AdamJ’s Weblog

Things kept vanishing, nothing of any great monetary value but i forgot 4 important objects of tremendous use value over a 48 hr period.  First i left my baseball in Huanchaco, then when I arrived in lima 24 hrs before my flight I decided to return the car and store my bags at the airport until the next day. Realizing I was out of cash i hit the ATM at the airport and in my haste left my bank card in the machine.

There tends to be this ‘get it done’ mentality that i get lost in…I have to rush everything, i just want to be done with the whole process of what ever Im doing.  Even though i wasn’t going or doing anything with a time limit or specific circumstances, in that moment, i was consumed by that mentality. Leading to, what ended up as a 2 day process to get a new ATM card (spending at least 1.5 hours making int’l calls) and in the mean time i spent most of 10/27 trying to secure a means of getting cash here in Chile. Nothing i did worked!

Since I’ve lost my baseball and ATM card i have also misplaced both my pencils and my highlighter. Ya i know, pencials and a highlighter, big deal, but they are key pieces to my process. Objects of little money value but of great use value and so I spent my 1st day in Chile devising ways to replace them instead of enjoying Santiago.

There is a great lesson, a kind of current continuing to pull me into the present, no matter how much i resist.  For the more i try to get it done, the more things become undone.  Frustration dominated my reality and I had to wait, marinating im my frustration until whatever it is i wanted done, got done; and it took everyone else to get it finished.

I teeter back and forth…at times resting as the Witness and then the next second focused on trying to control what’s happening. All the while i am continually reminded of a wise Sage’s insight…’Never Mind what happens’.

So yesterday (10/28) morning I consciously stopped identifying with what i thought or felt about the circumstances; I let go of judgment and simply accepted that if i need cash or a pencil i´ll have it.  The how, where and when will happen just like my misplacing the baseball,  ATM card and pencils happened…it did!

I went to the ATM to use my Visa credit card to get cash and it worked, even though 10 hrs earlier it continually denied me.   I took the metro to go to fed-ex to send some paintings i bought home (it didn’t wok out, you need a special cert. from the national museum to ship art out of chile…even though i bought them in Peru); so i just accepted it.  After Fed-Ex I came across an office supply store and thus replaced my pencils and highlighter.  And lastly when i went to get my rental car for the week I got an upgrade to a brand new 4-Runner, it only had 8km on it, for the price of a suzuki… 

Moral of the story… be where you are right now, never Mind what happens, and accept that it is what it is…if you do any more or less you´ll suffer…and that isn’t any fun!

The following is a brief recap of the Peru leg of the journey; in an attempt to make it concise and easy to read it´s in bullet points:

HIGHLIGHTS:
1. Surfing Bermjo all alone, not a soul for miles, with an head high swell after not surfing for 4 days…it was the dream of the perfect surf trip realized.
2. Surfing the worlds longest wave at Chicama with an overhead swell.  I have never had so much time to think about my surfing while actually surfing…you kind lose track of where you are on the wave…but Im sure i could get use to that.
3. The meditation of just being present…especially when you barely utter a word for 10 days.
4. Experiencing the power of the True-Self…with my right hand covered in blood, the pain vanished as spontaniously as it arrived, by simply accepting the moment.
5. Meeting 2 cool, english speaking, surfers: Todd (new yorker that lives in Costa) & Christoph (Frenchman living in the swiss alps)…I broke my silence of 10 days but I laughed alot…i almost thought i had lots my silliness (not so much)!
6. Mancora, although overcroweded, a fun wave that was head high with warm water…got 5 sessions is 2 days.

