Lessons Learned

I’m back at Surf Simply in Nosara.  I know this seems like a bit of a back track…It’s the last week of my adventure of a lifetime (well, 3 decades give or take, who knows how long this life will go), and I decide to go back to a place I’ve already been?  Seems a bit wimpy.  The thing is, I really, really like it here.  I probably never should have left.  But I told myself “You’ve only got a little bit of time left and you need to take advantage of it, why didn’t you book that flight to Argentina?” and “There is no way in hell your favorite surf school will be as good as it was the first week, it’s like trying to recapture your youth.  Don’t fool yourself.” So I went gallivanting off into the fricking rain forest, which was a mistake of gigantic proportions, but I’ll get to that.

Not to go too nutter over Surf Simply - you know I’m not the kind of person to be overly excited about very much outside of champagne and cheese, and those are two very special parts of life that deserve to be glorified.  Plus, of all the places I’ve gone the past couple of months, have I once mentioned a specific place to go to?  I might have recommended the Grand Canyon in general, but that’s a fricking national park.  So if you ever, ever have the chance.  Please come to Surf Simply.  And tell your friends about it, no matter age or athletic ability or even if you think surfing sounds ridiculous.  Just don’t tell any jerk face friends, because that would really suck. 

My fellow surfer Brad captured the Surf Simply experience in a more holistic and far less self absorbed way in his blog and he even has some pictures that prove that I surfed.  Here’s one too (I just can’t seem to shake this self absorption, must be the whole traveling alone for 2 months and writing about myself):

Out of self absorption and back to Surf Simply (and then back to me again) – the lovely folks here totally bailed me out of Yoga Bliss and the rain forest.   I can’t even blog much about the f___cking rain forest experience, mostly because of the aggressive cursing that it would require for an honest representation of my time there.  Also because I’m afraid I could get sued for libel or kicked off blogspot and I don’t want to invite that kind of negativity into my life.

I think Yoga Bliss could be the emotional low point of my travels so far.  Even outdoing my misery at the Genocide Museum and the Killing Fields.  But I also had an awful lot of time in the jungle to think about just how sad I was.   I realized I was coming from an unusually lovely existence to an eco lodge in a rain forest where I carefully wrapped myself in mosquito netting at night praying the snakes would get me before the yoga instructor.   And unlike the Genocide Museum and Killing Fields, I was stuck in the goddamned rain forest and had no way to leave. 

The only way to escape was a 30 minute boat ride that would cost $200 and, more importantly, involve a long, painful discussion with the manager to explain why Yoga Bliss caused me great misery.  And this is how it would go:  “I need to leave here because my yoga instructor is actually a landscape artist (he didn’t happen to mention that on his job application, did he?) and seems to think my goal of improving my balance will be achieved by jumping around like a monkey screaming Oooohh Ooooohh Aaaahhhhh Aaaaaahh and scratching my armpits.  And that makes me really uncomfortable.   I don’t care if you think that means I’m uptight - I probably am, but I’ve got bigger issues to deal with.  Plus I really hate snakes, spiders, frogs and especially the bats that were in my bathroom last night.  Did you put the Rodents of Unusual Size outside my door on purpose?  I know!  It doesn’t matter.  I should have anticipated hating the creepy animals in the rain forest, but how could I have known about the monkey yoga?  Can I please leave now?  I just want to go back to Nosara where things made sense and I was happy, even if I am a crap surfer.”

I wasn’t at the point where I was ready to support organizations that cut down rainforests and kidnapped Yogi’s, but it was touch and go there for a while.  If my pals at Surf Simply hadn’t saved me, I can’t say what would have happened.  Did I mention I was one of 3 people at the eco lodge yesterday?  One of them didn't speak English.  And the other one I didn’t want to talk to.  Try going from a crew of ridiculously smart and funny people to that and see how you handle it.  I’m relatively certain some fists would have been thrown.  I should have tried that.  Another lesson learned.