Hey all, sorry for the absence.
No excuse this time, except for being so busy living life that I kept coming up empty when I tried to sit down and write about it. To think I ever thought myself an introvert… I have an extraordinary amount of trouble forcing myself to sit down with my journal and write when people are constantly proposing waterfall hikes and acro-yoga sessions (yes, that happened). At home I always recharge by spending time alone in my head, but being in such a cool community of interesting and like-minded people, Im finding more and more that I get my energy and strength from the time I spend with others instead.
I had an interesting conversation to that effect with one of my farm sisters who just left today as we sat in the tall grass of the cow pasture and watched the orange-pink sun seep down into the horizon (I can barely fathom that I ever lived happily without seeing a spectacular, technicolour sunset every single evening. As the farm sits on the end of a ridge with deep valleys and then mountains on either side we get inescapable 360 degree views of the transitioning sky at 5:30 each night). We talked about how, in many ways, my two gap year journeys thus farm have been near opposites. I spent a vast majority of my time out west alone in my skull, getting to know my pysche like I would another person. But so far, this leg of the trip has been so much more about getting to know myself through the lenses and mirrors of other people, making connections, and learning from them.
I have never lived this communally before, never spent quite this much time talking to and seeing soul-soaringly beautiful things with people I sometimes feel I have more in common with than my best friends, but whom I met days, or even hours before. And I find myself loving it instead of being exhausted by the constant interaction. Case in point, this conversation unfolded when I had retreated to the cow pasture because I thought I wanted some solitary sun-gazing time and Jessie came and found me. I think I’m able to enjoy the constant interaction in our community because I am more open and myself here than I have possibly ever allowed myself to be. Its not tiring to be around others 24/7, its exhilarating, all because I’m not putting on a mask or maintaining any sort of facade. Two entirely different types of self discovery working together like ying and yang. I couldn’t have planned it any better had it actually been intentional. Just goes to show that if you give yourself up to the world and take a leap of faith, the experiences you need to have are often placed in your path.
On the subject of sunsets, the other thing that Jessie and I talked about that I wanted to share was about how amazing it is that we get to intimately experience what this uncaptureably stunning place looks like at every time of day. And its so true. I can call to mind what the rocky, looming face of La Cangreja looks like at the break of dawn and by the light of the full moon at 2 am. I don’t think I can say that for any other place in the world.
One of the things that I was most excited for in coming here was that there really is no indoors to speak of at Villas Mastatal. The internet cafe I’m currently typing this in is the first fully closed off structure Ive been in in weeks, and even still a breeze is blowing through the open door. At home, being outside requires a concious descision, an act of decisively leaving the comfy, climate controlled boxes we pack ourselves away in. Here it is just how we live, totally exposed and in tune with the natural wonderland around us.
I havent woken up to an alarm once since I’ve been here (except the one that got my butt out of bed to catch the bus to Puriscal at 4:30 this morning). On an average day I’m roused by the sunrise and the chickens at 5 am, and I usually get sung to sleep by the rainforest while gazing out the gap in the roof at the stars by 9. The rhythm of my days here, so in tune with with the earth and the animals and the sun make it feel like I’ve been at Villas for years and also barely at all.
It also makes it difficult to follow my usual formula for these blog updates because everything blurs together so beautifully and I honestly can’t remember what happened on any particular day. So we’re going to do this like a highlight reel, starting where I left you last, in Puriscal.
I didn’t really take the time to talk about it in my last update, but Puriscal is a neat little place. Totally off the tourist trail, its a worn-down, washed out collection of bakeries, anything-and-everything outlets and farm supply shops sitting in the shadow of a massive and very much abandoned cathedral that looms on a fenced off-hill right beside the central park. I’d love to know more of the story of that building, I’m sure its an interesting one. The central park in town is very European feeling to me, but Maarten tells me that theyre quite common throughout Central America. Teenage couples kiss behind trees and old men watch little kids run along the paths from sun-soaked benches or the steps of the weird, modern-art looking bandstand type structure that we always use as our meeting place. Gotta say though, despite my legs being a good 3 inches to long to sit in any sort of comfort, the bus rides to and from Puriscal have been one of my favourite parts.