DRIVING PERU: (I could write a book on this subject after driving 1500miles…)
1. Its like trying to navigate a maze with a blind fold on…just trust your gut and go for it!
2. Rules…what rules?  Do all the things that you´ve always wanted to do in the states but didn´t…if you don´t you might not get anywhere.
3. Roads end without noitce…and it doesn´t actually mean you were going the wrong way!
4. The Police: not sure their purpose…they could care less about speeding, driving on the wrong isde of the road, or if your drunk…but their posted everywhere, kick´n it.
5. Embrace the random dirt road going in your direction…it will save you from back tracking!
6. Don´t use your lights before it is totally dark, or expect a flach from every passing car.
7. Maps are useless when it comes to knowing where you are in a city..just know where you are relative to the dirrection of your goal.
8. Signs are few and far between; if one says one thing the next may say something different, if there is even a next sign.
9. Speed bumps!  They are everywhere, un-announced and they became a royal pain in the ass!
10. Be ready for the sponanious road block; meaning…a sand dune creeping out into the middle of the hiway, piles of rocks, dirt etc…, a parade of people, broke down cars, semis and the like.  Don´t fret go around, over, through, or even use the other side of the street going the other way if available…if you don´t you will get lost!  

OBSERVATIONS:
1. Seeing a 5 year old kid with their 3 yr old sibling out in the middle of nowhere is normal.
2. The coast is a Desert…an erie, windy, huge, sometimes fog drenched desert that is oddly quiet.
3. Trucks full of sugar cane, corn or annis look like heads of uncut, unkeep, knoted up heads of hair.
4. Don´t stay in a hostel that is under $15 a night…just don´t!
5.im not sure if the people are happy, althought they don´t appear angery or unhappy…however if your walking they won´t move out of the way…that´s your job…and Im a good 100 lbs bigger than 80% of them.

(Stay tuned for more…I´m not remembering it all it was a long 2 weeks)

The last parcels of daylight are quickly fading, the sun left the sky a 1/2 hour ago and I sit on the inside, at the last section of the worlds longest wave.  Due to the length of the wave, the strength of the current and relative small number of surfers; you rarely find yourself waiting for a wave with someone else.  However at 6:45p on Wednesday 10/21 I found myself exhausted, with no daylight to see or position myself for the next wave, while 2 other surfers shared my predicament.

After trying to catch 3 waves, I finally see one on the horizon and Im in the right position finally.  I paddle hard, digging deep and just as I go to make my last stoke there sits one of the other surfers and i am coming up right on is ass.  At the last milli-second he sees me as I take my last paddle before I pop up.  (After Mancora i made a deal with myself that if I had a wave i was going to make it no matter what obstacles existed.)  I made it but just before I popped up I feel my right pinky hit something…  I get two turns and then race the last section before it closes-out; lastly falling to my belly to ride the whitewash into the beach.  In that moment I bring my right hand to my face, and by the dim light of the pier I see nothing but blood covering every square inch of my hand.

With just enough light, i wash off the blood in the ocean, and see an L shaped gash about an inch long cut deep in to my pinky.  I truly do not know exactly what happened but my guess is the as the other guy went to pull out of the wave I stuck my right pink directly into his fin…or something like that!  It goes without saying that I left a trail of blood from the beach to the hostel on the long walk back.

The blessing of the incident are many while the inconveniences are few.  First i was blessed to have no idea who the guy was, it was to dark to see faces; thus i never thought to blame.  Second i made the wave, no matter the obstacle or the gash i made the wave.  Third the injury is minor, I got 5 sticks at the local pharmacy in town, it took 25 min and cost $10.  Forth i have had close to 100 sticks through out my life, this was the first time i actually got to watch them being done.  (Next time i need stitches and have 2 hands to do them, i’ll do it myself.)  Last blessing is I stayed present, clear and without frustration…I just accepted it for what it was…is! 

Interesting enough, as i walked from the beach to the hostel I just focused on my breathing and accepted the present, letting the ego chatter away without attachment to it’s rambeling, and by the time i got to the hostel the pain was gone.  The greatest gift of this incident is i got to practice in the moment what i have been reading, meditating and accepting over the last month.  What an opportunity, with only one cost…i don’t get to surf for the next 48 hrs…that’s cheap!  Plus i will always have my Chicama tattoo on my pinky finger.

