I’m sitting in an air conditioned room of white and wood and concrete. Mid day and the jungle is beckoning to come in.
It’s been a lonely 4 days in Nicaragua. Wake up, check surf, maybe surf. Sit and read. Sit in AC. Get up and pee and start sweating and go back to AC. Scooter around for a bit. Walk the beach hoping to catch eyes with the beautiful German girl with the impossible figure. I first saw her and her friend having a very serious sounding conversation over corn and beans at a hostel restaurant.
Much of the world here is sun scorched, mangled, wrinkled, crushed plastic bottles on the highway. On the shoreline you see her light blue eyes, and perfect pale moon butt with thong riding right up it. The image cuts through the scenery like it should never have been here.
I’ve surfed 2.5 days. Today I ran in without thinking and got caught in a minor rip current.
I spent 15 minutes trying to zig-zag paddle in staying completely stationary until I decided to angle towards the rock where the current was weaker.
I looked to the shore and saw a surf instructor in his chair who couldn’t have given less of a shit. I waved a couple of times and pointed as if to ask where to go, panting and arms going numb. He looked straight ahead.
The guy who rented me the board today had pink eye from eating too much concha.
He seemed spiritually disturbed and couldn’t sit still, so he decided he would go out and surf too, to cleanse his soul. Quickly leaving me to get my board ready.
Surf guys never like me at first. The random vacation gringo hate is palpable.
I’m tall, thickish, bearded. These are little shrimplets with shaggy hair and blackened tans smoking weed, watching YouTube, occasionally giving lessons to white girls on foamies.
The girls love them and I’m a bit jealous.
But they never like me. My first day I showed up to beginners bay full of coffee and eggs. I watched those little peelers in the early morning light and the colorful surfers already bobbing in the waves.
I put on my zinc sunscreen and asked if there was a bathroom. It’s a small bay with a couple surf shacks, I figured there might be one. I told him I had to shit, he pointed me to a well with an enormous iguana hanging on the side. I asked another girl who said there aren’t any. As the knot dug deeper in my stomach I had to rush back home to not shit my pants.
When I got back somebody called me cerdo, “pig”. I could hear the snickering.
They always come around. I’ll fuck up something, make a joke. Speak pretty good Spanish and ask slightly above basic bitch questions. Then I’m in. It’s happened before.
In Ecuador I noodled on their little rusty guitar, and they showed me a riff. Then we played volleyball, and he gave me a haircut.
In Costa Rica my Spanish was lacking so it was mostly just sitting on the wood and nodding when it seemed appropriate. One guy said I had good style, he would be watching me.
The non-auspicious start is a given. Nearly shitting myself scrambling around in face paint while they laid in hammocks. But it only takes one good joke to see that little glimmer. They realize there is depth.
However, when I was watching the waves, The pink eye guy pushed me aside and put a bucket where I was standing, signifying he wanted to do pull ups on the branch above me. I moved over, he huffed and just kept walking towards the ocean. I don’t think there was any winning him over in his state.
Other than him, I make slow inroads until they love the cerdo.
Post shit, I paddled out and caught two little peeling shoulders to get back in the spirit. Feel the world of ocean creep up and thrust my board. With that thrust I push down and rise up into the green, listening to the crash behind and around me as I trail off and turn. That indefinite moment of glide that feels so epic. From the shore it looks like a pig rolling down a little hill.
That short glide, and fall, and return to the sea. I flailed about, I was accepted, I was spit out in the white wash. I got back on my board and joined the carousel again. This pig will ride.
Wanderthoughts 