Munich To Panama

Panama’s signature, world class, surf break is Santa Catalina, but up until a year ago you couldn’t even buy a block of wax in town. There was no surf shop. Now, Catalina has a surf shop and it’s run by 2 German girls, Elli & Patricia.

Their story is so cool, I had to write about it. They are from the same town in Germany, Munich, but they met in Panama were they were learning to surf and living in paradise. When it came time to go home they didn’t want the dream to end, so they started a surf shop.

That was a big move for 2 girls who knew nothing about the surf industry, had no connections or know-how on running a shop, couldn’t speak Spanish and were only learning to surf, but they did it and did it in style. Now they have half a day to surf, everyday, only open when they like, are their own bosses and are living the surfers dream.

Playa Gigante, Nicaragua

Right now I am living in Playa Gigante, It is a very villagey kind of beach town, in Nicaragua. Their are about 50 families that live in Gigante, but in reality it is only 4 big extended families, in 50 different houses.

We are running a surf shop in a building owned by Orlando. We share a bathroom with the next door neighbours, who are Orlandos relations (we still have not worked out how) and they share a kitchen with the restaurant across the street, but not how you would think. The restaurant has no kitchen, Carlos, Orlando's son, still gets his mum to cook for him, and all his customers, but in her own kitchen. This sort of neighbourly relations are normal in Gigante.

I have added Gigante to the HostelTrail map.

Shoes

I have spent the past year searching for the greenest travel shoe possible. I arrived in Peru with a pair of hiking boots and very old Chuck Taylor One-Stars. Neither of which were particular eco-friendly choices in footwear. They were just the shoes I had in my cupboard, thus using them avoided unnecessary consumerism (Not buying is better than buying, even if you are purchasing the latest “eco” model outdoor shoes).

This search for clean, green, earth friendly footwear that is easy to pack and looks OK with most of my clothes has lead me to sell the hiking boots that were too heavy, socially awkward and only actually necessary about 2% of the time; spend too many idle hours drooling over the latest model of Patagonia footwear, only to realise it is entirely pointless buying an eco-friendly product shipped internationally; embarrass my girlfriend and amuse the local people by being shoe-less for weeks, and finally I came around to admiring the poorest guy in the markets sandals.

Why the shoes of the dirty guy with matted hair and smelly clothes? Well, they are locally made out of recycled car tyres, hand stitched roughly but still no glue is used to hold them together and they will last longer than a really long time. You can’t fault the dirty guy on his environmentally conscience choice of foot protection, nor me since I bought these in Colombia.

Eventually I couldn’t help myself, and in Costa Rica, I took a hacksaw to a tyre and bought some leather straps to come up with these.

Now I wear them everywhere, or go bare-feet.

Outside The Hostel Door

A sea of voices fill the air, chatter and clatter, fruit and dreams. Hay piña, Hay piña, Hay piña y sal, nasal and piercing.

Bananas piled high sandbag their sellers in, creating, an oasis of yellow and brown blotchiness; separation from the mess and chaos on the street.

Pink lace-frilled apron, faded and dulled by yesterday’s dirt, hold coins exchanged for oranges, onions and limes. Maybe pink-lace frilled apron does not have any lime trees. Maybe all she has is 3 children and worries. She need not worry, humans are resourceful, kids especially. The fruit that appears in their pockets at the end of each day playing helps them grow and lets her earn some dough.

A grey neatly trimmed moustache sits atop firmly pressed, down-turned lips, like a gecko on a basalt grey crack in the wall. A gecko, shaded by a New York baseball cap and framed by bare sinewy, brown arms, far stronger than mine.

This is life. This is Nicaragua, outside the hostel door.

Chocolate

A very brief history of chocolate.

