So Long, And Thanks for the Fish

Life is full of false bottoms. And to all the non-believers who thought the road and seabound memoirs of Latin America would end without a proper wind down. Well. You don't know me. I am fickle and the backdoor-sneak-out-of-the-party guy in the singular, only in the moment. But for those of you who have foolishly befriended me over a period of time know that I try my damndest not to let people down. And I certainly wouldn't dare let down my fans. All 6 of you, who I suspect patronize me out of friendship. Well, thank you for praising the bare bones and cryptically (often invention-based) worded skeleton of a story that is too grandiose to transpose into blog form. It would be blasphemous to do so. Rest assured that you know 5% of the story. And it is not far flung from the map of truth. The remaining 95% is rather condemnable (of Ross mostly) and absolutely terrifying. The Government and Internet ratings committee would surely drop the hammer if all were exposed.

Ross and I mutually observed at the outset of our journey that things would probably lead to blows between us. Compounding things even worse, we have known each other too long to have considered abandonment and the pursuit of our own routes if and when the temperature boiled to the level of beastlike violence. It would have lead to blame and guilt and rumours and neither of us wanted that. Or maybe not. Nonetheless, we stuck it out side by side with the ease of well-seasoned vagabonds. In fact, after denting some bottles of $2 rum with a few retired Cubans while in the surf town of Montanita, Ecuador we pursued the very human need for self fulfillment. For 3 and a half months we were engaged in a battle of self preservation and bravado positioning, just in case the fight that we joked may happen, would in fact happen. The tension built you see, not out of rage, but of impending doom that we may exchange fisticuffs that neither of us wanted to trade but we pretended to each other that we did. Very confusing indeed.


We stumbled down the beach to our tent camped in front of the triple overhead right handed pointbreak. About halfway there it was concluded that we should get the fight out of the way. I derobed myself of my (Bryant's) (sorry) headlamp and Ferg ridded himself of his hat. The dukes went up and we fought at 3 am, in the waves, landing faceshots and splitting jabs to the temples and kidneys. Falling over and trying to drown each other. All while grinning wildly. And shouting the most profoundly disgusting verbatim at each other. Using crabs and rocks as weapons was not innovative weaponry. It was a damned necessity of survival. After about 5 minutes we were exhausted and the rum was pumping steadily again through our bloodstreams. We forgot our headlamps, flashlights, and problems and stumbled onshore to continue down the beach. Notably more wounded and drunk.

"Man, I was worried there-" Ferg started, gasping noticeably.

"Yeah, me too, I'm glad we got that over with, it was a long time coming." I blurted with a timing to ensure that I was agreeing with the 6'4'' Irish brawler next to me.

"What? No, I mean you're a fucking pussy. I beat the shit out of you." And it was done.


Only 30 seconds had passed. And round 2 had begun. I can only imagine what it had looked like to the casual observer. And you know what, Ferg is a fucking prophet. I yelped away like a dog afraid of being bathed. My lips swollen and split. I woke up at about 3pm being washed around in the fleeing tide with a conglomerate of fishmongers talking around me in a befuddled latin garb. I returned to a high-fiving and bloody Ferg who thought the whole night was a tremendous success. And, I had to agree.


We spent a wonderful remaining week in Montanita and opted to not see the rest of the country. It is simply too beautiful in this throe of the land to bypass for jungle, mosquitoes, jackets, and rainboots instead. Living on $1.50 a day is whacky. In fact, our whole trip can be summarily contained in one word. Whacky.

On our last eve we stayed up all night for my customized handmade balsa fish surfboard to be finished off by former surf champ turned shaper and minister of retro, Rasty. And then boomeranged off to the airport for an internationally inadequate flight through Costa Rica (for the 4th time) to Nicaragua.


Costa Rica is like Disneyland, expensive, brash and corrupt, and manipulated if not superficially built by man. It does have lush jungles and amazing ocean views. But goddamnit you have to be pretty Christian about the whole thing. Sharing so little land with so many tourists is a little claustrophobic to say the least. I have never seen so many rich nortes or Gringos try to justify the price they want to pay versus the actual price of something while gesticulating wildly at a Lonely Planet and speaking solely in English. Like it's the fucking Farmer's Almanac or New Testiment. I now understand why ticos or locals are so bitterly aggressive and unfriendly to North Americans. And towns like Tamarindo have been renamed by oblivious tourists to Scamagringo. And that's why we used CR as a vortex and coverup as to our true final destination of the trip.