To travel within Costa Rica, you either have to rent a car eith four wheel drive or take the bus. And unless you can accept careening along unpaved roads a mere half foot from a 500 ft drop to certain death as a personal challenge, you’ll probably end up on the bus. The state of the road isnt any less dubious, but at least it clunks along at a steady 20 kph. The bus from Mastatal to Puriscal costs 1350 colones, roughly $3. The only out out leaves our stop at 5 am and the only one back departs at 3 pm. You don’t miss that bus.
Thus the line starts to gather at 2 across from the Supermora on what I suppose could be called Puriscals main drag. When it arrives people pile in on top of eachother sardine style. Sacs of groceries are passed through windows, children curl up on available laps that are not otherwise occupied by oversized backpacks (hallmark of the gringo), sacs of rice or the occasional chicken or puppy in a cardboard box. Eventually, painfully, the bus creeps forward, inching uphill with an ominus death rattle thats replaced with the frenzied gasping of brakes on the subsequent down slope. Everyone on the bus knows eachother, shaking hands and patting heads as they find their way to seats. Wizened little Doñas frown up at no one until muscle-tee sporting teens with punk rock hairdos sheepishly forsake their seats. People rocking on porches or gathered outside little “sodas” (small convenience store, cafe hybrids) wave as we pass. Snack breaks and baño stops are random and upon popular demand. Food is passed around and shared.
One of the reasons I like the bus is because we actually see the women our age. We work alongside the men, and play futbol with them in town during the week, but aside from the occasional middle-aged matriarch holding court at the bar on Saturday night the ticas (female Costa Ricans, dudes are ticos) are elusive creatures. Nick said that many of the young women either get married and stay home or move to San Jose. The girls I’ve seen are all stunning, done up to the nines in skinny jeans, eyeshadow and Hollywood sun glasses, standing beside cow pastures like its 5th Avenue. I can’t help wondering if they hate us though. They want their men, and from my experience thus far, the local men sure seem to spend a lot of time chasing light hair and coloured eyes. The constant “no thank you, I’m not going to move to Costa Rica”s and “sorry, not interested, don’t have a phone number”s all us girls have to dole out in town raise questions for me about the sort of impact the large international prescence is having on Mastatal. Villas isn’t the only farm that accepts volunteers in the area, in fact theres four or five, meaning a constant stream of gringos into this relatively isolated community. I know that we’re bringing money into the local economy and helping to support permaculture projects in the region, but I do wonder about whether our impact on the local culture and way of life is positive or negative. I personally have never felt threatened by the attention, its usually relatively benign and the men are quick to back down, not to mention that we more or less always travel as a pack. Its more of a constant annoyance, and something that I feel weirdly guilty about bringing to the community.
Enough about that though, you probably want to hear about the farm. The Tuesday after I last posted we went back to the bean feild for my personal hardest day of work yet. We had to gather up all the piles of bean vines we had left to dry in the sun and carry them down the hill to be beaten with sticks on a tarp by our two tico helpers (Randal, who works on the farm, and Carlos who was apparently just helping for the day) to get the actual beans themselves out. Problem was, the sun had dried the vines out so much that every time we moved the piles pods would fall off and get lost in the undergrowth. The newly exposed soil where we had pulled up plants was also dry and dusty, making climbing the steep feild ridiculously treachourous, a massive hill of loose earth with no hand or foot holds to speak of. It was also really really really hot. In an excercise of mutual frustration and teamwork we formed an assembly line and gently passed the piles down to the boys on the tarp. It was awful and extraordinarily frustrating, but I could feel the shared emotion coming off everyone in waves, and somehow knowing that I wasn’t alone in the suck of the morning helped tremendously.
