneuver at the end, trying to impress me. I caught the next wave and danced lightly to the nose of my longboard, stuck my toes over, and cross-stepped back, equally trying to impress. It worked.  

We got out of the water together and headed to the cantina. He bought a coconut for me and a Corona for himself. We sat on the beach, talking Spanglish for the next three hours. I told him I wanted to go for a run and he said he would wait right there for me. Sixty minutes later, he was still on the beach, waiting for me. I told him I wanted to practice yoga and he said he would wait right there for me. After another hour, he was still there, waiting for me. Then I told him I was hungry and he took me to dinner.  

Not having my truck, stuck in a place where the surfing wasn’t ideal, I felt helpless and alone. Diego offered to help me find the right mechanic. And, like the five guys before him, I took him up on his offer. If I ever wanted to get my truck fixed, there really weren’t any other options.

After a couple of tries, Diego and I did manage to locate the right mechanic, one who could actually help me. But something was strange about our interactions with the mechanic. Mechanico Sanchez would speak in Spanish to Diego for a few minutes. Diego would then turn to me and say “He’s going to fix it. Let’s go.” Only he said it in Spanish. In fact, in front of other men, Diego refused to use English with me. I asked him to explain what the mechanic had said, but he wouldn’t. He simply told me it was taken care of. As soon as we got in the cab to leave, he informed me that those guys knew him, and they feared him. He said my car would be fixed, quickly. But that’s all he told me and would not elaborate further. Diego had it under control. I could relax. Or, at least, that is what I tried to do.

For the next three weeks, Diego never left my side for any time longer than an hour.

I phoned Sean. In three minutes, we were over.

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*some names have been changed to protect privacy

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