Archive for the 'Travel' Category
Puert Viejo, Costa Rica. What is normal?
Random flashback to the Summer. Normal.
This skinny local dude was standing barefoot grinning, with nothing but board shorts and his short surfboard on the edge of Puerto viejo thumbing a lift. Since we were heading down to go surf we stopped to cram him and his board into the trunk of our tiny 4×4 car for the 10minute drive along the potholed dirt track to Coccles. He was a friendly fellow, and we got chatting as we drove. I had broken my board the day before and when we arrived he ended up helping me replace one of the two fins I lost (they only had one). He then taped up a ding in the board with electric tape before using a lighter to melt the plastic tape a bit to seal it, after which it was almost as good as new. We gave him a lift and he helped me fix my board. sweet. He told me he ‘Normally‘ surfs at least 5 hours every day and he had done his whole life….
…later….some guy from Oregon is in the room next to us with his girfriend and since we shared a balcony we get to chatting. “What do you think of Puerto Viejo we ask him?” we ask him. “Well, I don’t know what you guys normally eat, but we normally eat hamburgers” he replied, “and the hamburgers here have ham on them. Like actual slices of ham on top of the burger”. He was a big man, sitting there sweating without his shirt on and he didn’t look impressed.
Normal is a fairly abstract concept.
Motocross des Nations 2009, Franciacorta -Italy
Just got back from the Motocross of Nations in Italy. There was some brilliant racing between Reed and Cairoli and there were some massive crashes in the final. Knackered right now after the weekend and a 5 hour drive, but here are a few photos I shot with my little Panasonic DMC-T27 point and shoot. More later.
Musquin owned all on the first day on his KTM and took the MX2 overall for the weekend.
Reed and Cairoli were swapping the lead back and forth but the Italian Cairoli came out on top at his home race to the cheers of the Italian crowd
There was a massive double step-up on the track. Not many people were doing the double to start with.
Cairoli was. Laying it flat.
Spot the rider. That’s a seriously big jump!
Jake Weimer
Tommy Searle above the crowds. There were 70 000 people there apparently on the Sunday.
London tan
Had to hop over to the UK for a few days for work and managed catch up with my sister Cla one evening and some other peeps which was nice as we don’t see each other much.
The weather was well hot in the Uk for this time of year.
More photos later.
My sister Cla and her friends Sarah and Sarah
this dude busted me taking his photo I think, although camera was in the same spot as the shot above.. Got a brilliant zoom on it..
home alone, missing the wifey!
Mash has been one of my favo(u)rite shops in London for about 20 years..
San Clemente and a few others
San Clemente is a really nice small surf town about an hour south of L.A. We stopped for breakfast.
The waves looked perfect
Just outside of Oceanside we saw these fools. American History X is bleak as hell.
So many empty stores along Melrose.
I was considering getting a snowboard jacket at the Burton store, but it was over 100 degrees so after trying one on I was overheating so bad I had to bounce. Not sure why they dont crank up the AC to make it cold so people can try on all of the winter gear.
Venice/Santa Monica
Rolled up (Cant get anywhere in LA without rolling) to my friend Claressinka’s art show at her house in Santa Monica, to meet her and some other peeps, then caught up with my cousin for a minute.
Ended up going for a late night cruise the whole way down venice beach with Csaba. Lot of crazies and homeless people down there at 3am, but with a longboard you just fly by so fast they don’t bother you. First time I have ever really ridden a long board and although I missed being able to oli, the big wheels are wicked for getting speed.
Hurley Pro ‘09 Lowers
Had a chance to stop by Trestles in socal to check out the Hurley pro. Surfing is big business for sure. 100k prize money to the winner and huge crowds. Kelly Slater got mobbed when he came out of the water.
California trip
Had to shoot over to Los Angeles for a week. Was a really interesting trip. More photos later.
costa Rica trip 6: Osa to San Gerado
San Gerado is up in the mountains in the middle of Costa Rica, a rainforest at about 1500m, still warm enough for a T-Shirt and shorts all year round, although the water in the river was pretty dam chilly. It’s really a stunning place, we stayed at a cute hotel called casa Mariposa for 25bucks a night, with a really friendly American couple running it.
Costa Rica trip 5: Osa peninsula
I’m sitting here brushing insects off, which then head to their doom as the many geckos grab them out of the air, the geckos then pooping on the floor of the platform where I sit writing. After a while observing the ants munching merrily on the gecko poop, I get up and sweep the ants and poop off the floor and into the undergrowth.
You have to protect your area in the jungle, as everything is vying for space and survival. Anything coming into our corner runs the risk of a fast brutal death by man or woman. Outside of our small area, anything goes and we respect the environments of the other animals, reptiles, birds and insects, but here, in our space, it’s war.
Of course like in war you sometimes exist in a state of mutual unease. The huge tarantula that was not killed but rather encouraged to move on. The mouse that we left to the cat who lived with us, the geckos running everywhere in the rafters, keeping the insect populations at bay whilst singing along merrily together with the rest of the jungle and the pounding of the waves.
I take another pull of the joint and as the smoke enters my lungs, everything seems to be where it should be. Everything has it’s place at this moment in time. Breathing out slowly, the sounds shift, things dying and others being reborn. The cycles continue, micro and macro, oblivious to the Gregorian calender, uncountable, unquantifiable.
The next day we paddle up an estuary in kayaks, through mangrove forests and into crocodile country. I was nervous, but thankfully so were the crocodiles and as we approached, they would glide down into the water off the land and disappear, the only sign of them being the air bubbles popping on the surface of the water near our kayaks. I was reminded about the importance of protecting your area in the jungle and paddled a bit faster to move on.
Costa Rica Trip 4: Ojo del Mar, Osa Peninsula
Writing this in a hut made out of bamboo with the most exquisite construction. All materials found, or sourced locally. A hut at perfect ease in it’s environment. A seemingly perfect extension of the plants and life overlapping and becoming one with it’s completely open structure. the sounds of the animals blending with the sounds of the sea and wind passing through the hut and me. Everything moving, being born like the new flowers that frame the path to the sea, dying like the fly being eaten by the huge spider beside the path. The dead bug being eaten by the hundreds of tiny insects on the deck of our cabin which in turn give them life.
Nature never hurries and yet everything is accomplished.
The same feeling of having a front row seat into the nature of the cycles of time and life and death, which I felt in Montezuma remains and reinforces itself. What part do I play in this? As the observer? The destroyer? The creator? As inconsequential as a single ant? As a drop of water in a river flowing to the sea? A grain of sand on the beach? I feel at the same time immensely small and yet part of it all. Both timeless and fleeting. All things have their place in nature. Being at this lodge in the jungle reminds me how far outside the natural order of things modern life has moved. It’s an interesting place to be at the top of the food chain. I am reminded of a tattoo I saw on a dude in California. “Now that you can do anything you want, what will you do?”.
Sitting within a table, framed by glass and wood, on a sawdust floor, is the ferocious matt black chainsaw which was used to chop down much of the wood used to construct the huts and furniture around me. The irony that such a destructive machine was used to create such a place of beauty seems a fitting metaphor for the power for good and bad we all hold in our hands.