The day after, I finally got my tour of the farm from Javier. He walked a group of us around and explained the plants and the various systems at play, but he also talked about how Villas came to be. When he and his wife Raquel took over the farm 8 years ago from her parents, it was primarily coffee and cattle. There was a lot of tension with his inlaws when javier decided that he wanted to revamp the entire system by changing over to subsistence farming- trying to grow everything they needed off their land and hosting volunteers. It sounds awful to say, but that was so crazy inspiring to me, because the only stories we really get told along those lines usually just feature educated white yuppies but here was this born and raised farm boy from a tiny Central American pueblo going against the tide to do something he had barely any reference point for and fighting really hard for a different way of life, just because thats what he felt was right, not because he saw it on the news and thought it looked cool. It gave me so much hope that living symbiotically with the earth is something that humans are drawn to as naturally as we seem to be drawn into the web of constant and unsustainable growth and the endless march of progress. Javier is amazing, and I have such massive amounts of respect for he and Raquel for doing what they do, opening up their lives to educate people about living better and farming responsibly.
The rest of our work mornings since then have involved a whole range of things, many centering around the major construction project currently under way to build a new dorm on the site of the current lower one. Its pretty ambitious. Javi hopes to make it significantly bigger than the currrent one which has 14 beds, and one day use it mainly to house the short term volunteers and vacationers, reserving the upper dorm for the greater numbers of interns he hopes to take on. The new dorm is going to have a bigger rooftop yoga deck and an aromatherapy room. Its very cool to me that one day there will be this building in the jungle of Costa Rica that I had a hand in building. The work we’ve done on it has varied from a particularily memorable day when we moved roughly 500 cinderblocks down a hill in another human chain to shoveling massive quantities of dirt, sifting sand for concrete, to shaving the bark off teak logs with machetes (I’m getting really good with a machete, something about which I am a bit absurdly proud).
Its amazing how much job satisfaction I get out of this hard manual labour. Its not mentally stimulating, but the people I’m sharing it which certainly are, and I can feel it making every muscle in my body stronger just as it builds the calluses on my palms. Work like this comes with a sense of completion that I’ve never really experienced in anything else I’ve done as well. Sure theres a good feeling that comes with finishing up an essay or making a really good sale at work, but the satisfaction that comes with being able to look at a massive stack of wood and say “yup, my arms and my shoulders and my will put that there” is bone deep and addictive.
We’ve also done lots of general planting and maintenance work around the farm. As an intern, Nick (our foreman of sorts, an English speaking Javier from Colorado who lives at Villas half the year) has designated me responsible for a garden area called Zone Two. Zone Two is a tiered hillside running alongside the driveway down to the main road packed with banana trees, papañame, pinapple, cayote, loads of stuff. I walk through it every day to keep an eye on how everythings growing and let them know when things are ready to harvest, and do general tidying work moving leaf litter into the vegetable beds to protect the soil from the parching sun. This week I led a project to transplant a bunch of citronella grass along the rim of the hill where breezes will carry its bug repelling scent up the hillside to waft over the rancho, the gazebo type structure where we all congregate in the afternoons and evenings. It feels really good to take on leadership roles, even on little projects, as I think somehow I learn best when I’m responsible for something.
Speaking of responsible, our morning work also includes a list of pre-breakfast chores that everyone is assigned to every Monday. They include cleaning of the common areas, putting out old fruit for the birds, taking out the compost and feeding the animals. The last two weeks I have been assigned to chicken duty, so I get up a half hour early to give the gallinas (hens) and polloquitos (chicks we’re raising for meat) their food and water and collect their eggs. My seven year old self would be so happy, I remeber always wanting to keep chickens as a child and now look at me.
In the afternoons we’ve been doing the usual hikes to waterfalls. They’re all over the place, including in the national park on our doorstep. When I was visiting one with Maarten, Evan and Kat the other day I had sat myself down on a rock by a pool and luckily looked up just as a Jesus Christ lizard jetted by me, clear over the water on its hind legs. It was an awesome moment because I had literally just seen a thing on the Discovery Channel on these lizards that run across water on their hind legs due to massive feet allowing for perfect weight distribution that keeps them topside and gives them an awesome escape route from predators. And there was one not even two metres away from me. I am living inside a Discovery Channel nature special.
When we aren’t hiking or comatose in the multitude of hammocks, a group of us often go into town to play futbol with the locals. You really only have to walk through the pueblo with a ball under your arm and ticos will come venturing down to the field and start lacing up their cleats. I don’t play (they’re verrrrry serious for people who play in rolled up jeans) but I love to watch.
