You can't make this stuff up

The Dominican Republic is a wild place. Laws aren't seen as reasonable requirements to abide by; they are more like "suggestions to follow if it is convenient for you." Sometimes good laws are modified or suspended in order to appease the masses (see #4 below). Corruption is part of daily life. Plain vanilla corruption like paying off police or officials is much too banal for this blog. I'm going to give you some richer Caribbean flavor, in the form of a few anecdotes. Most of these anecdotes are secondhand, coming from Jesse and Cameron, who, if anything, understate the shady details of their stories. So you aren't getting colorful embellishment here.

1. ENLIGHTENED ELECTED OFFICIALS: The elected "mayor" of the area we stayed in cannot read or write. This civil servant *shot* a person earlier this year over some petty dispute related to how the victim was driving, and has so far stayed out of jail. See article:
http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/local/2012/5/1/43489/Cabarete-Mayor-stages-another-violent-incident
Local businesses, not in any mood to deal with this mayor via civilized means he would not recognize anyways, have told him to his face that if he enters their property, they will shoot him.

Time to start thanking your lucky stars your local officials are merely incompetent, and not cold blooded killers.

2. THE BEST DEFENSE I HAVE EVER HEARD: So a guy Cameron knows went to Santo Domingo, the capital city, for the weekend to spend time with his mistress. While there, they went into the main public park in the city, and, in broad daylight, started firing a pistol at a tree or something. People complained to the police, who showed up some minutes later to interrogate the suspects. The guy denied firing the gun. The police left. The guy then started shooting again. The cop came back, picked up a few warm shell casings from the ground near the guy's feet, and started to put him in handcuffs.

Now here is the good part.

The guy whispers to the cop, "Hey, I was just trying to impress my mistress." The cop, in an act of supreme empathy that baffles your correspondent, said "oh, in that case, let me get you out of these handcuffs and get on your way. Just please stop shooting in the public park."

3. ALCOHOL, IN MODERATION: People get insanely drunk on weekends and holidays. Then they go to the beach and swim. And then they drown. Jesse and Cameron had to do CPR on a kid who had drowned at least an hour earlier and washed up on the beach. See the first paragraph of the national lifeguard webpage:
http://www.islasurf.org/isla-operations/dr/
We saw two grown men drunk out of their minds splashing each other in the shorebreak like 5 year olds. I cannot confirm that they made it out of the water safely.

4. NOW THAT'S JUST STUPID: Drinking and driving is dumb. But it is very common in the DR. In fact, you CAN be drinking while driving, you just cannot be DRUNK. Unless it is Christmas time. A few years ago, before the elections, the Incumbent relaxed even this law, so you COULD drive while drunk. 

The roads are well known as some of the scariest in the world. See the "driving tips" section here:

http://www.fodors.com/world/caribbean/dominican-republic/travel-tip_2391190.html

The DR has the fatality stats to prove it too. Check out their road deaths per capita. Second highest in the world/:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate (click on the header "Road fatalities per 100,000 to sort by highest on top)

5. IT WAS WORTH IT: Dominican kiters love to show off. They do this by boosting huge airs as close to shore as possible. Last year, Andre witnessed a guy boost an air, get hit by a strong gust, traverse 100 feet of beach, and land at the top of a 30 foot coconut tree. He then fell out of the tree only to be caught by his kite. He walked away unscathed, but with his tail between his legs.

6. BRAGGING RIGHTS MATTER: There is a serious machismo culture in the DR. For example, Negativo tried to DQ me from the contest. That's right, there was a guy I was surfing against named "Negativo" and he was really pissed that I beat him. So after I got second in the finals, he tried to DQ me by saying my board didn't qualify for the longboard division (it did). As we got our trophies, he took the microphone and told the crowd that he should have own and he will be back next year.

7, THE BRIDGE WILL BE FINE: Jesse witnessed some classic engineering: on the way to Santiago. A large Mack truck could not pass through a bridge because the truck couldn't clear the cross beams. Instead of finding another way, Jesse saw the guys standing on the truck dismantling the load-bearing beams above. Jesse decided to take a different bridge home...

Cast of characters in the DR

On our last night in the DR, we headed over to the NEW Gorditos cantina for margaritas and Mexican food. Good Mexican food walking distance from the house? Check. After a few margaritas, we were feeling like this:

First on the left, we have Claudia, a manager of internationally renowned DJs.
Next we have Hector, the poor chap that got his aces cracked by my kings about 2 hours later.
Next is Aron, an Israeli internet entrepreneur. Leaving it vague is so much more fun.
In the back right we have Kissy Sell Out, an internationally renowned DJ. From East London. Cockney accent in full effect.
Then we have our host, Cameron, an international man of mystery. Pro kiter, spearfisherman, and casanova with the ladies.
Finally we have Andre, aka Dre, a pro kiter from Antigua who always brought a mellow vibe to the situation.

