Was it Christmas? and other random observations.

It seems that surf beach in El Tunco, El Salvador is the place to be if you want to just skip Christmas Eve. Locals have dinner with the family and then continue their evening routines by mostly watching TV while some younger folks might go out and get drunk. Christmas day in entirely different. Any clues of Christmas are gone and all the stores are open again. No fireworks, no worries of someone throwing explosives to your feet. Christmas day is just like any Friday and people come to the beach and get drunk.

Time kind of looses it’s importance at the beach. Sun comes up at 6 and goes down 12 hours later. I’m physically kind of tired of surfing. It’s a ruff hobby. Twice a day fighting with the waves is a full time job. I say fighting because H2O doesn’t always like the fact that I’m trying to ride it. Sometimes it washes me a shore like a piece rotten log floating on the sea. Other times it tries to tear all my limbs appart and make me become part of the water by stuffing water down my throat by the gallons.

Still it’s quite awesome. Yesterday I got the best wave of my life and saw a sea turtle in the middle of the sea. The funniest incident was when a huge wave hammered me and then the whitewater took me almost back to the shore. When I got to the surface gasping for air, a big swarm of little fish started jumping around me. It felt like hundreds of sticks were poking at me. Some of the fish went inside my shirt while others were exploring the insides of my shorts.

Beach life is quite addictive and I’m not sure when I’m able to leave this place behind. I might go to Honduras next week to do some scuba diving or I might just stay here and continue surfing. Let’s see what happens. 1st world might define my current form of being as embodiment of laziness while others might call it a bliss. What ever is going on around me, it’s something new and I have no idea what I’m going to do next.

I did get a Christmas present for myself. It’s a used surf board. I have no idea what the hell I’m going to do with it if I go to Honduras. There aren’t really waves there for surfing. I guess one more small thing hanging outside the backpack isn’t that bad…

Few tips for all you travelers out there who want to travel light: Don’t get into photography, don’t get into surfing, and especially don’t try to do them both at the same time!!! 4 reasons why:
1. Too much stuff
2. Both are best at early in the morning and late in the evening
3. Both take all of your time and energy
4. Too much stuff

So at the moment I’m starting to limit my travels through my own shoppings. Nice! At least both hobbies are really cool! Right?! Hahah, I’ll tell you a secret: Both are just hard work if you take them seriously. So if you happen to think that traveling, taking photos and surfing all year long is just like a long vacation, you are wrong. The difference between a holiday and traveling, at least for me, is that on holidays I do nothing and while traveling I do something all the time. I search for challenges and try out new things and I don’t mean different beer brands. I think soon I’m in need of a short holiday.

I’ve hardly touched my camera lately but here are some shots.