Don’t Be a Burro
Surf Failures and a Man with a Mustache
“Si te veo surfeando de nuevo, te llevaré al medio del océano en mi bote y romperé tu tabla por la mitad. Vete a la verga.” — Señor Angry Lifeguard a couple days ago.
Ya go ahead and put that in Google Translate and see what pops up. The last sentence? ‘Get the fuck outta here’.
The beaches are shut down here on the beautiful coastline of Oaxaca, and I can hear the waves as I write. What an immaculate tease.
Ya I’m pissed about it, ya I respect the police, ya I understand how serious the situation is and want to do my part, but holy shit it’s bizarre not being able to use the Pacific Ocean.
Story Time
The last 4 out 5 times I surfed, I was asked to get out of the water.
The first time was quite comical.
About a week ago, Pedro and I took a few taxis to get to Cerro Hermoso to catch a boat to Chacahua. We showed up at the very moment the municipal police showed up who told the boat driver that they could no longer take foreigners to the village.
We were bummed, but knew of wave nearby. We walked to it, found a hotel to stay at and happily surfed alone after crushing some bolis :)
Just before sunset, I took off way to late, steep, and deep on a wave and damn near hit the jetty. When I surfaced, already somewhat in a panic, I heard my name being yelled frantically which added to my frazzled state. I located the sound and it’s the hotel owner yelling and waving his arms saying something that I couldn’t quite understand.
Confused, we continued surfing until dark.
When we got back to the hotel, the owner told us that the police came by and demanded the surfers to go home.
We showered, I ate another bolis, Pedro drank a Corona, and we left.
Another Fail or Two
A few days ago, after our session got cut short by the local police once again, Pedro and I got an invitation to head a few hours south to go find supposed beautiful, pumping, right-handed, sand-bottomed, empty point-break with a local surf guide who was losing his mind after spending a couple weeks en casa. Naturally, we dropped everything we were doing (nothing) and agreed to get on the road.
The drive south was spent day-dreaming in anticipation of every surfer’s dream — uncrowded perfect waves. What a beautiful opportunity this virus was going to bring forth!
However, these daydreams were rudely interrupted by multiple city police checkpoints in which we’d make up some bs story of why we had boards and a gringo in the backseat.
We (somehow) made it through each checkpoint and finally arrived to the cutout in the road that would lead us to the promised land of waves.
About 100 meters into the cutout, we arrived at a rope that was strung between two trees and a local contingent of maybe 7 people.
Without hesitation, they denied us access to the beach. We argued briefly by namedropping and explaining how we were going to camp and surf only, but this failed and we retreated to devise another plan.
To be honest, I had no clue what our plan was as I must’ve missed something in Español, but I just carried my life motto of “it’d be aight” and proceeded to eat a mango and chill.
Maybe 20 minutes later, 2 guys and a surfboard came from the blocked road. About a minute after they showed up, the 7 or so people from the rope in the road showed up clearly displeased by our presence.
After some heated Spanish words were exchanged along with some fantastic stink-eyes, it was clear that we had to get the hell out of there. So the now 5 of us piled into a tiny car that was already packed with boards, and the hunt for waves continued.
We pulled up to countless roads and small villages, each of which were barricaded with whatever residents of the community could find including tires, rocks, branches, children, and dirt.
I wholeheartedly believed that we were going to find a place to set up camp, but as the hours dragged on and the phone calls kept leading to dead ends, my hope dwindled. I didn’t care how long we had to walk, I just wanted to be able to surf the next day!
We called it quits after attempting to go to literally every beach the surf guide knew about.
The decision to drive back home after already driving for at least 5 hours brought about an absolutely disgusting feeling.
Maybe I’m blind to the crisis of the situation, I’m not sure, but I know there would have been zero harm done from us setting up camp, sleeping, waking up, surfing, eating canned tuna, hunting a mango, napping, waking up, playing sudoku, surfing, eating, sleeping, and repeating said sequence.
Ya I get it, why would we deserve to pass and other people not? But the real question is, who owns the Pacific Ocean?
The Underlying Weirdness of It All
These are unprecedented times. Lately, when I meet people, I feel obligated to say tell them I’ve been here (Puerto Escondido) for 3 weeks and in Mexico for 80 days to calm their nerves about the virus.
But woah, look at this. I presume that these people are scared of me or are judging me because I might be bringing the virus in, before they even open their covered mouth!
There’s a larger lesson here.
How often are our assumptions about what other people are thinking affect the way we think and act? Really think about this for a second. To what extent is prejudice brought upon because of the victim’s assumptions?
Ya I’ll never forget Mrs. Hoerster, my high-school geometry teacher and the popular aphorism she shared with the class for first words that came out of her mouth, “Don’t ASSUME, because it makes an ASS out of U and ME”.
I’ve never felt the way I’ve felt these last few days here. I feel a little out of place and un-welcomed at times.
But am I actually un-welcomed or is this something that only lives in my head and I project on to the people I come across?
Story Time — The Burro
Today we took off before sunrise to attempt to find a place to surf. We Google-Mapped a spot or two and left in the morning with low expectations (always necessary).
And guess what… We got rejected multiple times! Stoked! Well not stoked at all. The gatekeepers of the last small village we checked kindly denied our passage to their precious waves and told us of another spot to try.
Slightly bummed out, we retreated and parked the car on the road and took in our surroundings. I climbed a mango tree and Pedro stared out into the papaya orchard until the burro made his “Heee-HAWWW!!!” sound or whatever the heck a burro says. We walked over, filmed and hung out with the burro and his horse friends for a few minutes until a motorcycle approached.
We turned around to see the motorcycle approaching us slowly, ridden by a middle-aged Mexican man with a giant machete (and mustache) on his side. And of course, I give him the “Hola!”.
He returned the “Hola, buenos dias” and Pedro and I got back to talking while he just sat there. After finishing our thought, we turned back and engaged in conversation with him.
To be honest, I was a little nervous. I thought that maybe this is his burro, papayas, caballos, and mangos and he didn’t want us foreigners coming anywhere near it, especially now.
But no, I was wrong. We just started talking in a friendly/funny conversation led by Pedro. We joked about not being able to ever surf anymore and something about the donkey. He rode off with a smile and I turned around, looked at the burro, and now I’m writing to you with a lesson I learned.
I assumed a bit. I put thoughts into this guy’s head before he opened his mouth, which therefore affects how I would’ve talked to him.
To some extent, these thoughts and quick judgments I made are programmed into us from culture and maybe a deeper level in the DNA like the fight or flight reflex or tribal instinct.
Either way, the thoughts are there and as he sped away on his motorcycle I turned around and I saw myself in the donkey (ASS).
After hanging out for a while, we hopped back in the car, went down the road the guys told us about, found an empty beach with no police, got pounded by shore break, then sat and burned for a while. Oh, and on the way out, nice people gave us free mangos, which made my day. Gracias amigos!!!
Food for Thought
I’ve now had two encounters with the policia at 2am on the beach, and I’ve managed to not pay a fine or go to jail yet. This goes counter to all the stories I’ve been told about bribes etc. I wonder how much of this is because I wasn’t defensive, I didn’t assume anything, and well.. I didn’t have any drugs either.
How often does our non-verbal communication affect the way people treat us, especially in a cross-cultural or status situation? How can being defensive be harmful?
What cultural narratives do you have, positive or negative?
It’s hard not to assume prejudices.
Most importantly, don’t assume you suck or can’t get the chica/o or the new job because that’ll manifest itself into reality.
Well, like everything, it gets back to being in the now. Assuming will hinder your ability to accurately see the situation.
Thanks Geometry.
Adieu- Paul
