Avoiding Mama Roca at Punta Roca – El Salvador part 1

Punta Roca, El Salvador.

I flew three days from Bali through Malaysia, the United States and into San Salvador, El Salvador overnighting in Kuala Lumper and Los Angeles. My friend James had arranged a pick up for me at San Salvador, so I headed straight to La Libertad, a little town on the east coast. Without exception every one of my friends who had travelled to these parts had told me not to stay in this town but James was staying at one of the surf camps and I was excited to hang out with a friend from home.

Punta Roca and La Paz were the two local breaks, both right handers breaking over rocky bottoms. La Paz was the easier of the two capable of holding a nice sized, very fun wave that you could ride from the point to the shore. Punta Roca on the other hand, is a nasty bitch of wave. It has a horrible entry over barnacled covered rocks with a nasty shore dump. It is super fast, a little critical and crowded with rippers.

I was pretty scared. Punta Roca really pushed all my buttons but I surfed it twice a day with James and managed to take a few nice ones each session. I found the entry incredibly quick and could do little more then speed down the face holding on. The wave in the photo above was taken by an American photographer, Seth. I remember that particular wave so clearly as it was the first one I made without going oner the falls. I was stoked that I looked relaxed as I certainly didn't feel it.

Going right has always been one of my weaknesses. Although I am regular (my right foot is at the back of the board) I spent my formative surfing years in Western Australia (lots of lefts) and surfing around Indonesia (amazing lefts). I am so much more consistent on my backside particularly at the pop up and feel more in control when turning. El Salvador has a lot of rights which means I am forced to spend more time facing the wave and working on my rhythm.

Ciao Bali

An empty line up, Kuta Reef, Bali

I said good bye to Bali on a swell of 6 – 8 foot sharing Kuta Reef with 70 of my nearest and dearest. Sometimes you can jag that wave with 4 or 5 others in the water but with a big swell running and school holidays there was no chance of that. It was horror and I really felt the three weeks I had spent out of the water riding Red (my motorbike) around Java.

Needless to say the Australian men surfing those last few days were not the countryman I am proud of. It only takes one or two overly aggressive men (or women for that matter) to ruin a surf. People were dropping in, snaking and yelling at each other, generally committing every single surf sin possible.

I love surfing Kuta Reef. It is a really fun wave that can handle some size, even barrelling at the end section. I have surfed it with good friends and a handful of other surfers. The downside it is the closest decent wave to Kuta/Legian area so when the swell is on it, so are a million others.  

And life is my guru, relationships are my teacher........

Canngu, Bali

I have been practising yoga on and off for the last 15 years. I'm not much of a church goer or overly spiritual but I do believe in a higher power of some sort. Yoga, I find, connects me to this higher power and provides me with space and peace. I've been wanting to deepen my practise for a while now and get a better understanding of the other limbs of yoga outside of the physical practise. Although I am not truly interested in teaching yoga, I thought a teaching course would expose me to the Ashtanga in a way going to a yoga class does not.

The course I signed up to do met all my needs - based in a beautiful location (Canngu, Bali), near to the beach and good surf, run by a surfer - Sunny Richards-Glasser and a curriculum that included sessions on Ayurveda, yoga philosophy, kirtan chanting and meditation. Sunny through her company Santosha has run surf / yoga / teacher training retreats in India, Thailand, Indonesia and Australia for close to a decade. She used to compete on the pro womens surfing circuit before becoming seduced by the yogic lifestyle.

By the time the course came around, I had been hanging out in Bali for three weeks and having an amazing time. After working solidly for 6 years, I only had myself to think about, endless days where I decided what I wanted to do and answered to no one......surf now? Nusa Lembongan today? coffee now? food now? I was meeting so many people and enjoying having the space and place to do what I wanted to do. One of my closest friends had just arrived in town from London and I was loving spending time with her and her family. A four week, six day a week, 10 hour a day yoga school was the last thing I wanted to do. I was also a little fearful of the type of people that may be attracted to a yoga teaching course - incense loving, group hugging hippies.

I was late to the first session and grumbled my way through a four hour lecture (in my defence I was a little sick). I refused to stay in the hotel, Villa Serenity preferring to drive 30 minutes back to Seminyak and stay with my girlfriend. I am pretty sure I was late to the first yoga class the next day.