A greta cast of characters in an exotic 3rd world island. Love it.

Back in LA for a week

We were in LA for a week between the DR and Maui. We were productive: we each did a few job interviews. This meant I had to shave my beard, but it was nice to get a sense of the market.

We also played fooseball with Dante:

And had some good friends over for dinner:

Scored some great surf in the DR

This morning we got EPIC surf at Encuentro. Well overhead, glassy, barreling. You know, EPIC.

Before we get into the photos from today, a quick sidenote on yesterday. Yesterday was bigger. Considerably bigger. There were solid double overhead set waves yesterday. Burly, heaving, angry waves that scared nearly everyone else out of the water. We (Jesse, Cameron, Andre, and I) were the only ones out. There was a lot of water moving, and each one of us paid some serious dues. Andre got stuck inside for about 20 minutes, maybe more. Constantly paddling and duckdiving. He made up for it by catching some BOMBS on the outside and making it look easy. Jesse and I had a collision, and he got cut on his shin by my board. He then went on to have a magic session on his 5'6 quad (maxing it out of course) where it seemed every perfectly lined up set wave came right to him. He would calmly spin, do a late drop on a 12-15 foot face wave, bottom turn, then race down the line. Cameron showed us how it was done and always seemed to find the right wave that ran and ran and ran. As for me, I paid my dues in advance. My first two waves were disasters. Big, heaving lips that picked me up and threw me down like a pro wrestler does to his rookie opponent. I went straight to the bottom, got bounced off the reef, and came up with a whole new respect for winter swell in the Carribean. It is the real deal.

Today was bit smaller, but the conditions were incredibly clean. And since we had just surfed it huge yesterday, our nerves were calm and our confidence was up. This reduced unforced errors. Here I am on a clean barreling section, happy as can be:

Some of the set waves still had plenty of juice:

After stalling, I found a very short over the shoulder barrel section that was fun to accelerate out of:

Here was my last wave of the day. A big set rolled through on the outside, I passed on the first two waves and the third was just a massive A-Frame mound that made my mouth water. Full speed ahead:

Cutting back on that last wave:

Unridden wave showing the barrel section quite nicely. Look closely in the bottom right part of your screen. There was someone on that wave that could not make it. They are now 0.5 seconds away from the rug getting pulled out from under them and doing some time in the washing machine:

I had a pretty bad and weird wipeout today, where I bailed off of a wave, got launched pretty high in the air, and landed on my board. This isn't that uncommon and actually isn't that bad unless you land on your fins. I didn't land on my fins. What happened to me was I came down and took all the weight of the fall ON MY CHIN. Chin to board. I took two big chunks out of my tongue and my jaw muscles went into full clench. Incredibly painful. Still can't properly chew. Here I am rubbing my sore jaw while watching the surf at the end of the session:

Cambria paddled out on the longboard and got some great waves. She was stoked. Unfortunately, we did not get any shots of her on waves. I assure you, she was ripping. She has gotten some incredible waves so far in the DR, and has been catching plenty each session:

Happy after nearly 3 hours in the water:

x

Fish tacos after big surf? Yes please

The surf was pumping yesterday. Solid double overhead sets. We got two sessions in at Encuentro, and our group got some phenomenal waves.

On our way home from our second session, Cameron called his fisherman and asked if he had any fish.

5 minutes later the fisherman showed up on our doorstep with a massive cubera snapper for Cameron and Jesse to inspect:

Speared this morning:

The fish looked great so we paid him the cash and he went out on the lawn and fileted it for us:

The last filet before getting sliced up and placed in Jesse's famous beer batter:

Chef Jesse, running the show. The beer battered fish melts in the mouth:

A little cracked pepper, salt, and lime and they are ready to go. Add some freshly made slaw and pick de gallo, and you have the perfect dinner after a day of big surf!

Cultural commentary: what can you carry on a MotoConcho?

Before we begin this installment of Cultural Commentary, a little housekeeping. What is a MotoConcho? Sometimes just called a Moto, or a Concho, these mini motorcycles are one of the most popular means of transport in the DR. Everybody has one, including Cameron. They are essentially what we would call "retro" motorcycles; low back, small engine motorcycles that act as solo transport, taxi cab, family station wagon, and delivery vehicle depending on your situation. Cabarete is filled with motos driven by young entrepreneurs who swarm the roads looking for tourists who need rides to the beach. We required their services several times and always were impressed with their driving skill and courtesy.

What you notice right away, after the sheer quantity of conchos on the road, is their payload. Before we came down, we were told to look out for "interesting" cargo. Man oh man, have we seen some concho cargo. Most of which did not get photographed because we either didn't have a camera on us or couldn't get the shot in time. All of the photos you are about to see are from a single day. About 2 hours on the road total. And this is not showing the dozens of amazing conchos I wasn't able to shoot in time. So with such a small sample size showing so much crazy sh*t, you can imagine what the overall population is like when you are simply driving down the street and taking all the sites in.