I was doing just that with my friend Avi (whos left now) when three local kids came up to us smiling boldly and saying “Hi! Hi! Hello!” before looking at us expectantly. That’s how I ended up running around the endzone of the community soccer field playing taca helado (freeze tag) and pato pato ganso (duck duck goose), chasing the kids and tickling them when I caught up. Then it was soccer, then frisbee when a gringa from another farm showed up with one. It was one of those moments when I just hit me that here I was running barefoot through a feild hacked out of the jungle in central America with a bunch of smiling, laughing little kids trying to explain they wanted piggy back rides in Spanish. At what point did this become my life. They know me now, and run out to greet me with their friends whenever I pass through town. I’m finally staring to feel like not just a member of the villas community, but one of the larger community of Mastatal.
I have so many stunning pictures of this place, but unfortunately no where to upload them easily as of yet. I’ll keep working on that, as even what the limited powers of photogrpahy can capture is extraordinary. Thats all for now, I need to go grab lunch before I catch the return bus. Love to you all, thanks for sticking with me and coming along for the ride!
Buenas dias! I’m writing this in an internet cafe in Puriscal, the larger town a two and a half hour bus ride away from the farm. A bunch of us made the trip today for money and junk food.
God, it feels like I’ve been gone forever and not at all, and theres just so much to tell you about its sort of ridiculous. In five days Ive become someone who wakes up before sunrise and goes to bed at 8, who rides in the back of pickup trucks and climbs waterfalls and plays pool in bars with thatched roofs. But lets start from the beginning.
I flew in to San Jose at 4:40 and emerged into the tropical choas to find Javier. I searched the milling, yelling crowd for my name on a sign and came up empty. Well shit. I thanked my lucky stars that I had remembered to copy down the contact number he had sent me in his last email and retreated to a corner to call. I could barely hear over the multilingual yelling going on behind me, but a voice that sounded vaguely french told me that Javiers car had broken down and he would not be coming today. They recommended I stay in a hostel called The Maleteque where Javier could meet me the next morning.
Okay then. I found a uniformed cab driver standing at a kiosk and asked him if he could take me there. He had never heard of it. This went back and forth, me running off to call the farm and call my frantic mother in the quiet of the duty free shop and running back to talk to the cabbie. I trusted him. First of all he was in uniform, always an important thing to take note of, there are a lot of unofficial cab drivers in this world, and secondly he had really kind eyes, and every time I would come running over he would break off whatever conversation he was having to smile ruefully as I panicked at him. It got dark. Eventually I just threw my hands up and said “Can you please just take me to the closest hotel thats less than $100 a night?”
He drove like the world was ending and he didn’t want to live. Whenever a car dared to be in front of us he would move over to the half paved shoulder, lining up the wheels so potholes you could lower a coffin into passed squarely beneath our wheels. Finally we pulled up in front of a low green stucco building- La Guaria Inn and Suites. I was still shaken up, and immediately suspicious when he got out to take me inside. But what else could I do? He kissed the lady behind the counter on both cheeks and shook my hand before saying “Good luck chica, everything will be okay.” My room was clean and empty, with a heavy door that locked, which was the sum total of what I wanted at that point. I watched 3 hours of Friends with Spanish subtitles and called the farm before I fell asleep to give them the address, praying to all the gods I could think of that Javier would show up.
Everything looks better in the morning. The hotel I thought was sketchy that night was actually bright and buzzing with families, and best of all they had complimentary breakfast. I cant say I`ve ever been so happy to see white bread and fruit loops. And Javier did show up! In a beat up white Toyota truck. He jumped out and gave me a big hug, with not a word about not showing yesterday.
Things work differently here, as I have to keep reminding myself. No ones on time and even the best laid plans blow up in your face at a seconds notice. And theres absolutely nothing to do but adapt.
Javier also subscribed to the “whats a passing lane?” school of driving. We chatted for a bit in the Spanish I knew (not much) and the English he did (more than he lets on, but he doesnt like to use it). I kept accidentally answering in French. Eventually we just lapsed into singing along to Metallica and Paramore (he loves Paramore, go figure) songs at the top of our lungs and smiling at eachother as we sped up gravel roads into the mountains.