Slowly Sunny and the other students seduced me. None of them were incense loving hippies (well there were a few), people came from everywhere, all drawn to teacher training for a love of yoga and a desire to deepen their practise. I fell in love with the girls I shared a villa with, the other students and slowly I fell in love with the small village of Canngu. I learnt about the ashtanga of yoga (See picture above), the ethical guidelines to living and the purpose of our daily physical practise. I tried to practise meditation, grace, surrender and to be kind and I tried to remember to approach things with a beginners mind.

The bamboo villa - Gina, Danielle, Amanda, Raquel, Ebony and me.

Through the duration of the course, I was sicker then I have been in long time. And I fought this sickness. First it was a blocked nose, endless coughing and a sore throat, then it was food poisoning, then it was passing out in a Seminyak restaurant for no real reason. I pushed through, run every day, surfed every morning, got up and went to yoga, sat through 10 hours of lectures, took zinc, spirulina, ate garlic, drank lemon tea, caught up with friends outside the course and wondered why I wasn't getting any better. I've never been one to relax particularly well preferring to fill my days with activity and purpose. My body, had other plans, and finally, after Sunny eventually called me out, I surrendered.

In the last two weeks, I gave up the running, the surfing every morning, I dropped the intense physical practise and started to approach yoga as my inner practise. My time for stillness. I fell in love with Kirtan chanting, took lessons from my meditation and practised daily pranayama. I never realised how much of a control freak I am until I took this course, how much I need to know whats going on and how much I use my physical body to feel like I have control in my life. I guess its that fiery pitta energy.

I also realised to further my practise, I need to teach. With 4 months of travelling still ahead of me, I won't get the opportunity to put these skills to use but I plan to attend as many different classes, different styles and different teachers as possible, hoping to learn through observation. The other lessons will be very important. Long term travels provides plenty of opportunity to test the soul whether it be eating bad food for weeks on end, not being able to practise regularly, staying in dorms, waiting out a flight to another place or just missing home.

The title to this post was something that Sunny and the other teachers repeated over and over again. No matter who you worship or where you live, life will be your guru and the people in it, our teachers.

Shanti.

Quiet possibly the coolest thing I'll ever own.

I brought a motorbike. My girlfriend Ang and I have plans to ride from West Timor back to Bali stopping at surf breaks and checking out the different islands to the east of Bali.

Foreigners in Bali can't own anything outright so I've had to go though a 'friend' who essentially owns the bike. I, however, have the blue book.

Its a 125cc, blue and white, 4 gear manual, Honda Supra X. I've called him Red.

I also picked up an Indonesian motorbike license. This was pretty simple to do although I am not sure it was entirely legal. I went with my 'friend' to a local police station and sat some tests. Having a local license will mean less hassle at ferry crossing. Its also pretty cool.

Surfing with soul

I've been surfing Bingin on the Bukit Peninsula for the weekend. I met these awesome girls Alexa, Chrissie, Kathleen and Roxie whilst surfing Nusa Lembongan last week and arranged to meet up with them. This place is almost perfect. A beautiful cliffside community, friendly locals and an insane barrelling left hander.

My accommodation was pretty low key but very cheap, AUD$8 with a view to die for. I thought I'd be completely out of my league but Bingin on a high tide is actually really fun. I had my most stand out surf of the trip so far. Alexa and I took at our short boards pre breakfast and took a few but really nothing to write home about. One of the local guys, Edy convinced us to take some mini mals before lunch............so much fun.

It was a good reminder for me to watch Edy surf. Without a doubt he was one of the strongest surfers out there but he gave up his session to help Alexa and I. I lost count of my wave count pretty early on. Edy's in is mid forties and surfed all his life. He just loves it, you can see it on his face. By the time Alexa and I hit the water for the second time, he was into his fourth surf. He had no intensity, made no mistakes and surfed boards of all sizes and surfed them well.

I often get caught trying to hard. I think that is the one thing that lets me down in the water. I want it so badly that I get so frustrated when I make mistakes and have a bad surf. I carry a tension in my shoulders and jaw and that means I just can't let go. In surfing you need to relax your shoulders, your upper body and your hands so you can throw them around releasing the energy and creating the turns. I know the best thing I can do for my surfing is just to go out there, relax, have fun and love that I am in the water................those tubes will come in time.