Nicaragua is all dirt and dusty roads and civil war and CIA drug-fuelled land. Oliver North and corporate Banana plantations and spearfishing and Flor de Cana and sincerity. Bandanas, guns, and paramilitaries, bitch. You can actually see the divide from jungle to desert once you cross the border from Costa Rica as Central America tears up the lines of latitude towards the deserts of the Baja and into Texas. But My God Man, Nicaragua is a quietly outspoken nation. It's pink flowers and rose bushes that occur once every some 50 odd miles along baren wasteland are as breath-taking as seeing 12 tails from 15 foot plus sharks hanging out of the back of a taxi cab in San Juan del Sur. And nobody points out these curious occurrences. It is just daily life in Nicaragua. Where families of 14 live in 20 by 15 wooden shacks, with garbage bags for roofs and cockfights for entertainment. It's kind of like Mexico some 25 years ago. And it is fucking brilliant.

But in the 3 short months that we have been gone from these Christian doghouses things have changed. The 60 acre 5 star resort construction is underway on that remote beach. The line-up on those perfect almond-shaped hollow tubes is littered not with dolphins, stingrays, baitfish, lobsters, and sharks any longer. Only Southern California neon brahs! & Australian loud and drunk waveshredders & some sad looking locals. And this paradise will go to the wayside, as have all of the other places we have stumbled upon. And it may be good for the economy. But this should be categorically separate from what is good for the people.

And on my sunrise walk along the beach I saw that final bit of evidence. Lying halfway between the new real estate development and the 5:30 am maddening lineup of 30 surfers, it washed ashore at my feet. I picked up the hypodermic needle and dropped it in the wastebasket. And thought to myself that all of you still reading this should go to expedia.ca and book a ticket somewhere that you know very little about. And keep it a secret. No blogs, no heartache when you know you're piece of paradise will no longer exist once you're gone, no Lonely Planets. Keep that false bottom in place and protect your secret paradise.

The end is near unfortuantely and I really havent written much on this blog so I thought I´d put in my 2 cents. I hope you´ve all been enjoying Jeffuardo´s entries, my favourite I´d have to say is about the Swiss man´s passport. They are exquisite documents by the way. There are a few thingts that Jeff forgot to mention in his previous entries. For starters, he forgot to mention the Peruvian buses which have been some of the most unique experiences as far as transportation is concerned. The buses look like any other, but, because there has been many muggings by banditos, the staff goes around with a video camera and tapes the faces of everyone on the bus before it leaves. There are also numerous checkpoiunts where a cop will get on the bus and ride along for an hour or so. I guess that they do this in the areas where the muggings are known to occur. Not to worry though if you are planning on coming down here. The bus staff has many ways to keep the passengers entertained. Steven Segal m0vies are plentiful and when you get bored of those they start to play bingo. If you win one of these gamers you not only get a free bus ticket next time you use the company, but you also0 get the honour of performing kareokee infront of the rest of the bus. Jeff thought he won a game but it turned out that he had to have four lines completed and not just the one that he had.

On our last bus, from Trujillo to Mancora, a guy came on with an oversized kazoo. He performed a monologue in spanish intertwined with his kazoo music which reminded me of snake charming music. After this, he walked around and gave out candies, played a little more giant kazoo, and tried to make people pay for the candies they ate. After that bus ride, we got off, asked a cabbie to take us to our campsite and he charged us the equivalent of one dollar for a 30 second ride. It may not sound like it but we actually got ripped off.

Jeff and I bought surf boards in Mancora for $160 a piece. Mine is a 6´8´´ and Jeff bought a 6´1¨¨. The waves were pretty good there, all left handers which I like because I can´t really surf rights. Mancora is an awesome little beach town. It has one main drag with tons of cheap restaurants and a few surf shops. You can get 3 course meals for 5 soles which is about $1,50
Canadian. We could have spent a few weeks there but only spent 10 days because our time is running short.