When we pulled up outside the farm he smiled and winked and said “Bienvenido a tu nueva casa.” He grabbed some sheets and showed me to my bunk in the main dorm, which looks out over the valley and into the neighbouring mountains.
There really is no indoors here. The dorm is entirely open to the air, just a roof and strategically placed privacy walls in some cases, as is the kitchen, the dining room, El Rancho (the hammock-filled gazebo where we all hang out in the afternoons), the bathroom, showers, everything. A girl who was hanging out some clothes to dry when I arrived, Nicole, offered to show me around. She took me around the main site and down to where the pigs, chickens, cows and the hyrdoponic system emptying out in a tilapia pond all live. I introduced myself to Javiers wife, Raquel, and his two year old, Andres, as well as Nick, whos from Colorado but lives at Villas half the year and functions as Javiers foreman and translator.
Another volunteer, Boo, said he was walking to the cafe in town and I was welcome to join him. Town is about a 20 minute walk away, and consists of about 5 building, one of which is the little cafe, a wooden hut (also open to the air) that sells pop and icecream and assorted junk food. The family was watching Telemundo in the corner, and Boo and I talked about life and Africa and Sherlock before heading home.
The food is awesome here. Most of it comes straight from the farm, and rice and beans are a constant. Nothing processed at all. Im begining to think of this whole experience as a cleanse. After dinner we sat around a big bonfire that Boo had built and I got to know the other volunteers. Theres about 15 of us right now, but it changes all the time, and people stay anywhere from a week to many months.
Usually days at the farm start with with breakfast at 7, a meeting in El Rancho, then work from 8 till lunch at noon, after which the rest of the day is yours. But my first day was a bit different because Javiers beans that he grows in a feild on a neighbour’s farm were ready to harvest. As such, we had to roll out of bed at 5, inhale breakfast and coffee and pile into the back of the pickup truck to head to the feild. The wind woke us up, and the mist rising of the mountains in the sunrise was beautiful.
The field was quite a hike away from where we had to park the car. We wound our way through the forest down to the base of the valley, shucked our shoes to wade through the river at its base, and then climbed the steep hill through a stand of cacao trees to the other side. The feild itself was actually on a very steep, south-east facing hill for maximum sun exposure. When its time to plant the beans, they walk up and scatter big handfuls of last years beans all over the hillside, then come back with machetes to cut down all the brush. This gives the beans enough natural compost and shade to take root, and when the rest of the plants start to grow back, the bean vines wind their way up up the stalks. The mixture of vegetation in the feild also helps maintain a balance of nutrients in the soil. When the beans are ready, the pod that holds them becomes all brown and dried out, making it easy to remove the little red beans inside.
Harvesting was hard work, partly because slope was so steep that half the time I had to dig into the undergrowth like I was rockclimbing. We were pulling out all the bean vines with the pods still attached, then when we had accumulated a few, we bundled them up into balls that we left to dry in the sun. Afterwards we went back over the area we had picked to collect all the pods we had dropped, which we brought home with us in rice sacks and have been eating ever since.
We were working with two ticos- Carlos and Randal. Carlos helps Javier pick for a share of the beans, as he doesn’t have any land of his own. I think Randal gets paid but I actually have no idea. They think my name is hilarious because when they say it, it sounds like Casi, which is the Spanish word for almost. My name here is effectively Almost. When we took breaks in the shade of the banana trees at the botton of the hill where we had left our water and bags, they pulled pineapples from plants nearby and cut them up on plates of banana leaves with machetes as easily as if the massive knives were an extension of their arms.
When I thought I was about ready to collapse, Javier brought us all in and told us that we could be done, we’d just have to come finish tomorrow (Saturday) and take Sunday and Monday off instead. We walked back down to the river, stripped to our underwear and jumped in, spending the next hour playing in the current and the small waterfalls upstream before making the hike back up hill to the truck. It felt like it was about 6 o’clock but it wasnt even noon.
