#also every single time i see that photo of dan i think there are paddles in the back and im like who is she about to spank???

[manchesterau]

IT'S HAPPENED

[womanlalaboy]

Surf It #2: The Surfing Continues

Separation anxiety hit hard that morning on our last day in Baler while we're on our way to the terminal. When we went past the signage saying we're leaving San Luis, I cried and vowed to myself that I'll come back. I never expected anything from the trip apart from swimming in the sea. I never imagined that I'd leave the place like a whole new person, wanting to go back and learn more surfing from the locals. Oh boy, I didn't simply go back. I basically trained my mind and body for my next surf session.

January 2018, I started my health and wellness journey. I've completely changed my lifestyle by incorporating as many vegetables and fruits in my diet, reducing my white rice intake, doing intermittent fasting, prioritizing my hydration, drinking tea every day, resisting the urge to binge on sweets, working out 5 times a week and avoiding constantly sitting. My colleagues who were doing Muay Thai taught me the basics. I've started watching yoga tutorials to help me with my breathing and stretching. In return, my period and bowel movement became regular, my endurance, breathing and sleep quality got better. I've stopped snoring, stopped craving meat and sweets. I've gotten more comfortable drinking tea and eating the vegetables I used to hate. I've become more patient, understanding, relaxed, and kind, especially to myself. I've lost a lot of weight and gained a tremendous amount of strength.

May 2018, I went back to Baler and showcased how I've changed. This time, Daddy Dan prioritized the new member of our Baler Barkada, Charina. He endorsed me to another instructor, Koikoy who was also at the despedida drinking session from our last visit. He taught me a lot about turning the board when it gets unstable, taught me where to put my weight, and gave a few consistency tips for me to have a long ride. I've gotten better, people. I've learned and am still learning.

The weather's merciful that time so we were able to surf not just once, but thrice, and we're proud that all three of us have learned how to paddle and do long rides with longboards. My friend Paolo dared using hard top which made Charina and I jealous of this experience. Charina easily got the hang of using an 8 ft longboard, but she easily loses her endurance and eventually balance after quite a while.

No matter how much we enjoyed the trip, we still had to leave the place, but after 3 months, we ached to see the Aurora landscape. This time, 5 of us went back. 5 of us surfed, and with every ride and with more people helping us out, we got better. Apart from Koikoy, Ian who once won a competition at Cobra Reef taught me surfing. We're around the same height, but that kid rips hard. We stayed at his dad’s kubo and his dad gave me the shirt Ian got from that competition. We've also met Alvin who once taught Andi Eigenman how to surf.

I think August 2018 marked the peak of my obsession with surfing. I couldn’t stop thinking about it- was even dreaming about it. I’ve followed surfers from around the globe, browsed the internet for anything surfing related, searched online how breaks are created, what type of board is best for beginners, where else to surf in the Philippines and so much more. I talked about this with a former colleague; the same person who taught me the basics of Muay Thai. She suggested that I practice with a skateboard and even let me borrow her son’s penny board. Everything was self-taught as we knew no one that could teach me. Every day since the day I got to borrow his son’s board, I practiced at home how to balance on a skateboard, how to eventually ride and then turn the board. Every day from August to November, I’ve been practicing my curves and got better at it. So much respect for all the skaters out there, by the way. You’re all rad!

We knew Baler isn’t the only place where we can explore surfing. When I got the chance to visit Liwliwa, I made sure to get acquainted with their waves and challenge my balance that I’ve been trying to improve with skateboarding and Muay Thai. We surfed around 5 PM so the waves are bigger and rougher than usual, really good for surfing. We’ve met surfers who just got back from a competition in Siargao. They were quite intense. The ones who taught us in Baler are very cautious and protective, but these Liwliwa guys are like training you to really surf. For the first time, Charina and I used hard top Mini Mals. It’s quite satisfying to ride. It’s a lot smoother than soft tops and easier to paddle with. I’ve decided right there and then to get myself a single fin Mini Mal in the future. I’ve decided right there and then that long-boarding is going to be my game.

The surfing never stopped there. I celebrated my birth month in Elyu and had 2 sessions with Elyu Classic. This time, I felt rusty. I haven’t been working out and I was still trying to get the hang of my new working shift. Let’s just say that I wasn’t in good condition to surf, but I did it anyway. And though I know I can now ride waves, I’m still not confident catching my own so I always seek for an instructor’s help.