Overall yesterday 10/21 was a great day filled with killer waves and the longest rides of my life.  Chicama is one of those waves that you can actually think about what your doing and work on your surfing while having a truly unquie experience.  And luckily, for me, the swell dropped this morning by at least 2 feet so i don’t feel as if i’m missing someting, but truly are we ever missing anything?

Just like driving in peru, there is little to no recognized rules of surfing in Mancora.  Luckily the wave is not that critical otherwise I would be writing about the fights I had instead of how life challenged me to keep my-self under control.

I was being patient, giving the locals the right of way…but after being dropped in on for the 6th time, without the least sign of awareness on their part, I was over it.  So deciding on a new strategy I sat way outside waiting for set waves, which were few and far between.  But that didn’t work either they would just come up and sit on my tail and try to box me out; so I took the perverbial gloves off! 

On one set wave, which I had been waiting paciently for, I ended up taking out 3 guys that were in my path, hitting one of them.  Afterwards they had the balls to tell me I need to look out, I just ignored them (I can’t speak spanish anyway).   No one actually stepped up, maybe because I am twice their size but all in all it was almost as bad as surfing steamers lane in santa cruz.

The depth to this story is found in what I’ve been reading about…the nature of the ego and how we identify with the external world, instead of our true inner identity, thus causing frustration and general suffering.  Well Life made it very obvious to me how much work I have to do, especially when is comes to surfing.

So after 4 surf sessions and 2 days in Mancora I’ve started the trek back to Lima.  I figured I’d stop in the places I missed on the way up.  So yesterday I wanted to go to Peru’s most western tip, Bayovar, I tried on the way north to hit it, so I thought this time I’ll make it…not so much!

I found the side road out of Piura just fine but after driving through countless little towns, exploring random dirt roads and generally trying everything I could to get to Bayovar for an hour and a half…I cut my loses and back tracked!  I know, I hate to back track but when twilight is upon you in peru you want to get off the road, and find a place to sleep.

This time however I did not get frustrated with the result, so I guess I wasn’t as intensly identifing with my ego; I simply accepted that after 2 attemps to get to Bayovar, it was not part of Life’s plan for me.  (Look for my facts, observations and tips on driving in Peru coming soon.)

Im in Chicamc again and plan on staying for 2 days and surfing the world’s longest left till I can’t paddle anymore.  I am sure the local deal won’t be a big deal here.  I’ve already meet 3 of them (there’s probably only 10 local surfers) and the way the wave breaks it’s almost like your surfing all alone…plus there aren’t but maybe 15 or 20 surfers in town. 

I love Life’s various means of helping me become more of the Truth everyday.

The laid back rhythm of enjoying the presence of driving gave way as I entered the town of Chilayo.  Crowed, noisy and without any type of true knowledge of where I was or any means of figureing out where I was going, relative to my ultimate goal, I watched as frustration set fire to my nerves…so I kept cool and just focused on breathing. 

Upon reaching a dead end, I took a wild guess and found what I thought was the Panamerican Highway…an hour later I realized, for sure, that I was mistaken.  Now i had a feeling the whole time but due to the fact I didn´t have an alternative I just went with it.  Eventually finding myself heading inland and luckily once I discovered my error  I found an aquaduct with a dirt road running along side it heading west towards the sea.

Now I hate to back track, so instead I jumped on the dirt road and trusted that this was the path I was to take.  About 10 miles later, after getting numerous stares from locals, dogs, cows , chickens and donkeys that lived along the aquaduct, I hit the hiway.   To be honest once I found the dirt road I no longer felt frustrated or confused, something told me this was the way…so I followed.  (I feel as if I was blessed with a small miracle.)

The apprehension of being off my planed course, which was to take me along the ocean, spurred me to enter ¨Mammoth Mode¨; for those of you that have made to trip to Mammoth with me know exactly what I´m talking about.  I hit the gas and raced the last 250km of the day like I was driving a rally car (inspired by Seagrin and our time in Costa).