Lunch becomes the biggest meal of the day on the farm, as its the one you work the hardest for before we take our lazy afternoons off. I spent mine reading in a hammock, shelling beans on the floor of the dining room and learning how to make drinking glasses from old beer bottles. They cut them by turning them around neatly in a holder with a glass cutter mounted into it with a clamp, turning the cut part of the bottle over a candle until it turns black, then dipping it in a bucket of water, letting the temperature change break the glass neatly so you can sand down the rim.
I had volunteered to help out with breakfast the next day, which meant an early start at 4:30 before heading back to the bean feild to finish up the job. Admitably, heading to bed at 8 the night before had made the wake up a bit easier. The work was easier that day because we knew what we were doing, and we finished up early to go back to the river and swim in a bigger waterfall a little farther up. On Tuesday we’ll go back and gather our vine piles and beat them on a tarp to get the beans out. This larger waterfall had all these deep natural pools carved out by the water, and the rock was smooth enough that we could slide off the side of one and into the other easily, like sea otters. Paradise.
That night we all decided to go take over the bar in town. Not hard seeing as its a 300 square foot wooden hut on the side of a mountain with a corrugated time roof. The owner, Giovanni, showed us bar tricks mostly involving the label of the local beer and national treasure- Imperial between passing out shots from his homemade stash of moonshine tequila that he keeps in a massive mayonaise jar. I stuck with the beer. His son and body double, Giovanni Jr. and friends dragged us down a succesion of gravel-filled oil drums functioning as steps to the “basement”, the open space under the hut where they keep the pool table. The 12 year old pool sharks chalked the cues for us and we all played no rules, everyone taking a turn. Carlos works at the bar, and Randal and his brother showed up to relentlessly hit on all the gringas (white girls, re: us). Its a bit of a constant thing, but harmless, and I think just about all of us got a free beer out of it. The night ended with Whitney, a yoga teacher from California and certified jungle-woman, leading us in a spontaneous meditation session on the yoga deck. Perfect day.
Yesterday a bunch of us walked to another nearby waterfall that has a massive natural slide, and cliffs that you can jump off into deep pools. I felt about ten years old, and a bit like Huckleberry Finn in the best way. I can’t believe this is my life. Cleo showed me around the herb garden, and Ive now taken to walking around with a mug picking hibiscus buds, mint and ressurecion to experiment making different kinds of tea. Helping with lunch meant walking through the salad garden with a plastic bowl of my hip picking catta and hibiscus leaves for some greens. I already feel so healthy, and its been what? Five days.
And now I’m here! That`ll have to be it for now, because I need to go meet everyone in the park so we can go grab some lunch before getting the bus back, but I’ll keep you updated on my Pura Vida life as soon as I possibly can! Hasta lluego!
Okay, so I’ve gotten a few questions recently pertaining to how I planned the first leg of my trip, and now this one too, from people who mentioned wanting to do something similar. Again, it is both flattering and hilarious that you think I know these things.
But whatever, here goes. The Kelsea Walker guide to planning a Big Trip.
First off, you gotta have some money. I estimate that I spent just under $3000 on the first leg of my adventures. That said, I was staying with family and friends more or less the entire way, and accommodations are going to be the most expensive part of your trip aside from flights (or train fare, depending). On the other hand, I was in Canada where cost of living is high and food and recreation (think surf lessons, kayak tours) all add up fast. And that price doesn’t include my return flight either mind you, cause after that adventure I flew down to Arizona to meet the fam.
My favourite resources for finding cheap flights are Matrix Flights and CheapOair . You just enter your to and from destinations and the date and it pulls flight info from hundreds of different companies to find you the best rate. A word of caution though, the options are organized by price, not logic. I could have flown to San Jose for $210, but I would have had a 13 hour layover in Newark and an overnight in Houston so keep an eye on that. Also always look at a couple days before and after you plan to leave, there can be a lot of variation in price from day to day. If you have baggage you’ll need to check I would recommend either a direct flight or connections within the same airline so you don’t have to worry about running around trying to find your bag.
