The run down to Christmas...

So, the run down to my first Christmas abroad.

Going to start with the return to the hostel of Spanks (Lenka, which went to Lenky, Wanky, Spanky and then Spanks) who is a Czech girl who wants to be British and lives in Devon. Top girl, good bant and loves a bit of sarcasm. While we are on nicknames, dutch Tim is a dead ringer for the Honey monster, cross Harry from the Hendersons. Check the pic at the bottom, you decide.

We have been surfing frontera beach a lot recently (beach with all the wildlife) as we haven't had huge amounts of swell and its rarely busy. On one of our usual morning surfs here we met more dolphins. This time they were jumping out of the water and playing in a pod of around 5 or 6 less than 3 metres from us. Amazing! I also managed to catch the best wave of my trip so far. A pretty sizey left came through the lineup and i dropped into a fast steep wave. I manged to get in a few turns before connecting the final part of the wave, another few turns and i kicked out still stood on my board as the pro's do! Ecstatically i did a pretty shit back flip off my board as my final move. Pat had seen it all which made me feel like the back flip didn't go to waste. A few days later we returned but there were no dolphins and i surfed like shit. To top it off i managed to get my board caught in one of the many fishing nets just as 2 waves approached. So imagine paddling towards a wave and being pulled back knowing your stuck. Nice. After being rag dolled around by two waves still attached to a fishing net i managed to untangle myself and catch my breath and scurry to safety. Very scary!

We had some new arrivals at the hostel. Thor (Norweigan Adonis of a man and a doctor) and Chris (all round top Aussie) who met a few months earlier and have been living in Lima for the last month partying. Sadly we had to say bye to the Fins, Vanessa and Winnifried! I have also  started to try and improve my Spanish by chatting to a young lad called Felipe who is staying here and working at a local restaurant. He's Argentinian and only speaks a bit of English which is cool as we try to chat in each others native language, this has mixed results but its helping!

So the food out here is awesome although Peruvians are big on the double (minimum, often 3 or 4) carbs with each meal. Most days for lunch we have this awesome potato dish called Huancaina. Its basically boiled sliced spuds with a spicy creamy sauce. Amazing, followed by chicken or beef with loads of carbs and varied tasty sauces. The other day we had no native Spanish speakers at lunch and went for a lottery lunch. After my standard Huancaina starter I went for Cau-cau, regrettably. This consists of tripe and stomach meat with rice and potatoes in a yellow sauce with some veg. It was the only meal I haven't finished here, It smelt horrendous and the meat looked like a starfish! I also managed to try Ceviche, this is raw chunks of white fish cooked by lime juice, onions and chilli. Pretty tasty and i hate fish!

It was the Honey monster and Melissa's last few days so we decided to have another rum night. Ouch. After a non eventful morning surf we went to check out the surf shops. We got off the bus near the cash point as the honey monster had run low on funds. I was pretty confident where the shops were so off we went. After about 40 minutes of walking the honey monster told us the shops were about 20ft on the other side of the cash point. Smooth. On the walk back we decided to stop for a bite and the honey monster chose the only place with no one eating. Pat had some chicken (which arrived unbelievably raw) while the rest of us had chips. Everything tasted like cillit bang, ive never had bleach chips before and it wasn't a good experience. Back at the hostel we chatted loads about a number of things but then decided that we are going to buy some land  (4.5k sq metres) in either Guatemala or Sri Lanka and build the 'Lifestyle Hostel". We only need €25k each. If anybody wants in please contact me...

We decided to wait until after dinner to open the rum, this was based on the piss poor performance at the last rum night by the honey monster (he was sick before dinner at 8pm and retired for the evening after melissa found him on the  bathroom floor). After the usual many games of shit head (shit head is a loud fun card game where the aim is to not be shit head whilst screwing as many of your opponent's over as you can. Other than eating and surfing this is one of the only things everyone gets involved in. Pat and I are proud to have introduced it to Peru). As the night wore on some of the gang went to the clubs, i was tired so chatted to the dutch for a bit and retired to bed. Turns out i missed a good night. The guys went skinny dipping but Pat and Spanks decided to swim around the rocks and back to the beach, in the dark, smashed. This was followed by watching the sun rise on the roof terrace and Pat jumping 10ft down onto our balcony. The next day he struggled to walk as his feet hurt. Smooth.

Christmas eve!

So in Peru they celebrate Christmas by having a big dinner at midnight. Pat and I volunteered to get Christmas day supplies for the gang from the mad market at Lurin. Our shopping list was simple, rum x 3 L, ginger ale x 4 L, 10 limes, chocolate and 10 santa hats. Simples. In the process of procuring said items i tried to use my new improved Spanish to secure some good prices. We spent the equivalent of $70 and got $2 discount, result. We did see a bit of peruvian culture though, they caught a thief at the market and made him stand at the front shirtless with a big sign around his neck saying "Soy Rateros". I am a rat! Back in the car park loco Matt (sadly not one of my nicknames but well deserved) bought some fireworks from a nice old boy.

Back at the hostel the rum started to flow but it was ok as we had bought enough for 2 days. Abraham and G worked hard on what was a fucking ridiculously good dinner! So the rum was now flowing and we were approaching midnight. Loco Matt whipped out the fireworks and set a rocket off from his hand. Pat had a go, bottled it near the end and threw it on the floor for it to go wild and bang about a foot from the table. G then managed to do the same! Loco Matt suggested we try something more fun, a duel! 2 v 2 stood 20 metres from each other each with one rocket each. Aim of the game, dont get hit! After lighting on the count of 3 my heartbeat was racing, pure adrenaline of shooting a firework at your mate whilst ensuring you dont get hit. So all alive and in once piece we hit the roof terrace for loco Matts firework finale and Peru's impresive display (fireworks are cheap here so everyone went nuts!). We got to the roof terrace and the firework was lit, it was one of those 9 shot things. After the first one fired it instantly fell over and shot 8 more times at the group who had nowhere to go as we were on the roof, G and Richard took one to the legs and Pat got hit in the face, well actually his hair! Don't try this at home kids...

After that mad 20 minutes i was lucky enough to watch the best firework show of my life for well over an hour. From the roof you could see probably 50 miles up and down the coast including the city of Lima with 9m people! You could see and hear fireworks for as far as the eyes could go. Unbelievable and i have been informed that this is nothing compared to new years eve!

After the fireworks we (Chris, Pat, loco Matt and me) got into playing shit head for money. This got serious, the sun came up, we played on, people got up for breakfast, we played on. At around 10.30am (we reckon maybe 8 hours of cards) not only was the night done along with all 3 litres of rum but it was Christmas day! I had been planning to surf and make the most of it. What happened was i did nothing but feel like dog shit and hide from the world. At around 8pm i felt human again and went straight to bed.

Its now Friday and the parties are going to start all over again. Looking forward to 2015 and more crazy fun times!

For more pictures check #landlockedsurferletloose on instagram and on the links below.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10205244706574478.1073741831.1150967679&type=1&l=5d0be0770d

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10205169936745279.1073741830.1150967679&type=1&l=792867bbcd

Dan.