The best part about hitting the road looking for waves? When your world get turned upside down.
Remember the days of surf mag travel stories? Very congruous to an office memo regarding the proper procedure on how to write an office memo.
How many ways are there to describe a palm tree?
Bumpy road?
Gnarly locals?
Lots of wordage down a long road with an old description of a new wave.
The best parts were the flashes when things went wrong: a tranny surprise in Thailand, cartels in Colombia and so on.
Surfing does lead us down sordid alleys, but the stories are worth it.
True examples.
Spaniards love Moroccans: Flat surf in Cadiz caused by a NNE angled swell forced a rented car drive to Rabat where rumors of a sheltered right existed. While driving down a backroad at dusk, the car hit a Moroccan man of middle age.
Local villagers slowly surrounded the crash area.
Ambulance called.
Two hours pass with no response from the hit pedestrian or the ambulance.
Finally, the locals villagers insist it is ok to leave.
What about insurance and police reports? You are no longer in America my friends.
The car is returned to the Spanish rental agency.
When staff ask what happed to the car and you’re informed that the damages would have to be paid for, there is silence.
What happened?
Long pause.
We hit a Moroccan…
The Spaniard places two hands firmly on the driver’s shoulders and stares straight through him … Is he dead?… A pause, then louder, IS HE DEAD?
I think he’s dead…..
The cheers of euphoria from the car rental staff rivaled that of World cup soccer match. A blush fermented sherry paired perfectly with an aged manchego for the celebration was passed around.
“ONE LESS MAUROCINO IN OUR LAND!!!!!!
The debt of the car damages paid for in Berber flesh….
Mexico double swap: A six-foot Mexican beachbreak. A lazy duck dive ruptures a leash. Board washes to shore. An altruistic local man fishes it from the shorebreak. The surfer swims to shore. Local man asks for the surfer’s rash guard. Says he needs it for lobster diving. The surfer give it to him.
The local reciprocates with marijuana rolled up in newspaper.
Surfer declines, local insists.
The surfer, with weed, walks ten steps around the rocks to find two policemen waiting for him. Cuffs pulled out and about to be placed on wrists. Surfer has visions of Mexican jail time. Gang. Rape.
The surfer offer to pay a fine on the spot. It is accepted.
Ten steps around the next corner reveals the same cops and philanthropic local exchanging confiscated weed and splitting the bribe.
All three look at the surfer, smile, wave and continue with transaction.
Surfer waves back happy in the knowledge that his culo will remain, unharmed, at for tonight for the simple fee of forty Americano dollars.
(Almost) Stoned in Port Said: Surf wise, February in Egypt will surprise you. That said, back roads in port Said reveal even bigger revelations, like having your girlfriend wear long pants and sleeves.
A quest for Egyptian cotton sheets lead to winding open corridors of paved brick down ‘streets’ that are three feet wide. One turn leads to another to another till you’re spinning like a top.
You finally see the souk in the distance and walk toward it down a tidy residential street.
Windows slowly open, raised voices seem like they are directed at you, but you continue, ignoring them.
More windows open, the voices are louder, now definitely meant for you.
Nervous, you continue.
Finally a cab flies around the quiet street and stops abruptly just for you.
“GET IN NOW!” screams the driver. HURRY!!”
By now, you realize the screams and gyrating fists are definitely meant for you.
In the cab, the driver reveals a back street Port Said secret: “Yes, we are a modern country, but some traditions hold strong. They were about to stone you because your wife was revealing too much.”
The girlfriend could care less about the near bludgeoning because she has just been called a wife…
And you?
This was is my late uncle’s story:
Dave was a hairy hippy, more a 70’s panel vans and spit the winkle type guy than true hippy, but still a bit of a mung bean, he used to eat brown rice and veg and die his hair with henna, body hair and all. He only had two boards, a 7′ 6″ and a 8′ 4″, both pin tailed guns; he charged.
Again, we were in North Sumatra, this time in Bukit Lawang, the orangutan sanctuary, and he decides to go skinny dipping in the river. He’s swimming away when an orangutan came along and stole his clothes. He sees this, jumps out and chases it through the jungle. He catches up to the orangutan who turns around, gives him his clothes back and gives him a hug.
So … picture this … two naked, orange, hairy men of the forest hugging it out in deepest, darkest Sumatra. Truly a moment for inter-species love, it still brings a tear to the eye.
Best article in any for ages.
Chas/Derek:
Hire this guy already
Thanks brah,,, the check is in the mail …😉
It better be from Chas to you Bru
Back in the early ’80s I bought and smoked a pack of horse shit cigarettes while visiting Tijuana.