The Mayans were the first people in history to figure out the complicated, 5-step process involved in transforming cacao seeds into chocolate. They realised if you remove the seeds from the fruit, ferment, sun dry, roast , winnow, grind and then mix them in hot water you have a delicious, energising drink – the world’s first hot chocolate. The Mayans liked their hot chocolate bitter, with maybe a little cinnamon, but no sweetener.

When the Aztecs came down from the north and took over the Mayan lands they discovered the Mayan’s beloved hot coco. The Aztecs soon demanded their newly conquered subjects pay taxes in the form of cacao beans. Rather like children "I beat you up once, if you don't give me your lollies I will beat you again." Back in the Aztec capital cacao was an expensive imported product and was only consumed by royalty, and the priesthood. The Aztecs preferred their chocolate as a cold, unsweetened drink, sometimes with a dash of chili.

Enter the Spaniards and their quest to bring new lands into the embrace of the church. The conquistadors held the Aztec royalty hostage and demanded all their wealth and treasure, or else a beheading was in order. They were presented with (among other items) sacks of dried cacao beans. The Aztecs were beheaded and the cacao shipped back to Spain. It was the Spanish who were not so fond of the bitter taste and mixed the ground cacao with sugar cane juice, giving birth to chocolate as we know it today.

I learnt all this on a visit to ChocoMuseo, in Granada. Here in Nicaragua they like their hot chocolate as a mix of roast maize, roast cacao and sugar, called Pinolillo.

I would love to write an in-depth article on chocolate if any editor is interested.

Nicaragua

We crossed from Costa Rica into Nicaragua and I have to say I am stoked about the move. It's true!, the wind really does blow off-shore every day in Nicaragua.

First stop San Juan del Sur. It's a little touristy, but chilled enough that I don't mind. One bad point is there is no surf within walking distance from town. One good point is the the sunsets; spellbinding displays of natures ability to paint with more colour than a human can name.

To read my HostelTrail entry about Nicaragua see below .

http://www.hosteltrail.com/ca/nicaragua/sanjuandelsur/

http://www.hosteltrail.com/hostelesperanza/

BocasTravel.com

Bocas del Toro is Panama's Caribbean surfing paradise. We thought we would maybe spend a week or two there but ended up staying over a month. On one island they spoke English but with a Jamacian accent from a particular neighbourhood (ghetto) in Kingston. It was easier to understand their Spanish.

We contributed a couple of articles to a local travel website called BocasTravel.com. To read them follow links below

http://bocastravel.com/bicycle-riding-in-bocas

http://bocastravel.com/visiting-up-in-the-hill-on-bastimentos-island

HOSTELTRAIL.COM

HostelTrail.com is an online travel guide used by independent travellers in Latin America. It covers accommodation and tour operators at the rice and beans end of the budget spectrum.

The website was set up to provide a platform for the promotion of small, independent, and locally operated businesses, in Central and South America. However, it’s not exclusive and will include any business offering services in the price range of its users i.e. backpacker.

There are plenty of hostel websites around, Hostel Trail differentiates itself by having all its content written by real travelers who have stayed in the hostel or taken the tour, that’s our job. I am now a contributing writer to the guide and Alicia works with me taking photos so beautiful you probably won’t believe they are the cheap places.

As we make our way north from Panama to Mexico we will be adding hostels and the odd tour company to Hosteltrail.com. Here are a few links to our work:

http://www.hosteltrail.com/hibiscusgarden/

http://www.hosteltrail.com/oasissurfcamp/

http://www.hosteltrail.com/boardershaven/

Otra Cosa

Otra Cosa, is Spanish, it translates literally as another thing. It is the name of the volunteer agency I volunteered through in Peru. Their name Otra Cosa refers to another way of doing things, another way of living, another way of interacting with your fellow humans and of viewing the world. For me it meant another compost pile.

Follow this link to read my entry on the Volunteer Blog

http://otracosanetwork.blogspot.com/2010/12/slo-la-educacin-salvara-al-peru-how_09.html.

