July 8 - Kuta, Lombok


It happened again. At the end of the day, after moving to a smaller village called Gerupuk to the west of Kuta to find better surf, I was up at the top of a hill overlooking the bay, enjoying the last bits of sunlight with a dog I found there. When I was about ready to go, a security guard for the house I was standing next to shows up on small dirtbike. As if he had heard about my day yesterday, he goes "you like coffee?".

So I head down a wooden ladder (almost horizontal, with pretty irregularly spaced steps, but sturdy enough) to his guard shack on the side of the hill, and we have Lombok coffee while he taught me some Indonesian. The glasses were dirty even before he put coffee inside, but he had already made a good college try at cleaning them in the water spigot, so I figured I'd roll with it. The same process repeated with the spoon, there were then two scoops of fin coffee grounds and two large spoonfuls of sugar in each cup. I think they like it sweet here. After chatting and finishing our coffees, I got up to go. I told him I lived close by, but he gave me a ride back down the hill on his dirtbike anyway. With the little motor backfiring all the way down the bumpy dirt road, I thought "this is while I travel."



No photos from today, but a couple mental snapshots:
  • Surfing: The surf breaks out of this village are all accessed via boat. I took one out today when I got to my new hostel, and its two young "captains" seemed to be having an interesting time of it. I was sure the boat would end up shipwrecked both leaving and returning to the dock, and I got to see the realization on their faces that after they joined me to surf, the boat we had just anchored was now steadily drifting away from the others, with no one on it. I'm happy my iPhone is waterproof.
  • Sat at table at the hostel and picked up one of the guitars, kids that were hanging around the skate pool came up and flocked around, one plopped down right next to me and stared at me with big eyes. Hostel guy came out and handed me his nicer guitar to play instead (even had all 6 strings!). Girl that was skating came up to steal some water and we chatted for a bit. She stays in Bali mostly and paints for a Russian surf camp. Lamented how even while traveling she wasn't really getting away from Russia, also that Bali has become a bit mechanized to pump tourists through, and lacks soul. Maybe I can find some of that soul if I look hard enough.
  • Realized I had wanted to climb the hill for sunset, but missed sunset. Then decided to go anyway, and that was rewarding (minus walking up a path by one of the buildings, and having hostel guy show up with a gun). I think it was a BB gun, and he was looking to deliver a message to a pesky monkey, but who knows. He told me to use the main road the next time, and to shout if I saw any monkeys.

Surf notes:
  • Slightly bigger waves than the other day
  • Had a better board - 7'2" with about 33L (I think). More difficult to get under waves, but way easier to catch them. I also like the mini longboard I had the other day.
  • Felt like I was better about not getting caught in the impact zone.
  • Still need to find a way to get a bigger board under the waves. When I do get caught, I get tossed/swept inside
  • Worked on noting my position/staying in place despite the current
  • Got into some steeper waves that I've been avoiding lately. This felt good, confidence building. Still feels like things happen super fast when I do, but will probably slow down as I do it more. KEEP PRACTICING.
  • Need to work on committing - a lot of them that I hesitate on it's because I feel like the wave is sweeping me up too fast and I feel like I'm gonna get tossed. Probably would have less of this feeling if I was paddling more/moving faster when the wave got to me. CHOOSE THE RIGHT WAVE AND COMMIT. Less gnarly consequences than hesitating.

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