So without further ado, I present to you a montage of concho cargo from 5 November 2013, in the vicinity of Cabarete, DR.

This guy is carrying a massive box of some sort. It is not tied down. Look closely and you can see he has his left arm bent, with his hand behind his head holding it: 

Two young girls coming home from school:

Dude driving with 2 by 4's resting on the back seat. These pieces of wood were about 6 feet long. Again, one hand on the throttle, one hand on the cargo:

This kid was hanging on to a propane tank:

When Jesse and Cambria went across the street to get a papaya smoothie, I had 5 minutes to take concho photos. Here is the first good one- dad + mom + infant swaddled in mom's lap:

Next was a dude and his buddy carrying a chainsaw:

This is what they call a Dominican Car Seat. Check how young this kid is:

Others, like Jesse, Angela, Cameron, and Jack have all seen gnarlier stuff than this. They don't bat an eye unless there's at least four humans on a concho and even still, it only gets interesting if there is also livestock on board. I've heard of coffins on conchos, lawn mowers on conchos, passengers with IV drip bags on conchos, and my personal favorite, conchos carrying other conchos as cargo.

That is all.

Dominican road trip

We woke up Tuesday to flat surf conditions, but beautiful weather otherwise. So we had a lazy morning, cooking a big egg breakfast and checking the Internet. All was well on the Internet so we decided to take a trip up the coast. Cambria and I didn't know what to expect. Turned out to be a great day. This is what a lot of the road looked like:

The wind was still taking a sabbatical so the muggy conditions had to be battled using unconventional techniques: note how Jesse could only get enough air flow by keeping the van door wide open whilst  

barreling down the highway:

After about 45 minutes and a delicious papaya smoothie at a roadside stand, we pulled into a little grassy parking area. A simple shack stood between us and some beautifully manicured gardens. We were at "Dudu Pools" a private recreation area with natural freshwater pools, caves, gardens, ornery ostriches, and a non-regulation outdoor volleyball court. 

We were there to jump in the pools.

After we paid our 100 peso entry fee ($2) we walked through the shack to see this list of banned items. No guns, knives, or hookas. Hmmmmm. Hookas? Is that really a common thing to pack in with you as you jump into freshwater pools? Apparently so. I still have so much to learn about the Dominican Republic!

The pools were incredible. Water temp was about 66 degrees F, so cool enough to refresh our sweat drenched bodies, but not too cold. There was a do it yourself zip line that was really fun. Here is Cambria just after takeoff:

About 35 feet off the water, the drop from the zip line to the water was high enough to get your heartbeat up and roll the windows down a few times before smacking the emerald water below:

Not content to simply zip line into the pool, Cameron ran off the cliff and hucked an impressive gainer. This spot is about 40 feet high:

After our refreshing session at the pools, we continued east along the coast. We pulled into a little beach area called La Entrada. Tourist population: zero. Local population: 12. So we effectively increased the population by 50%. Here you can see Ron Burgundy, aggressively parked on the beach, comfortable in its natural surroundings. You can also see the spot where we dragged the plastic table out to have lunch:

This was the scene on the beach during lunch. Epic:

If you like coconut groves and clean whitesand beaches, you would be in heaven here:

Before we committed to this spot for lunch, Jesse went across the street to the little mangrove spot to check on the quality of the fish:

Turns out that the local fisherman had just caught the parrotfish and was in the middle of de-scaling them when we walked up. As fresh as it gets. Jesse asked a few questions in Espanol, checked the fish, and nodded his head. We had found our spot:

The lunch table. No further description necessary. One of the best lunches of our whole trip:

Jesse had been talking about "triple fried parrotfish on the beach" since we were in France together. He would get visibly excited just talking about it. Cambria and I were a bit skeptical, given our experience in Fiji, where you don't shoot parrotfish because they either taste bad or have siguatera or help keep the beaches sandy or all of the above. Jesse, as usual, was totally right on the money. These were some of the tastiest fish we'd had all trip:

During lunch, a family rolled up on the beach in a pimped out station wagon about 50 feet down from us. They were blasting some high quality salsa music. They started dancing in front of their car. Then the dad stripped down to his "Dominican Swimsuit" which are just tightee whitees. Here is Jesse checking out the party scene:

The man in his Dominican Swimsuit:

I couldn't help myself. I had to go dance with these rather hefty ladies. In truth, Jesse dared me, so in order to maintain manhood and fearless image, I danced it up:

After lunch on the beach at La Entrada, we went to a gorgeous spot called "Preciosa." Full forest all the way down to he beach. Here is the path we took to get down:

The beach was deserted. See that point off in the distance? Just in front of that is a shipwreck. The good kind. A 16th century Spanish galleon. It is covered in sand and has not been excavated by treasure hunters yet. Who knows how much treasure is out there:

The view in the opposite direction. Incredibly picturesque:

We had a great day in the DR. Our surf muscles got a much needed rest for the upcoming swell.