I’m just always lucky for meeting nice instructors- or maybe all surfing instructors are nice? I don’t know. I’d like to think they all are. I want to hope that they all are. My instructors have been very protective and careful not to give too big of a wave, helping me out whenever I couldn’t reach the seabed after a bad wipeout and basically coaching me to get better not because it’s their job, but because they also want people like me to experience the bliss of being able to surf.

The next month, I went back to Baler to witness the Aurora Surfing Challenge. It was held at Aliya Surf Camp. Most of our stay there were filled with staring at the ocean, predicting the surfers’ moves, cheering for the underdogs, and celebrating their wins. Neil Sanchez banged the shortboard category while Dan won the longboard category. Both winners are Daddy Dan’s nephews. He couldn’t be more proud. He found us a spot under the bay walk so we can see the action up-close, and he made sure to congratulate the boys right after every heat.

The shortboard category sure is filled with thrill, while the longboard category looked majestic to me. I remember envisioning myself doing hang 5 while having a very long ride. Y’all. I was able to walk on the board later that day. Only I can step my foot forward, but not backward. But I’ll get there someday- all 10 toes on the nose. I’ll eventually get there.

March this year, I visited La Union again and shared the waves with many friends, one of which decided to buy a second-hand board from one of the pro surfers there. We also had help from Nano Surf’s instructors. 

While I can’t surf yet, I try to practice to get better balance, workout to have lighter weight, better endurance, and build up the will to get better at surfing. I’ve still got a long way to go. Those that I’ve gotten to know so far have been surfing all their lives, and I’ve just started. But that’s not going to stop me to get better at the things I love to do. Besides, nothing worth it is ever easy and when you love something, you work hard for it.

Header: Idel Laza Aerial view of Elyu: Jeff 2nd to the last photo: Idel

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Also read:  Surf It: Newbie Also read:  Paradigm Shift Also read:  Byaheng Baler: Womanlalaboy’s Travel Guide to Baler, Aurora

[fifthsunset-blog]

A Dream of White Horses

I’m going to start this blog not in Colombia, but in Wales, and two weeks before we began our trip. For a long time there’s been one particular climb I’ve been working towards, that’s always been at the back of my mind, ever since my friend Steve told me about it. It’s name is A Dream of White Horses. You can see how it got that name from the way the waves reach up from this photo of the first ascent.

Photo credit: Leo Dickinson

As you can see its a sea cliff. It’s located on the edge of Holy Island, North Wales. To climb it you must abseil 50 metres down the cliff to a rock shelf wide enough for half of your foot. You then climb up four pitches totalling 140 metres, the last of which is a traverse above a zawn. Zawn is a Cornish word that means a deep narrow sea inlet cut into sea cliffs. It’s a word I’ve learned through climbing and not a word you’re ever likely to need to know unless you’re a climber or a cliff-nesting sea bird. The zawn below Dream makes it more dangerous than most climbs because in the event of a fall (assuming your gear and your partner holds you) you would end up hanging from the rope, suspended in empty space with the sea far below and the cliff far above.

I would be climbing Dream with my friend Dan. The first time I’d mentioned my ambition to climb Dream in Dan’s company, he immediately said “I’ll climb that with you”. He had climbed it before, which was a comfort, as was the fact that he would be leading and I would be seconding. This meant he would always be above me when I was climbing (except on that final pitch).

I drove to Holy Island nonstop from Surrey on Friday night. I met Dan and Liz in the RSPB car park, which is tolerant of overnight climbers. We had a couple of beers and went to sleep, and woke up to a perfect, bluebird day.

We headed over early to the car park we needed, and were delighted to see no other cars in it. This was the first sunny Saturday of the year there were definitely going to be other climbers heading over to one of the world’s finest climbs. We didn’t want to wait behind other people. We geared up in the car park and cantered up towards the cliffs. When we got close we saw two guys emerging from a tent on a cliff top and putting their harnesses on. These two from Birmingham had camped on a cliff top to be first on Dream. We arguably would have got to the abseil point before them but that level of commitment deserves first ascent of the day! Dan showed them where to abseil in from.

Liz and Sam arranged themselves on a promontory opposite the cliff face to watch and take photos. After the Brummie boys had cleared the first pitch, Dan abseiled in followed by me. In this photo you can see me halfway down the cliff in the orange helmet, and Dan on the start shelf in the red jacket.