We are now in Montanita, Ecuador. It´s another sweet surf town that´s reknown for the surf boards that they shape. They make boards out of Balsa wood which is from the amazon jungle. Some of the boards have foam centres and others are pure wood. I tried one out the other day. It was only a 5´7 but I could still catch waves on it. I think it was about 21 inches wide or something though. Anyways, Jeff and I met a shaper in town here and he´s going to shape a custom board for Jeff made completely out of balsa wood. We´ve been stopping by everyday to check out this progress. It´s looking pretty sweet. We´re planning on staying here until the 15th and we´re flying up to Nicaragua to surf with Cassidy for the last 2 weeks of our trip. Looking forward to seeing everyone in June.

Cheers.

Royal Class from Mancora to Montanita

April was a slow month in the blogging world. Get out of the tech game people, Google´s IPO is long gone and commodities are starting to soar again. Get into soybeans for God´s sake. Mark my words, Apple´s stock prices are about to fall like a sack of yams.

I am about to get into the woodgame myself. A bearded baron of balsa for the great northwest, amidst bears, beaches, and bonfires. Slanging devolution to bring people back to paraffin wax, keds, a guy named Woody, beavertail wetsuits, otters, beards, vans, and Redondo beach circa 1965. Things will be less cryptic when we return, but we have set a plan in motion.

We are still living in a domed house of fabric built for one atop sand and crab villages. We have surfed many waves along the Northern Peruvian coast and into Ecuador. Lobitos, Organos, Mancora, Punta Blanco, Montanita, Chicama, and more at all times of the day. We paddled out over reef and a large amount of marine activity at 11pm one night under the light of a full moon, beach fires, and coast guard search lights for a midnight session. The pursuit of pleasure endures. And the simplicity of it is astounding.

So it is with great disdain that I bid this blog adieu. I have more natural things to get my hands into. And some dogs to bark at and teach to surf.

With Love from the Southern Hemisphere,
Jeffrey

The Sloe Tide

¨You frighten me Richard Fowler,¨ Hissed a weary and cross-legged Frederick Noble. Peppery perspiration was stained and seeping through his Amazon shirt made only from the most gore-texy of gore-tex items. Richard Fowler grinned as his sinewy bulbs of knuckle searched over to Noble and fished into the blimp owner´s breast pocket for a cherry cheroot. He struck the waterproof-ed match and lit his tube of fire. Noble watched the gaunt and possibly drunk man inhale. The smoke lingered beneath the foliage and bananas leaves before being expounded by beams of dusty sunlight cutting into their cavity of canopy.

The two were sitting, facing each other like two ripened and faded and worn rooks of your grandfather´s ivory chess set variety. Beside them, outside of their Sodom of restitute ran the Black River. They hid beneath foliage some 171 kilometers away from where this voluminous vestige of abundance collided with the Amazon River itself. 171 kilometers from their starting point. 13 days since their bottled water ran out and they turned defiantly to the jungle, instead of to civilization for salvation. 13 days of return to indigenous roots.

Frederick Noble vaguely recalled that he had been in the Amazon prior to this. His mind searched, vacant yet intently, on where. Bolivia. The name came to him like the sound of a drunken man falling over. But...it was Jeffgryh Makriin, no Jeff Masarl, no...Jeff Martin in Bolivia. Who was this man? No whatsabouts-about-it Noble decided. A punctuated snap of the heels ended that silly ooglewoosery going about his brainium. Frederick was perversedly pleased simply to be out of the burg of Cusco and it´s tchochke peddlers, hogsworblers, boondogglers, and mountebanks.

He had decided to be led on a fantastical voyage of cheese and pictures and 12 course desserts through the Amazon some months prior. He needed to rid himself of bedsores and felt that the Amazonian Basin would be swimmingly swimming with remedies. Frederick expected a quiet journey where he could pass the hours with his abacus and theories on the ten dimensions. Old Noble here was quite positive the trek would be reminiscent of the kindly hands of his turkish robot butler, back in his ice burrow home of central Antarctica, who would lead Noble to his tea parlour for the old 3 o´clock mug of warm milk and lie down.

