Surfing with las chicas at Santa Teresa

Fun peaks at Playa Santa Teresas

After five weeks of intense travel driving a motorbike through Java and staying at a shag shack in La Libertad, I was excited to catch up with my friend Niall in San Jose. We planned to head straight to the coast, find a cute little apartment and surf fun waves for two weeks. 

Santa Teresa seemed like the best place to do this with a plethora of yoga schools, restaurants and a mixture of reef and beach breaks within easy reach. It is a tiny jungle village on the Nicoya Peninsula, a five hour bus and ferry ride from San Jose. As long as I have good coffee nearby, fresh fruit and vegetables, things to explore, a running route of some description and good waves to surf, I am a very happy camper.

We totally scored with the accommodation staying at Hotel Meli Melo paying $30 a night for a twin room, shared kitchen, wifi and living area. The waves were crazy fun. We were so lucky to time our arrival with a building swell. Playa Santa Teresa is a series of super fun peaks that easily holds a crowd. Its a great wave on a smallish swell maxing out at around 5 foot. On the other side of the peninsula are several reef breaks that fire when the swell gets bigger.

Aside from the waves, the town was full of chicks that ripped. Every session there was at least 3 – 4 girls in the water, more then holding their own. I got to meet and chat to a couple and was so inspired by their stories...................Evie Johnstone is a Jaco based surfer trying to break into the professional circuit, Josie Green had been surfing for four years and blogs about surf life and surfing chicks in Santa Teresa, Veronica Quiros designs surf bikinis (Tica surf) and teaches Spanish and Margerit is a local artist and owner of Zwart Cafe / Art (a perfect local whilst on vacation). These were just the girls I chatted to in the line up.

I was also stoked to discover a wicked brand of surf bikini – Calavera. Every girl that surfs has a ridiculous obsession with bikinis and finding the perfect pair that will stay on when wiping out is pretty important. I don't know how many times I have paddled out the back, sat up on my board and realised my bikinis are undone and my nipples are pointing to the line up. I spotted Evie wearing a pair whilst surfing and paddled over to her to ask her who made them. Luckily for me, she is a Calavera sponsored rider and had a few pairs for sale. They are the only bikini I have ever surfed in that truly stays on in all conditions and their pretty damn sexy as well!

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.