They were mild and slightly sweet, horse shit mind you, not mule turds, I have standards.
prob too late for anyone to read but F it I’ll play. was deep in the middle of nowhere in Mexico. Always saw this wave on the map and knew it had potential but it looked like a three to four mile beach hike to get there or a possible shorter hike along the side of a lake at the end of this road. Opted for the lagoon but when we arrived at the dirt road it had a locked gate. Started driving to the beach hike and this guy comes running out saying wait I have a key for that gate…..OK. So I get the key, unlock it, bring the key back and the guy says some guys are actually building a restaurant at the end of the road on the lake. Whatever. Head down this “road” which is manageable without 4×4 but pretty sketchy and the minivan bottoms out a couple times.
Get to the lake and indeed they are building a restaurant. One of the workers says it will take about an hour to walk all the way around the lake to the beach …hey why don’t you give this guy 100 pesos and he will row you and your boards to the beach? So this teenager rows myself and my wife about 20 minutes in seriously blazing heat through the lake to the beach. We walk over the dunes and it is just heaving beach break close outs. Solid 3xOH and not surfable. But the point I was eyeing was about a kilo down the beach. Jogged down there to see what was happening and it looked like shite just not working. Was about to give when a set swings and it’s unreal. Barrel to 100 yard wall starting on the rocks but ending on sand.
Perfectly top to bottom almost too sketchy but not. Too big for the wife I surf for and hour and a half total magazine conditions….truly unreal. Wind comes up right when we agree for the boaty to come back. hop back in the canoe. Get back to the restaurant and give the kid 300 cause he worked his ass off and I was feeling it. About to leave when one of the workers says hey can you fit anybody in your van we we’re going to have to walk back. She says we can fit three…..we already had four boards in the minivan. So ALL of them just pile in. 9 people. In a minivan with so seats and four surfers and us. 11 people. The grandpa is just sitting right on all the boards as well as a kid. We bottomed out so many times and I ended up with a massive hole in my favorite board but all good that’s what travelings about. Eventually found a pinhole in my gas tank as well which I’m sure happened there. Such is life valio la pena.
Anyone can do coke in the bathroom. I once rolled and smoked a joint in one of the jaco discotheques. quick hitter – we all got a couple tokes. the security guys were tripping looking around for who was smoking. this was 25 years ago.
My mate was murdered in Bali about 10 years ago. Local cops weren’t interested.
I got peed on by a monkey once.
I got sexually assaulted by a monkey once.
He had soft hands.
Does the one where you forget your wetsuit at home and spend the rest of the day grumpy count?
I like to tell you a good surf story, but then I’d have to kill you.
Yes, back in the day…. Everybody in the whole cell block, was dancing to the Jailbait Rock…
With their Rings of Fire.
Let me tell yall bout a boy named Sue..
so…barely legal, then?
…hopes are up for a trousers down with the hostess on the business flight..
[Can I say they don’t write ’em like that any more?]
Or sing em
I was living in Hong Kong and while strolling in an underground tunnel I bumped into Lady gaga.
I said hey Stephanie what’s up with the poker face?
She smiled and said wow that’s actually original.
Then I said
I was born that way, laterz…
She watched me walk away for a very long time my girlfriend said.
how did she know? did she walk backwards or did you just leave her in the tunnel with gaga and she phoned you later to tell you?
She kept looking back
Oh yep of course..you may never love again though..
It would have been a bad romance.
And now the girlfriend is my wife.
And we all lived happily ever after.
To make sure you weren’t following her?
Yes, yes, yes !
If the bullongbenongabong x muttalicka vid can be played over and over,
then I can repost this for the 10th time. Re: Lady Gags
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
I reckon we’re due a re-run of Dognuts’ ‘Rendezvous with a grand piano’ from a few years back
Awwww shucks. xox
I’m all for the good surf travel adventure. Like the one where I tried a different ‘local’ travel agent to book a flight to Sumbawa for a trip with a mate on his first trip overseas. I’ was on a uni exchange and looking forward to catching up with a mate. Asked him to bring some cheese, as I was missing it. He brought a fucking kilo of Kraft processed cheese; the kind wrapped in alfoil. The only kind of cheese available in Indo.
He was looking forward to getting out of the madhouse of Bali. The preceding days had him enjoying an 8′ set on the head at Uluwatu, after getting stuffed in a hole in the reef on the way out. Getting threatened by a motorbike rider in case of mistaken identity and slamming his head into a smaller doorway than he was used to. For whatever reason, we ended up having a few too many beers the night before our 6am flight, leaving us with two hours of sleep. To avoid travelling with too bad a hangover, we mixed some pseudo-ephedrine with something else available over the counter and took off.
Arrived in Sumbawa Besar, instead of Bima, which meant instead of a two hour trip to ‘The Peak’, we had a 6 hour trip. Whatever. Jagged a bemo and headed off. About 30 mins out of town, the guy pulls over, ducks under the car and says ‘the cars stuffed, I can’t go any further. But no worries, there’s a bus going that way coming soon’. The bus comes around the corner 2 mins later and there’s no room inside, so me and my mate get put on the roof. It’s a bit hairy at first, but you get used to it. Until the bus starts crossing the mountain ranges and your staring over the edge of 200′ ravines and/or you see where previous accidents have occurred with the gaps in the fence and gouges out of the fields as whatever vehicle has tried to pull up struggles down the slippery slopes. And it starts raining.