But the fool hired Richard Fowler as lead guide. The ex-Navy Seal and 10 year Amazon resident and hero of people whose personal libraries consist of exactly: Soldier of Fortune back issues, Gary Larson cartoons, Apocalypse Now: The Picture Book, and Heart of Darkness. The jungle survivalist. The machete weilding maniac. The baron of terror in the atrium of the Amazon. The heavy drinker and the wrong man for the job. Noble hired Fowler.

And now Frederick Noble has kissed an Anaconda, punched an alligator in the face and eaten it raw, fended off phallus seeking protozoans and other predators, eaten a variety of hallucinegenic cacti, shrunken heads and been branded by various indigenous tribes, and has not even begun to deal with his bedsores.

What a soar to madness the fable could have been. But alas! This is a story I will not tell. I cannot hide behind these fallacies, this grotto of phonetic subterfuge. This is the meeting of my two cryptic subplots from previous entries, and exactly what I imagined would occur when they met. But they will not. For travel writing is good to read but hellishly off-mark from preconceptions when the words hit the papyrus. You see, a hodad pickpocketed me in Cusco and we have waited three weeks to get my VISA back. So, like good Canadian lads, we traded in our hostel going ways and jungle potentialities & climax, if you will, of blog entries for a 5´8¨long tent and 6 weeks of beach time.

We seek refuge and surf and a pilgrimmage to solitude, literature, and fire roasted coffees. We have travelled like forgotten characters in an unproduced Star Wars Episode some 1200 miles across the gray and brown Northern Peruvian desert to the Pacific. Stopping only to drink too much, fall over, and realize how insufficient we are at making adequate campfires. The Africanesque tribal drums and Mexi-audience accompanying claps of Peruvian music have been the heartbeat to our journey. And we shall continue to forge our way up into Ecuador and finally to a familiar Christian doghouse on a remote beach in Nicaragua before our return. The prodigal sons. The wayward bastards of the Great Northwest.

But we have found it. In an Endless Summerean way we have trekked across that dune and found the contestably longest left in the world. It peels perfect fast tubes, head high, in immaculate shape for over 1.8 kilometers. You stand on a wave, and surf harder than the icy superhero, Quicksilver, for 3 entire minutes. It is so long you have to take a taxi back to the beginning.

So, it´s possible that the dream of Richard Fowler meeting Frederick Noble may have to be put off. Or I can put you in contact with Mr. Fowler if you so desire.

But that freaky left pointbreak across the Northern Peruvian desert is reserved for two lost Canadian boys and a pup tent.

Contestable Sanity Amongst Corpses: A Chronicle

Ross and I sat in silence finishing off our last breakfast before expediting our expedition to the Andes for 4 days. Before me sat a dish known as "Camarones for Tree People" that tasted oddly of avocado and ramen noodles, and in front of Ross lay a half finished "American Loin". We believed that these magical platos would bring us good fortune and a steadfast heartiness to last 96 hours.

The night previous I learned that Ross truly holds no biases in his heart. I reminded him of the hostel's viewing of his romantic wrangling of an African woman all over the lawn of the center court in our hostel. It was 5 am and I had just come from the 4th consecutive viewing and analyzation of Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise's late 80's cultural acception of moderate retardation hit "Rainman" with a man I knew as Khan and Ross knew as Ricard.

It was a ramshackle of peculiar nocturnal activities indeed and quite a North-of-the-Great-Divide way to kick off an arduous trek to the bold society of the Incas. The next few days would find us a combined total of 3 hours sleep; climbing through far too many mountain passes; and a visit to the barbaric site of forced cannibalism due to the crashed plane of a Uruguaian rugby team in the 1970's.

What follows is a chronologically sorted experiential diary of madness.