As we abseiled in we were in the shadow of the cliff so we lost the morning sun. Our whole field of vision became vertical as it would stay for the next five hours. The sea was calm, the white horses were not early risers. In their place we got seals coming to visit. I can’t tell for certain but it definitely seemed that they were interested in us.

Later in the day we also had sea kayakers, jet skis and other small craft coming to gawp at the climbers.

Dan climbed, with a zig right and a zag left and attached himself to the rock. I followed him, grateful to be moving after a long time standing still, and trying to find my focus. By the second pitch I was in the swing of things. I went through a mental process that happens every time I climb:

1) After looking for foot placement options I resign myself to fact that I have to place the tip of my shoe on a 2 pence sized piece of rock that is slightly less vertical than everything else.

2) I don’t trust that my foot will grip it.

3) I work up the courage to try it anyway.

4) I am surprised when it does grip it.

5) I repeat in my head “trust your feet, trust your feet, trust your feet”.

My feet almost never slip, but its difficult to overcome that very elemental fear.

The fear peaked when I reached Dan at the start of the final pitch. The way it effects me is my mind goes into overdrive and I become hyper aware of everything. For example Dan had made an anchor for me by looping two slings over a spike of rock - an objectively very sound anchor but the fear made me question how safe it was. 

Liz and Sam were above us when we started. Now they were below. The sun hit us and I started sweating but had bigger things to worry about. What had gone wrong in my life that I was in this ridiculous situation? Hanging off nylon and metal temporarily attached to rock above a watery grave. I looked down at Liz and Sam, wished I was where they were. I looked past them to the kayakers, and asking myself why wasn’t that my hobby? A nice safe paddle in the sunshine.

Dan made his way steadily across the pitch and eventually up and out of view. My turn. I tried to calm down by taking deep breathes. It didn’t work at all. My leg started shaking. Climbers call this Elvis Leg. I looked at the rock I had to climb. It looked like the entire cliff was the wrong way up - all of the holds I could see were a negative image of what a decent hold would look like. I had the absurd thought that it would be easier if I climbed it upside down. I stepped forward...and then back again. I was too tall for this, I decided. Yes. I was almost certainly the tallest person to ever attempt this. Maybe it wasn’t possible for a person of my height.

My mind continued on overdrive until I realised that it would take longer to be rescued from this position that it would to just attempt the stupid climb. I took some steps. Dan shouted some guidance, “Down a bit”, he might have said.

Usually when I’ve climbed something I remember every move. I am able to shout step by step instructions to my climbing partner. Even when I look at photos of me climbing the final pitch of Dream, I can’t recall a single move. It still looks impossible.

When I was about five metres from the end I allowed myself to think that I might actually make it. Doing so made me so happy that I lost focus and had to force myself to concentrate again until it was over. And then it was. I had returned to lovely things like horizontal surfaces and grass.

We packed up and went round the coast to give Sam and Liz a turn on a different sea cliff. I was content to sit at the side and take photos. I had climbed Dream of White Horses. I was ready to leave the UK.

[dreamalittlebiggerhoney]

This blog is coming from a very naive point of view due to the lack of travelling prior to this holiday and but I’ll try to include more than ‘I went to Barcelona and it was warm’. However saying that, ‘I went to Barcelona’ and it blew my mind. It’s literally like visiting an art gallery except the gallery is an entire city. The architecture is insane which is unsurprising considering the city’s history of artists with Gaudi, Picasso and Miro at the top of the list.

It was Kien and I’s first holiday away together and the first that was more than just a long weekend. I think also the first one where it wasn’t raining in Cornwall or the Lake District. It was a kinda big deal finding out whether we would kill each other in the heat for an extended period of time but also super exciting to do our usual exploring in a different country.

The first thing we did after checking our bags was head down La Ramblas because that’s what everyone told us to do, but I wasn’t really interested in shopping at H&M and Zara when that’s a standard weekend in Birmingham and we were in BARCELONA on a Monday and not at work! The markets on the way down were so busy and full of colours and oh my, the fruit selection was vegan heaven. Then (after getting lost but insisting I knew the way) we arrived at the beach, had a paddle and had tapas by the sea.

Continuing to insist I knew the way we plodded, developed blisters, then hobbled back to the hotel, as Dan began to doubt me we stopped at a bar, because I liked the look of the terrace with dried lavender in beer bottles, for a cocktail – and to reluctantly look at the map only to realise 4 cocktails later that the hotel was at the end of the street but the bar played Nirvana and served free chillies and grilled artichokes in place of where you would normally get peanuts as bar snacks.

