Took a few days to wind down from the crazy week of MEADS stuff, which means that I finished reading Insurgent and Allegiant. :) I am loving having time in the day to read, but still have time to accomplish other things as well.
The big activity for the week was SURFING! Melissa and I had been talking about going surfing for a while. Every time we were in Miraflores, the topic would come up. We set various dates for going, but things kept coming up and then she had to get stitches on her toe (her 6lbs weight fell on it..ouchie!).
Por Fin! The stars aligned and we made it happen.
After reading up on the surf scene online and exploring some surf companies, we more or less decided on Pukana Surf (meaning that if they were difficult to find or crazy expensive, we would look around some more). Well, we took a new route from where we got off the combi down to the beach, but it happened to pop us out right next to Pukana and it cost S/. 60 ($20) for an hour lesson. Done.
For those wondering, yes, I would recommend Pukana. They were easy to find, good price, good instructor, and they even had a space to change and guard our personal belongings while we were out in the water. Win!
They hooked us up with wet suits to wear. I have never worn a wet suit before, but they are awesome! Also, they are incredibly difficult to put on, and take off for that matter. The guy gave me a plastic bag to put over my foot while I slid on the leg, which helped a whole bunch. Their "changing room" was a section in the back of the truck they use for transporting their boards and equipment with a curtain on one side and the truck door to close it off. Anyway, Melissa said the whole truck was shaking while I was trying to put on my wet suit. LOL. Not easy, but worth it. We even got water shoes.
After we got changed up, we met up with our instructor for a quick dry-land lesson of the basics. Put your feet here, bend your knees, line your face up here, sorts of information. We went over stuff for about 10-ish minutes before we headed out. I probably could have used an hour alone on that part, but where's the fun in that?
So we headed out to the water...and with the wet suit, I didn't even realize the water was cold.
Our instructor helped us get from the shore into the water and then said start paddling out. Paddling while laying on your stomach is really hard work, FYI.
We got out to where the other surfers are hanging out. Fun to be part of the gang we had been watching for so long every time we visited. When we started up the water was pretty calm and waves were small. It was good for beginners. I even almost "surfed" at one point, meaning I got up on both my feet and let the water move me.
Then, the water got rougher...not a lot, but enough.
We moved around a bit to find a good spot, which was horrible because it meant more paddling. My shoulders hurt so much. I almost just wanted to sit out in the water on my board, just so I didn't have to paddle back out. Hahaha. One time, a wave came up on my at just the wrong spot and carried me almost back to shore and knocked me off my board, so I wasn't even trying to ride the wave and had to paddle back out. Grrr.
There were a good number of waves that took us out - or as we like to say, we got Prudencio'd. Prudencio is one of the older family members here and he is straight up fearless. When we went to the beach for church, he got in the water, even though he doesn't know how to swim, and just got whipped around and taken down by the waves, and he loved every moment of it! So, we call getting taken out by a wave, Prudencio'd. Swallowing and inhaling all that salt water is a great replacement for a netty pot, but that's about it, as it kind of hurts. At least, from Prudencio, we learned to just laugh about it.
After a bit, Melissa started to feel nauseous, so she had to get out of the water. I stayed out for a bit longer to make a few more attempts at getting up, unfortunately, I didn't have much, if any, success. At least we tried!
It was a lot of hard work, but surfing is actually kind of fun. :) If I ever happen to live in a surf region again and I have free time, I think it would be fun to actually take surf lessons. Anything's possible.
Finally, when people ask me if I have ever surfed (because you know many people from the land-locked states ask me as soon as they find out I'm from California), I can say YES! Just not in CA. Details.
~nos vemos~
P.S. Why are the lyrics "come on and SAFARI with me" and not SURF? What is a Surfin' Safari? *sigh*
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