DAY1

7:03 am: The Swiss have terrific passports. It is exactly what you would expect from such a rich and beautiful nation (I have no idea what Switzerland is actually like apart from possibly a James Bond movie, possibly. And of what Kit Clancey tells me of the nation, but he is the most overt man I know. And I do not trust him. I am not sure if you are allowed to leave periods dotting along rythmically within parentheses. It looks odd and scares me). The simple red and white aesthetic of their nation's flag stylized in the upper-right corner of the crimson cover makes me crave cheese. The myriad of well sorted and unique European styled tidbits of information held within make me want to have blond hair and a stupid accent and a turtleneck sweater. I may move to Switzerland to get a passport. Or I may eat the man next to me if stranded in the Andes to acquire his.

7:11 am: Huzzah! The Swiss Man next to me is in my trekking group. My stomach rumbled in a fartish manner. It is possible that my Camarones for Tree People didn't fill me up. Or it is possible that the food knows that I am not a Tree People. But more likely it is a sign to eat The Swiss Man next to me. He looks soft.

9:26 am: The hike has started and I find myself conversing with Freddie Zapata, our 26 year old guide. We talk superficially of soccer and politics and soccer politics over the next 4 kilometers. I do not know much about these three subjects so I recite facts from a Chuck Klosterman novel about why soccer is ruining the world from the youth up. I insert my own conjunctive thoughts and tell him that I saw a man mistakedly kick a ball into his own goal in Cusco. And I told him it gave me hope because this man's career probably ended due to his err. I mention that it would be terrific if each soccer player in the world would, from now on, score the only goal of each game into his own net causing the sport to evaporate from our biosphere. Freddie stops talking and spits at my feet.

9:42 am: Freddie still hasn't spoken so I disrupt the dim of silence with a diatribe. I tell him how I have an alter ego that shares his name (this being Frederick Noble; story: Salt? Salt!) created in Bolivia. I tell him that Mr. Noble owns a blimp. Freddie smiles and asks me if I was in the army. This makes me feel like a warrior and I decide to jog the last 7 kilometers.

4:57 pm: We arrive at the Base Camp in the foothills of the Andean Mountain Range with the Salkantay Glacier to our south-southwest and the Victoria Glacier to the northeast. But I never was good at directions, or being instinctual. Will I be the first to be eaten if we become stranded? We sit down to a 4-course meal provided to us by our porters. I believe it involved SPAM.

6:01 pm: I begin to wonder why we ate so much. Are we going to have a challenging day tomorrow? Are they actually going to eat us?

6:40 pm: I listen to Joel Plaskett´s ¨Natural Disaster¨ and dream of Bishop's. Snakeball, knives throng into our kitchen wall, Humphrey Bogart´s funeral, Dicky. Honkshuuush, honkshuuush, honkshuuush.

DAY2

5:17 am: I wake up to a pitchblack valley and a governing grey sky. The hike begins. We have 9 kilometers total today. It seems easy, but Freddie advises that the altitude we reach plus the steepness of the steppes could be fatal. I push half a bag of dirty coca leaves into my mouth and munch away. Yum yum. I pretend they are mashed potatoes and sing and smile to myself as I keep up pace with the porters while they look at me in utter confusion.

12:17 pm: We have made it 65% of the way to our first mountain pass. We have climbed almost 2 kilometers vertically. I am growing jealous of Ferg's Jolly Green Giantish legs. He is a brute and a phallandering philanthropist. My lungs feel like they are trying to erupt out of my ribcage and flee to the heavens. There is not enough oxygen in the air to quench my brain's thirst.

3:52 pm: Fuck...you...lungs. Fuck...you....legggs. Fuk...yuuy...mowntan. I...ham....dissy.

4:48 pm: (200 meters later) I make it to the top and immediately fall asleep for two hours in the 28 knot winds and frigidaire like atmospohere. Oxygen deprivation and sleeplessness make the sustainability of conciousness as possible as marrying a unicorn with Meatloaf as your minister.

7:31 pm: I have made it down to the valley and to our campsite nestled amidst the clouds and riversystems of a drenched Andean valley. My legs are as hard as cinder blocks but feel like those of a newborn fawn. I am ashamed of myself. The Swiss Man appears to me drowning within a fiery fondue plate of cheesy glory in a mild hallucinated state brought on by well masticated coca leaves and ayahuasca.