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To anyone thinking of visiting Barcelona, it goes without saying, as all of the travel guides and reviews have said it for me, that you absolutely 1000% have to visit la Sagrada Familia and bloody please book in advance. I am not an arty person. I wish I was, but I am not. Dan is. He is the person that reads every single plaque next to every single painting at a gallery, whereas I skim the room and maybe get caught on one piece and decide it means something completely opposite to what the artist intended. But this basilica will blow anyones mind. We stood outside it on our first day, repeating ‘wow’ as we noticed new details and intricacies of the building. Then had to pause our wow’s until a couple of days later because that was the soonest we could get in and see the absolute spaceship that should be the home of the elves in middle-earth that has been 130 years in the making.

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We did a whole ton of other touristy stuff and managed to fit in almost everything and some extra fun stuff. Although using the metro is way easier than London, I was still super proud of myself so we got to take a trip out to visit Castell Montjuic and caught a cable car up there for an extra €25 (and bought the €10 photo they take of you on the way up) instead of walking because the views were insane (and we did 26,000 steps the day before). There is also Montjuic cemetery which is a bit further out and off the tourist route slightly but really worth visiting if you plan it properly and don’t need a wee and aren’t hangry (which unfortunately was not the case for me). By the time we got up to the top of the castle it was misty but you could tell the panoramic view would have been ridiculous if it had been a clear day.

Surprisingly, it took 3 days to have my first ice-cream, but post ice-cream we did the Picasso museum. We didn’t have to book in advance, we queued but not for long. Again, for a non-arty person, it was still incredible to see this incredible portraits and landscape paintings, then seeing the dates and realising he was 14 and that made the paintings even more incredible. Then, you see him stop seeking approval because he knows he’s great. He barely did any commissions in his lifetime and painted abstract pigeons for a year because he could. He ALSO did the artwork for his favourite hang out, Els Quatre Gats (4cats), which is where he had his first exhibition and we had our first dinner of the trip!

The food was lovely and the perfect ease into spanish cuisine (and wine – Albarino while actually in Spain tastes SO much better). But the best meal of the holiday was at El Chigre, a teeny tiny restaurant that sits about 40 covers max. The menu was in spanish which is my favourite thing – I hate it when restaurants make it easy for you and give you an english waiter and translated menu, the struggle and risk of getting something weird is the best part of eating in a different country. Our waiter showed us the fresh catches of the day (so fresh that they still had the hook in) and offered to create a taster menu for us. Six courses, a couple of octopus tentacles and the most ridiculous cider machine later and our minds were blown by the catalan dining experience. This meal, plus the coffee, sealed the deal that Dan and I could move to Barcelona with ease, bar the language barrier but how much more do you really need to say other than ‘dos cortado, por favor’?

The last place we visited, also Gaudi related because the man was a genius, was Park Güell which was originally intended to be a housing development of 60 houses, only two were built and due to a lack of buyers, it is now a public park. It’s free to enter but you need to pay to enter the ‘monumental zone’ (it’s still pretty cheap). Even though it pissed it down and I was in Birkenstocks without a jacket, it cleared up just in time to get awesome views, again, of Barcelona and the park. Set aside a long afternoon because there is so much to see here, including the Gaudi museum (also his former home), but by 6pm in the evening with dinner plans at 7pm, we were totally cultured out and our feet were sleepy.

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Oh hey, we went to a chocolate museum and also got tattoos at @sta.demonia_tattoo_barcelona.

Then we came home and it was pants…

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Extra tips: 

Don’t be as scared of pick pocketing as people who have visited will try to make you, but…

Don’t be any less aware of your surroundings than you would in London or another city you don’t know. Just be a sensible person and don’t whip out €50 bills in front of everyone.

A macchiato in Barcelona is a ‘Starbucks Macchiato’, not the espresso with a dash of foam most of us have grown to love. A cortado is the closest you’ll get.

Some sights need booking 3 days in advance, if not more, so plan your time and stick to the time slots you are given!

When given the option to pay in euros or your currency, pick euros! The exchange rate is better.

Has anyone else done Barcelona recently? Leave comments and tips if you have any! 

The first european city break: Barcelona This blog is coming from a very naive point of view due to the lack of travelling prior to this holiday and but I'll try to include more than 'I went to Barcelona and it was warm'.