Got there, surf was pumping, had some fun. But even better was getting back to Sumbawa Besar, running into old mate who had shafted us with the bemo and getting a refund from him. He was a bit reluctant about that, but through a bit of knowledge of the lingo, and a bit of support from the crowd of 50 who were interested in the proceedings, managed to turn the local copper on to our way of seeing things. Probably the only time ‘bules’ got out of there with more money in their pockets than the locals planned.
I’d rather be on the roof of that bus with a 200′ ravine that close. At least you’d have a chance to jump if it veers off into the ravine. Everyone dies, but there’s no reason to rush there.
Great story Lemon!
It’s fun being the guy sitting at the back of the bus looking forward when you’re on the roof, cause your friend sitting forward looking back can’t see the palm tree branches before they hit him.
My first trip to that “Peak” half of our boards got smashed up beyond repair by a low tree branch while on top of one of those buses!!
Boardbag ok, but my 6’9″ Mt Woodgee 6 channel gun in three pieces.
I did a three day roof top trip, sitting on rice sacks, through central North Sumatra. Jungles so thick you couldn’t see a metre into, fresh tiger prints behind the losmen, banchong villages and fireflies, and towns heavy with Kompasses troops and locals with long lists of ‘missing’ people. Best way to travel through Indo!
Pretty much my first experience of living in Java in 1999 was seeing the town in lock down because the local soccer team were playing. Not necessarily Kopassus level, but thousands of troops roaming the streets armed with AK-47s. Heavy stuff. Specially as I had to get around a few places to locate a phone to tell my parents I was ‘safe’. It’s a different world, and a bus roof is a different view of that world.
I’m sure there was at least one Egyptian surfer in that mob who thought to himself that you should be stoned for bringing the wife on a surf trip, that said.
They are much more polite in the UAE. My wife used to turn up at the local ‘public’ beach and all the local families would pack up and go to the other end. Just because she was wearing an Aussie flag bikini. The best part was all the kids (male) hanging out the windows getting a last look in as they drove off.
I get the same reaction when I wear my bikini here.
Sorry, but that’s left me with a terrible mental picture of your Wife
Settle down. As an ex-pat, we were a bit different from the boganeers back home. She looked fine.
A rookie mistake indeed.. and an infraction worthy of a stoning ….
I found the hashish in Egypt to be stunningly stoning.
It makes you feel strong enough to fight the sphinx…… or fall asleep in front of it …..
I’ve told this story here before, but it deserves a revisit.
In Egypt for biz when Mubarak was still in power. At the pyramids with architect who was restoring Giza plateau to how it looked prior to WWII. 500 yards in front of Sphinx was strip of store fronts. While he was laser surveying the area, he laser surveyed from eyes of Sphinx to a KFC 500 yards in front which by naked eye looked remarkably in line of sight. The laser survey revealed zero change to either the horizontal or vertical planes between the eyes of the Sphinx and the eyes of Colonel Sanders. They’re eyes were locked in a epic ancient vs. modern staring Contest. Neither willing to blink.
The architect razed that KFC.
No biscuit volley retaliation from The Colonel ???
That was a time when Egypt still controlled middle east policy amongst the nations in that region. Hell, we had a letter from Egypt’s Minister of Culture demanding we be given access to Khufu’s burial chamber. That letter got the two guards, both armed with AK-47’s and a Khopesh concealed underneath their man jammies, to back down. Even the Colonel’s 11 herbs and spices couldn’t refute that all who stood before us were to step aside.
KFC copycat: 2 cups flour (250 g)
2 teaspoons salt, ½ tablespoon dried thyme, ½ tablespoon dried basil, 1 teaspoon dried oregano, 1 teaspoon celery salt,
½ tablespoon black pepper, 1 tablespoon mustard powder, 2 tablespoons paprika, 2 tablespoons garlic salt, 1 tablespoon powdered ginger, 1 tablespoon white pepper
Why, you ask. Why post this ?
Coz Bicko !
and yes, that is 11 different herbs ‘n Spices.
James is well and truly the soul of the People™. Feeding knowledge to fill our cupboards with 11 verbs & spice girls. Knowledge ancient, sound and seemingly unfound till laid here to feast upon.
Seeing that you’re a past recipient of a Bickerton I would expect nothing less than kind words.
That Bickerton still adorns my barn board fire mantel. Right next to the Participation Trophy my wife awarded me.
At least you got that out of her. I can’t even get the “Showed Up but Did Nothing Useful to Help Trophy.” Though Bex say she’ll give me a trophy.
Good one, btw