Rambles

Good afternoon surfers, welcome to the 3pm update. The swell is arriving.  I guess there are legit waves in the Philippines after all.  All morning the beach break has been steadily rising.  Some local rippers showed up a while ago, in early prep for a Billabong contest to be held this Saturday.  It's a full on aerial assault.  There is also some remarkable demonstrations of good nose rider LB style.  The point has one guy out, and starting to work even with the onshore winds (that's towards the beach JV).  Sets are 3ft (hawaiian) and firing.  It's taking everything in me to sit this out and let the rib heal. Intercostal muscle strain is what i was told.  Stay off it 2 weeks is what i've been directed.  Ever want to slug your doctor? To pass the time I've been chatting with other travelers, and reading a lot.  My life has been somewhat transformed after banging through a copy of Cosmic Banditos overnight (thank you Zenn).  I'm either thoroughly enlightened or hopelessly retarded after putting it down, I still haven't decided.  Tequila and Quantum Physics certainly have a misunderstood connection. I have to admit, I haven't laughed out loud from a book in a while.

Met a guy today who's a private DOD logistics contractor in Afghanistan.  He was telling me stories that make you want to vomit.  We haven't the slightest clue what is really transpiring over there.  We talked for almost 4 hours and while I'm mentally exhausted, no worries, I logged everything away.   It needs a bit more reflection before I put it into words.   I'll write about it later, now is not the time. 

The point just cracked.  Four wave set wrapped into the bay.  20 second rides if you make the section.  Two guys just paddled out.

Yesterday brought some new experiences.  U'i made friends (isn't that how most of our tales begin?) with our homestay owner, a pretty Filipino woman who is in her 50's, but with the appearance of someone half her age despite her long hours.  She married a German fellow about 20 years ago and had a son who is now 14.  The father passed away 10 years ago from liver failure.  He had a strong affinity for scotch and sauerkraut.  Her son had some sort of dance performance for his school in town last night, and while i wasn't particularly energetic about going to see a middle school talent show, I figured it would be a good chance to get the transportation systems wired and see what sort of situations we could get ourselves into.  Well town wasn't town, as in the town we are nearby.  It was 6 villages away.  It took 5 separate tricycle hires and 2 open air bus hires, but we finally putted into the outskirts of Agoo (pronounced ago) and took off running hand in hand like some bizarre 3-some into a crowd that was gathering up and down the street.  Turns out there was a festival that night in Agoo.  The mayor was there, local celebrities were there, and actually about 3,000 La Union locals were piling onto the road.  Traffic along the main north-south Philippines Hwy was diverted.  We left San Juan around 5:30pm and it was now an hour past dark.  The "Electric Light Parade" then began its procession, snaking around Agoo with 19 elaborate floats, each comprised of a Jeepney or flat bed decorated with thousands of neon christmas lights, paper mache sculptures, sound effects, and beauty pageant kings and queens.  The crowds were cheering, hissing, screeching, waving, clapping, generally a pretty merry occasion.

Its now 4 foot Hawaiian. There is a local kid sponsored by Billabong, who only has one leg.  He is absolutely killing it in the beach break right now.  He has one leg outstretched, with his stump on the rear of the board, laying down huge arcing cut backs, displacing buckets.  The point just cracked again.  The lineup has moved much further out.  I can count 5 guys, every other wave is un-ridden.

Each float represented a city in the Province of La Union.  As the city of San Juan float past us, we cheered for our temporary home.  San Juan is "the most relaxed city in La Union" the MC cooed over the sound system.  We continued to run through the streets past the floats trying to make our way to the stage where her son would be performing.  Apparently we needed tickets to get in to the amphitheater, a small detail that was overlooked by someone in the family .  Security was tight and after numerous pleas with high school doormen intent on fulfilling their job description, we found a young gentleman who caved and let us past.  A little while later the show began.  It was actually pretty cool.  All the kids were dressed in black, but wore gloves that react under black light, a different color on the tops and bottoms of their hands.  An announcer sang a song in Tagalog, supposedly telling some sort of historical or La Union creationist story, and the dancers generated elaborate pictures and spelled out words with their hands.  The results were impressive for a group of kids, and the audience, well into the thousands, received them well.  After the performance, a local soap opera star got on stage and every teen filipina within 300 miles shrieked.  We left thank goodness.  It took about 1.5 hours to make our way back home, with several stops and transfers along the rural highways.  I'm very glad we were with our lady.  I had absolutely no clue where we were until we rounded the final bend into San Juan.  We jumped out of our last tricycle and hit the sheets about midnight, by far our latest night thus far.  No complaints.

U'i is paddling out on a body board into the beach break.  Just saw my first China Sea barrel.

  Manila air quality makes for some nice sunsets.  No retouch here.