30 Days in Chugchilán

Chugchilán is a typical village in the Ecuadorian Andes, a lot goes on, but nothing happens*. All the men wear gumboots and all the women wear colourful shawls. There are plenty of cute, grubby faced kids and almost as many animals in town, as people. There is a town square, lined by a church, and a volleyball court. Sunday is market day. The rest of the week the atmospheric comings and goings of clouds comprise the majority of local traffic.

Thirty days in Chugchilán is a collaborative project between Alicia and me, Photographer and Writer. For the next month I plan to take a daily walk into town, with a few scraps of paper, and a pencil. I’ll sit down and record what happens. Alicia will record visual impressions of Chugchilán, in her own photographic way.

I will publish our daily efforts on a separate page of this blog. Alicia will be posting an additional photographic journal on her blog. I invite you to follow us, as we become acquainted with a small dot on the map in Latin America.
* yes that is a line from a Ben Lee song

The Cold Water Issue

Lately I have been wondering, “Was it wise retiring my old wetsuit?” (see my first blog entry). It served me well and now, I have abandoned it to a cupboard in Queensland, while I am off surfing Peru.
Maybe my wetty is quietly chuckling in that warm cupboard, thinking “well Jim may be the one with something above the neckline but he sure didn’t realise what the Humboldt Current meant”.
The Humboldt Current begins downs in the Antarctic and then sweeps icy cold water up the western side of the Pacific Ocean. It dominates the coast of Chile and Peru with cold water conditions that would make a polar bear smile and wimpy travelling surfer wonder “was it wise retiring my old wetsuit?”
The truth is that before I came to Peru, I did read something about a current called Humboldt but spent most of my research time dreaming of endlessly peeling left hand point breaks. I didn’t actually cognitise that this current would mean water so cold that after 30 minutes surfing I would get out shivering uncontrollably and cursing my numb, fumbling limbs for failing me on every wave.
I love where we now live. Huanchaco is a small, dusty, surf town, on the edge of the desert with a series of left-hand breaks and not many surfers. But god it’s cold water. On the up side short surfs give me more time to learn Español.

BROWN'S FIELD - AN ORGANIC OASIS

Brown's Field was one of our favorite places to visit when we lived in Ichinomia. It's such an idyllic place. I'd go as far as to recommend anyone travelling to Japan, skip Tokyo! And head straight to Brown's Field from Narita. Then if you don't have the impulse to sit right down and stay (which you may well do) take a day trip to Tokyo and the rest of Japan.

This article appeared in the November issue of the Tokyo Weekender. Click here to read the article.

A PAGE IN TRACKS MAGAZINE

We have a full page in "the surfer's bible".

The observations in this piece where made at the beginning of our time living and surfing in Ichinomiya, Chiba Ken, Nippon. A copy of the article text is below if you feel like a read.

Surf culture in Japan is unique. Essentially it’s surfing, and like anywhere in the world they get up early and ride waves. It’s similar to Australia, but it’s not the same, Japan definitely has its’ own take on surfing.

I live in a small coastal town, about two hours from Tokyo. For many Tokyo surfers it’s their best option for a wave. It can get pretty crowded on Sundays but the crowd makes for an entertaining day, as long as I don’t join them in the sardine packed line-up.

When I walk along the beach I can tell where everyone paddled out by the lines of neatly paired thongs. Japanese people love footwear. They have inside shoes, outside shoes, toilet room shoes and rarely go bare foot. They wear thongs right to the beaches edge. Its classic – there are always rows of thongs on the beach patiently awaiting the return of their surfing masters.

Thongs are just the beginning of a vanload of equipment. The Japanese surf kit is extensive. Here, the basics extend well beyond a board and wax.

When they pay $2000 for a board (and they do) they’re not going to put it in the dirt and gravel. Everyone carries their own, portable, board racks. These are knee high, padded, A-frame stands and the car parks are full of them. The board is carefully laid wax down on the rack, given a thorough fresh water rinse, then towel dried. Some people even take the fins out every surf, before carefully sliding the board back into its cover and up on the cars internal board racks.