Dominican surf contest

On our second night in the country, we went to a party at the hotel next door. Turns out it was the pre-party for a two day masters (35 years and older) surf contest to be held at the main spot a few miles down the road. 

Being a freshly minted 35 year old, and having spent the past few months focused on surfing, I figured what the heck. At least I'd get a free t shirt. So I forked over my $40 and signed up for the longboard division.

Now, I am usually pretty confident in my longboarding ability. But a few factors combined to make this a challenging event for me. First and foremost, I had never surfed the spot before. Every surf spot in the world is unique, and has its own look and feel. It's own lineup. It's own personality on different tides. It usually takes at least a full session to start to figure a place out. For me, my first day surfing would be with a contest jersey on:

The next challenging factor was that I had never surfed the board before. Jesse was kind enough to loan me his 9'1 Herbie Fletcher high performance longboard for the contest. Great board. But it usually takes a few waves to figure out a board. For me, it was during the contest. Then add in the fact that the announcer was speaking Spanish, along with the other competitors in the water, and you get the idea of how I was a major underdog in this contest.

The contest was held at Encuentro, a reef break with about 4 distinct peaks. The contest zone was at the main righthander. Here is what the beach looked like in the afternoon:

There were 16 competitors in the longboard division. I made it through the first round on day 1 by getting 2nd in my heat. I surfed terribly and felt like the judges gave me an inflated score. The semifinals weren't until day 2 so we surfed for fun a few peaks up and had INCREDIBLE surf for over 3 hours. Hot, glassy, head high, uncrowded, consistent...all of the magic adjectives for a surfer. I surfed well during that session and got my confidence up. Cambria also surfed really well and had the most fun she'd had since New Zealand. 

So the next morning we got up early, got to the beach at 7am, and I had my semifinal heat. I got 2nd in that heat too which was enough to advance me to the final which was held around lunchtime. I surfed well in the final, but knew that the local guy who ended up winning was getting better waves than me and was just surfing better. 

I ended up getting 2nd overall. Here is the award ceremony with me on the podium to the right:

The contest was very well run. On time, great announcing, and fair judging. The vibe on the beach was positive and lighthearted, not cut-throat. I got a killer trophy that I'll have forever to remember the DR:

Overall, I'm really stoked I signed up for the contest. Big thanks to Cam and Jesse for all of the logistical and on-beach support!!!

After 3 days in the DR

The Dominican Republic (aka "The DR") has been action-packed so far.

We arrived from Miami and Cameron was ready for us. Here we are loading up his mean machine, a four wheel drive, diesel Toyota minivan nicknamed "Ron Burgundy." Ron is a trusty and tough little fella. And because he looks so similar to the local taxis ("guah-guah's"), we get hailed by pedestrians on the side of the road:

While Jesse has his own place in Cabarete, Cameron was nice enough to invite us all to stay at his place, which is an incredible apartment on the beach. It reminds me of Bill's Mexican hacienda at the end of "Kill Bill"

The deck, the lawn, the beach:

Some Presidentes to welcome us to the DR:

Cameron is a professional kiter. There are a few large format photos in the house that are incredible. Here he is in Indonesia:

And another, but I forget the location:

Cameron has a serious collection of water toys:

Two fellow pro kiters are also staying with us at Cameron's. Jake and Andre are super cool guys from Antigua. Jesse actually recognized Andre in the Miami airport and asked if he was heading to Cabarete, and Andre said yeah, and that he was also staying with Cameron. Andre is one of the top kiters in the world and is very humble and down to earth. It has been a lot of fun living with this crew for the past few days. They are here for a full month. 

Here's Jake (left) and Andre (right), enjoying the delicious Mexican food at Gordito's which is just a 5 minute walk from Cameron's:

Walking up the beach, we saw this game of beach baseball going:

Jesse knows this local fisherman. Today he had fresh lobster. We are trying to get some conch or grouper or tuna, so we keep checking with him each day for the morning catch:

After our morning surf sessions we make egg tacos (of course):

Cameron has an eclectic cast of friends. They are all really nice and fun to hang with. Here is Jesse with "Kissy" a London DJ who is in Cabarete for a week taking time off from his US tour. We had some colorful conversation with him:

 

Poker night at Cameron's. 500 peso buy-in, or about US$12.50:

Pro kiters, a London house music DJ, French businessmen, Israeli internet entrepreneurs, Jesse, and me:

We've been having a blast in the DR and really appreciate all of Cameron's generous hospitality.