DAY3

2:00 am: I have not slept and will not. My leaky tent has become a nomadic aquarium of insomnia. Damn you rains and snow. I am only man, my legs those of a baby cement deer. My sleeping bag reminds me of a cold, dead placenta. I feel my skin growing white and prunish. I am dying and they will eat me. The Swiss Man and his incredible passport shall perish before myself though. This I will make sure of.

5:09 pm: I survived the night and have now completed my second mountain pass of the day and third in total. I am no longer using the cliffhugging trail. I stalk The Swiss Man from the bushes for the totality of our day's 15 kilometers. But he is growing sickly and thin, making him less appealing. Additionally, I do not know if my canine's are refined enough to chow through his Goretex. It looks formidable, fortified, I just farted. Did he hear me? Am I speaking? I see Ross in the distance. He appears to be 2000 meters tall and passing over mountains with a strident pace of authority.

6:31 pm: Another quatranically divided dinner. Why these shirtless and shoeless men provide us with so much nourishment ceaselessly brings me wonder. I believe I ate pasta. Or it was Tuna. I am unaware, I stared at The Swiss Man for the entirety of the meal.

6:33 pm: I understand everything now. I see past, present, and future. These men who carry 60 pounds a day, running past us, past the pink and soft and chewy. They are taking us to a site of sacrifice and cannibalism. There is no Machu Picchu. There is only a cage of inferno driven death and a large pot of white man stew. They will devour us by Easter-time. I must eat The Swiss Man and bury his treasurous passport this eve.

DAY4

3:00 am: Still no sleep. My legs still feel like 600 pound drumsticks from a mutant KFC slaughterhouse. They move with robotic grace closer to the alleged ruins. Or to my slaughter. Fitter. Happier. I am a paranoid android. I think I should take Radiohead off my playlist. The sky is beginning to burst into a chromatic kaleidoscope of pink and yellow wonders. I almost fall 600 meters to my death as I am not watching where I walk. My eyes move from the skies and the glaciers to The Swiss Man and back.

6:30 am: Machu Picchu and brain surgery and astrology and meteorology and science and woman sacrifice and ripping the hearts out of llamas to feast upon their life sustaining purple blood and brutal war and mummies and murderous kings and my camera battery has run out and The Swiss Man has escaped my grasp. Ruined, ruined, ruins...

It is now what would be DAY5 and I have returned to Cusco. I am currently searching out the lady with the largest hands and forearms to massage the craziness out of my crinkles. I have also spent 2 hours describing a custom-made artifact that I wish to bring home as a gift to my friends. It will have the head of a monkey, the bones of a llama, the horns of a bull, and the feathers of a condor.

Picture Update 5!

Our driver and cook: Mom and Dad
Hot springs with the only other people within the 20,000 sq. km (total estimate) desert

Laguna Colorada and La Refugio in the background

Fergador Dali

Moonscapes and curious rock shapes

Desert Fox and isolation 5 km above sea level

A tribute to the fallen people of the land

Coral Island

Bolivians love Einstein

6 Easy Steps to Make a Supermodel Fall in Love with You

1. Grow a really terrible moustache. Due to side effects from Malaria Pills you will dream about it in a cop TV show and it will have an alias. Meet Daddylonglegs and Mr. Trifecta.

2. When you meet said model teach her your father´s favourite dance move. This is inevitably ¨Frying Bacon¨. Even if your father is Patrick Swayze. And definitely if it is Kevin Bacon. 3. Tell her how you have not bathed with soap in 2 and a half months and you don´t intend to for another 2, then invite her to smell you.4. Go to a party in the desert where all attendees are wearing amulets made of peyote. Meet a man who speaks like a troll and claims to be a wizard who died 21 years ago. His name will be Fernando and he will invite you to his circular house (and this fact is of great importance to him, for some reason) made of mud. He will try to introduce the two of you to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. (Don´t try the Peyote)

5. At this point she will kiss you. The order of this verbatim is of the utmost importance.
6. Tickle her feet as she is reading a book recommended to her by David Bowie as she is sunbathing in a Brazilian style bikini. Then flee 800 kilometers to the coast. She will follow.