All in all I drove 500+ km over a span of 7 hours arriving exhausted in a little fishing village called Yacila just after dark.  It was all worth it when I awoke to a gorgeous, calm, sunshine morning on a small bay colorfully decorated with fishing boats and locals.  I wonder what the locals were truly thinking when they saw we walking the beach yesterday morning…as far as I could tell it was an obvious attempt to ignore an alien invader.

I reached Mancora yesterday afternoon and have enjoyed the warm water, sunshine and friendly people of this typical latin american beach town even since.  I got my 2nd surf session of the Peru leg of the journey this morning…I think I´ll kick it here for awhile before the long trek back to Lima.

Driving north along the Panamerican Hiway, which is a nice well maintained road, out of Lima it becomes completely obvious that Peru is dirty, poor and mostly a barren desert. Now it took me 40 min to get out of Lima and the traffic is nutz, the cabs never stop honking and it gets quite annoying after 3 days of it now.

Being outside of Lima is quite different from Miraflores, which is a combination of La Jolla and Downtown SD, situated on the coastal cliffs of Lima overlooking the ocean. The foggy haze coupled with cool temps, brick shanty´s and arid desert landscape creates an eire calm, it´s starteling at first.

As I drove, in search of surf, I ducked down 3 dirt roads which produced 3 different playas; one was a tranquil cove, another a huge beach that went on forever and the other a rocky out crop overrun with the roar of the ocean. Unfortunately none of them had ride-able surf so I drove until I reached Barranca a mid-sized town on the coast between Lima and Trujillo. It was quite an experience…run down, loud and full of people. There was a surf-able wave but after smelling the ¨river¨, that ran out through the beach, I decided to stay on land.

The next morning I headed out and this time found a sick reeling left called Bermjo 30 min north. The wave was deceiving…stronger, bigger and much colder then I expected. I believe this is the first time in my life I surfed a wave that I had never seen anyone else surf before. I was alone not a soul for miles. The sun had broke through for the first time so I thought I could wear my spring suit, that was a mistake. I caught 4 waves 2 of which connect for at least 200+ yards (the paddle back up the point takes at least 10 min-that´s if you don´t rest)…this is the stuff you dream about when you plan a surf adventure. However after my 3rd wave my teeth started to chatter as the wind and tide came up and I was left longing for warm clothes, I took the next wave in.

After getting dressed I decided to head out on the point to take some pictures…as I stood on a rock  surrounded by swirling ocean, a set came in, hit the rocks and drenched me..I can still see the white foam of the backwash hurling towards me as I stood helpless…it goes without saying that I headed back to the car for a long stint with the heater.

Anyway I left Bermjo and continued North, 4 hrs, to Trujillo, a quaint town that has a strong European colonial feel. In true Peruvian style it took me twice as long as it should of to figure out the streets and find a place to stay, plus is was dark when I arrived. I think yesterday, 10/15 has been the longest day of the trip thus far.

All in all, the Peruvian leg of this journey is starting to hit its stride. I´ll spend the rest of this morning (10/16) in Trujillo and then head to the beach for an afternoon surf. I wonder where I´ll sleep tonight?

Walking helps me remember and forget all at the same time. There’s a stillness, an un-explainable peace, that comes from observing a new place for the first time. I remember that what I see, hear and perceive are only objects, they have no meaning until I give it to them.  In that moment I forget to identify with those things, leaving them naked without judgment, I just let them be.

Suddenly I remember to smile, the lungs fill with the breath of divinity and the mind is rendered speechless. And when a thought does enter the mind I know that it is just an object, something for me to perceive…or not.

I spent today walking, observing and remembering that none of this…not one thing I can explain or express is me. A thought would come and I would watch it, feeling it pass by with the breeze and all I remembered to do…was breath. And even now the silence is deafening, these symbols of expression are consciously being drawen out from the calm that fills my being. For to often I struggle to listen among the clammier.