Then it’s on to the shower. There’s no need to go anywhere though, the Japanese surf mobile has a fresh water shower in the boot. All that needs to be done is turn on the little electric pump and rinse down with the hand held surfing shower. If for some reason they forgot the shower, no problem, surf shops and even some 7 Elevens will have an outside shower for surfers to use.

The next phase of the post surf ritual is taking off the wetty. For this the Japanese carry a few really practical things - coat hangers, a nice big tub and a beach towel poncho. They stand in the tub and take their wetsuit off, then hang it up on the car. Many surf vans come factory standard, with a hook or bar in the tailgate for hanging up wetsuits. This is typical of the Japanese methodical approach to surfing.

The beach towel poncho is also typically Japanese, you wouldn’t get away with it anywhere else in the world. It looks like a big, soft, floppy, towelling sack, with a hood and arms. This is thrown over the top of their wetsuit and then they change underneath without getting cold or exposing any pasty, white bits. Sounds functional and you might be forgiven for considering getting one, but they are all made in bright colours like pink or even multi-coloured poker dots (I’m not kidding). Somehow, even the relatively trendy looking guys get around in these without a hint of shame.

Japanese surfers are pretty dedicated. The city surfer, down for the day, is on a surf, eat, surf, sleep and surf again mission. And they sleep all over the place. I’ve come across dudes asleep in the car park on banana lounges, camping chairs or even in a starfish pose on the sand. Often, I see a car parked, with the engine running, air-con or heater on and two guys fast asleep inside. It’s not eco-friendly but you have to respect their dedication.

You can tell a lot about the average wave size here by the way waves are measured. It’s done by body parts - knee high, waist high and so on. Add to this that the average Japanese surfer is shorter than the average Australian and you’ll get an idea of the general swell size. Most days I can get a surf report by simply pointing to a body part. But if it’s a typhoon, it can get big. Then there are only two size categories - overhead and double overhead.

Although the surf’s busy, I can still get waves. For some uniquely Japanese reasons surfing amongst the crowd is not a stressful thing (Sundays excluded).

If there is one thing Aussies could learn from Japan I’d like it to be this. There is a general respect, almost priority, given to harmony in line-up and other surfers. It manifests in little courtesies, like, if there is a chance you are in someone’s way, they will cut their wave short to avoid you and check to make sure you’re okay. If you follow this same custom they will give you a small head bow to say thank you. Also, if you paddle for a wave and someone has just seen you make a few they won’t hassle you. Instead they just go over the back and line up for the next one. On the one occasion I have been dropped in on the guy made a point of paddling up to me and apologising. Small things like this give the line-up a hassle free vibe. It’s a good feeling to be a thousand miles form home and know I can paddle out and easily get a wave.

JETSTAR MAGAZINE: A YEN FOR SURFING

The September in-flight magazine for Jetstar has an article on surfing Niijima Island, by us. It's an amazing island to visit, great waves and a island time all of its own, a unique corner of Japan.

HANAMI ESSAY IN THE AUSTRALIAN

I was inspired to write this essay after experiencing a cherry blossom season in Tokyo.

To read it, follow the link to The Australian website.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25993988-5013925,00.html

OUTDOOR JAPAN ARTICLE

This article was published in the July/August 2009 issue of Outdoor Japan. As you can see one of Alicia's images of me, looking rather tired and travel weary, made the cover.

The article can be read online by following the link below.

http://www.outdoorjapan.com/contents/current_issue/1246369918/1251126117?language=english

ARTICLE IN THE AUSTRALIAN

This Friday's (11th September) copy of the 'The Australian' will have an article by me and photos by Alicia in the travel section. The article was inspired by our first week in Japan and the fervour with which the Japanese love to party while the cherry blossoms bloom.