Day 82

I left Diego without a plan and without a care. Once again back on my own, I felt stronger than ever. Free again to listen to my desires, I headed for the land of deeper south. I had heard a rumor about another surf spot, but couldn’t find it on any surf website. I had no idea what to expect when I got there, nor any idea whether there would be places to stay or buy food. When I arrived, the conditions were good, the crowds were light, the water was warm, the local boys were attractive and I was happy. I found another nine-by-nine, thatched-roof cabaña to call home, complete with a bed, a mosquito net, a fan, a wooden table–and nothing more. It felt like a palace.

There was one restaurant at the surfing beach. Besides the restaurant, there were no other structures. After their sessions, surfers would gather at the restaurant for breakfast or beers, depending on the time of day. There was nothing to do except surf, talk about surfing with other surfers, and watch surfing. There was no WiFi or cell service. My days took on a rhythm: coffee, surf, eggs, hammock, surf, tacos, hammock, surf, more tacos, yoga, sleep. For the first time in my life I had nothing to accomplish, nothing to produce, nothing to become. I had nothing to control.

The local guys told me the next surf spot over was breaking and the waves were good. I asked about the break. They told me it got hollow, and that the sandbar was perfect right then for long, head-high tube rides. They said the spot wasn’t far away. The Melanie with the need to control would have asked details about how far away it was, what the roads were like, the availability of food and lodging. But the guys didn’t speak much English and Mexican Melanie, who was frothing for good waves and adventure, released control. I loaded my truck with surfboards and three mexican dudes in their twenties. The four of us set out at five in the afternoon to get in a sunset surf session. I had very little gas in my tank, a big bottle of water, a box of granola bars and not a care in the world.

They said it would take half an hour to reach the spot. I have since learned that half an hour, Mexican time, is at least an hour and a half on a clock. I’ve also learned that when local boys want a ride to go surfing with a hot chick who has a car, the waves are always head high and barreling. Being completely naive of these facts at the time, I began to worry after an hour of driving. We still hadn’t arrived and the sun was getting lower. I asked the guys how much farther it was and was told simply “No hay pedo!” which literally translates as “There are no farts,” and pretty much means you are worrying about nothing. I laughed and went with it.

We arrived at our destination about two hours later (by clock time). The car ride was brutal. It was hot, and the sharply curved mountain roads were making me car sick. The boys spoke a million miles an hour, and I struggled to communicate anything in my poor Spanish. When we reached the waves, the sun was getting low and the waves were total slop. The wind was blowing onshore (the bad direction) at around forty MPH. The ocean was choppy and angry. There were zero other surfers in the water, and only one of the guys with me even bothered to try to surf. The Melanie with the need to control would have been pissed. Mexican Melanie had a good laugh.

I rolled out my yoga mat on the sand. There was no one and nothing as far as the eye could see, just sand and palms and jungle and ocean and me. The sun was setting and the colors were exploding. I must have practiced for a couple of hours. It was well after dark as I reached the end of my session, and laid there in the moonlight taking in my “savasana”, the final rest at the end of a yoga session. The crickets chirped, the waves crashed, the stars twinkled and my heart cracked open just a little bit more. I cried. I couldn’t remember the last time I held felt so happy and blessed. Life never tasted quite so sweet.

The guys promised me the conditions would be better in the morning. Mexican Melanie hadn’t really given a thought to where I would sleep that night, and since it was already after dark, I wasn’t going to turn around and drive two hours back to my cabaña. The boys had brought hammocks and found a place to tie them up. The wind was blowing so hard that it wasn’t going to be possible to sleep in the open; the sand was grinding my face, getting into my mouth and my closed eyes. I had a tent in the car which I tried to set up, but the wind kept blowing it down. I asked one of the guys to help me. Setting up a tent with a friend is a test of friendship under favorable conditions. Add in forty MPH winds and instructions in Spanish, and it makes for a disaster. I gave up. I tried laying down on the reclined seat of my car, but it was uncomfortably hot inside the car with the windows up. But I didn’t want the car filled with windblown sand. An idea struck me: to sleep inside my padded, nine-foot surfboard bag. I laid the bag down in the sand, got inside, and zipped myself up, coffin-like. There was a slit and a velcro closure on one side of the board bag, where the fin was supposed to stick out. I opened the velcro just enough for my mouth and nose to get fresh air. What followed was an incredibly uncomfortable eight hours, waiting for the sun to rise.

The next morning the waves were still awful. The wind was still howling. I hadn’t really slept at all. I was almost out of water and totally out of food, having shared my granola bars with the guys for dinner the night before. Eating Disorder Melanie was freaking out a bit about having no food immediately available. Mexican Melanie assured herself that a little lack of control over breakfast wouldn’t kill her. We packed up and headed across several miles of washed out dirt roads, toward the highway. We stopped at the first gas station, where I bought us all fruit and cookies. We took several hours to get back, stopping off at several more secret surf spots. Each time, we drove several miles down washed out dirt roads and hard packed sandy beaches, each time finding blown out wind slop–entirely unsurfable waves.

It didn’t matter. I think that was one of the best twenty-four hour periods of the first hundred days of my journey. When I started learning to surf, I thought surfing meant riding waves. I was learning that surfing really means allowing yourself to go with the flow of a power greater than yourself. I had spent the last twenty-four hours riding whatever waves came my way.

By 5:00 pm the next day, when we returned back to where we had started, my board had never touched the water. We were cranking reggaeton (latin hip hop) as we rolled back into the village. I turned down the radio and did my best to address the boys in Spanish. I tried to say something like, “That was incredibly fun and I had a great time laughing with you. Thanks for showing me your home.”

One of the boys looked at me and burst out laughing. In perfect English he said, “Well done Mela, you successfully spoke 100% Spanish for twenty-four hours, even though it was awful!” He had no accent at all.

“Wait, what?!” I shot back, “All this time I’ve been killing myself to communicate, and you speak perfect English! Pinche Verga!” I cursed at him in Spanish through my laughter.

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*some names have been changed to protect privacy

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