Walking reminds me to forget about what I think, it reminds me that I am neither the thought nor the thinker…I am that which is truly free.

Finally arriving in Lima, under grey sky’s, and spending what seemed like hours at Budget Rental Car, trying to get a car I had already reserved, reminded me that what happens is what happens…that’s it.  So I stayed aware, kept my frustrated ego at bay (hard to do when you think your right) and eventually set out to find a place to sleep for the night.

The map I have is limited, to say the least, and after driving the whole city for 2 hours I figured out how Lima is configured and just after dark got to a hostel called Inkawasi a block from the ocean.  It’s modest, clean and secure for only $25 a night…I had a great night sleep.  You might think that being in strange places and in most cases having no idea what’s next would lead to restless sleep…but it has been the exact opposite.

It’s grey and cold, like San Diego in the winter, high 50’s at night but I hope it will warm up during the day (it didn’t).  Im wearing pants, shirt and a sweatshirt for the first time this trip and tomorrow I’m off to explore Lima on foot as I discover the ever continuous moment unfolding.

Knee deep, soaked in our own sweat and barefoot the mud squeezes between our toes as we trek through the Costa Rican Rainforest…some people pay hundereds of dollars to get the mud bath we got for free.  I wouldn’t walk without shoes for a 1/2 mile in Cali down the street but taken over by the spirit of adventure Missy, Dave, Sean and I charged a rainsoaked trail, shoeless, to find Tres Pacinas. 

Slipping and sliding as we carefully watched were we placed each step, we climbed alongside the river to swim in a series of three small, suprising deep, pools connected by cascaging water falls. Gorgious, humid and full of life the afternoon trek seemed to put the cherry on top of my first leg of this journey.

A fallen tree vitually spans the breath of the main pool..and you walk out on a limb, 20 feet above the water and think…”What am I doing?”  Your miles from nowhere and a good 20 min walk from where you left your car and still the desiere to fling yourself head first into a murky pool of Costa Rican rainwater beakons. Exhilerating, refreshing and so worth the trek the 4 of us became Rainforest royalty as we frolicted in the water for an hour or so. 

But you want to get out of there before dusk because the bugs will eat you alive.  Realizing the time we packed up our stuff and headed back along the mud infested trail to the car.  It’s amazing how a messy, muddy trek, while your drenched in your own sweat can leave you feeling alive and ready to embrace the brillance of this life.

A whole day of fishing is not a usual desire that motivates me to rent a 40 ft sport fishing boat for a day, but sometimes it takes a friend to broaden your horizons.  Dave in all is fervor orchestrated a 9 hour, 30 mile offshore fishing excursions that proved to be more exciting than I had imagined.

It took only 15min for us to caught the first fish.  We caught 5 fish total, 3 sail fish – each at least 110 pounds and 2 Dorado (Mahi Mahi) whom netted close to 50 pounds of melt in your mouth pescado.  Dave caught the first fish, a Dorado, after a bit of a wait Sean and I both reeled in sailfishes, Roger (one of the locals here) snagged a Dorado, and then with 5 min left before we had to head back, Dave fought to reel in another Sailfish to finish off the afternoon (should have been Missy’s catch…).

Missy is another story altogether, I bet if she was writing this blog it would read something like this (with more well placed curse words)…  “I was a hunched over, stomach in knots, basically a heaving mess…littering the ocean surface with the mornings cereal, 2 sea sick pills and coffee…all the while consumed by a feeling of disgust and utter misery.  And lastly the question of why, oh why, did I get on this fucking boat?” 

Now I don’t know much about fishing and most of the time we were drinking beer waiting for some action…but Dave said it is unheard of to catch that many fish, and especially 3 of them to be Sailfish, in one day.  Apparently we had a good day on the water, who would of guessed.  So I throw a “shout out” to Dave and his passion to fish.  By the way we sent the 3 sailfish back to the ocean alive and kicking…the Dorado were not so lucky.