If you’re planning to travel within Canada, consider taking the train. There’s something so special about seeing the whole country in one go like that, and its like a little mini-vacation in and of itself. Keep an eye on the VIA Rail website, they often have some sort of sale or promotion going on. Bus is another option for super-economical country-crossing if you’re one of those people who can sleep anywhere, but be ready for a very long haul. I’m sure you meet some pretty interesting characters though.
For Costa Rica I’m budgeting max $2000. My flight down was $326, return was $400, food, accommodation, laundry, everything at the farm for the three months I’m there will be $600, and my ride from the airport in San Jose to the farm will be $140. The extra is emergency money, going out money, and funds in case I decide to travel around the country a bit post wwoofing. Though Costa Rica has a much higher cost of living than other countries in the area, its still cheaper than here.
How much money you’ll need for your adventure depends entirely on where you want to go, how you intend to travel, and obviously how long as well. Though staying with friends and family, wwoofing or couch surfing are the cheapest options as far as sleeping arrangements go, hostels are also a good bet. Prices vary but are usually between $17 and $35 dollars a night. Read reviews online as not all of them are as wonderful and clean as Whalers on the Point in Tofino, and see what their policy is for booking ahead. If you don’t book ahead make sure you have a back-up option in case they’re full.
Some helpful resources for accommodation are Couchsurfing International , WWOOF (this is just the general site I posted yesterday, Google wwoof *country you want to travel to* to get that country’s site with actual farm listings and stuff) and HostelWorld.com.
What to pack? Half the clothes you think you need and twice the money is a good general rule of thumb to take to heart. Backpacks are classic and practical. I brought a 65 L Osprey Argon pack out west with me, and I’m heading down to Costa Rica with a 33 L Osprey Talon. I brought wayyyy too much stuff the first time and I’m not even going to tell you about it all cause its embarrassing. This time around I’m bringing 3 tshirts, 2 tank tops, 2 long sleeved work shirts (all quick dry), one pair of light work pants, 2 pairs of shorts, 1 pair of jeans, baselayer bottoms and a fleece for chilly nights, four changes of underwear, 4 pairs of merino wool socks, hiking boots, sandals and my super-light barefoot running shoes (I’m using them as water shoes). One novel (I’ll swap or borrow other books as I go), a guidebook and a Spanish phrase book, a headlamp, a money belt for my cash, cards and passport, shampoo bars (soap, shampoo and conditioner in super convenient bar form), Toothy Tabs dry toothpaste from Lush, a combination lock (most hostels give you a locker for valuables but you have to bring a lock or buy one), my first aid kit, my camera, some extra ziplock bags, heavy duty mosquito repellent, a micro-fiber towel, a mosquito net, my Nalgene and a compactible Platypus bottle for back-up, a reusable shopping bag (for any souvenirs I pick up, my packs pretty full), my phone and my pocket knife.
There’s probably more that I’m forgetting, but that’s the gist of it. There are people who are infinitely more impressive than I who travel with far less but I know myself and I will undoubtedly lose and wreck things along the way so I play it safe. That’s about as minimalist as I go. I like rolling my clothes and extras in dry bags inside my pack for purposes of organization, compression and keeping dry.
If you’re planning something and you’re in the neighbourhood, stop by and see my other family at Threads Lifestyle, even if only for a conversation and advice about what you’re going to need. They know their stuff. And I’m only completely biased in saying that the service is fantastic. Well, I mean, I’m not working there anymore, but its probably still half decent. Kidding, so kidding, they’re great. (There, I plugged you, can I have a raise now?)
Most of the questions I’ve gotten about doing a year off or a trip like mine have been of the “but where do I START?” variety. I suppose first you want to decide where you’d like to go. Do you want to explore your own country before heading off into the world to experience others? Have you always wanted to backpack Europe? Did you watch Eat, Pray, Love and fall head over heels for India or Bali? Do you want to climb mountains or visit temples or see far flung relatives? All of the above? There is such a wealth of travel literature and journalism, both published and on humble DIY blogs like this one, Google what you want to do and I’m sure you’ll find someone who’s done something similar and written about it to give you some idea about what to expect. One that I found really helpful on my first trip was I Backpack Canada. Guidebooks are a tried and true resource, and theres so many available these days- even ones geared specifically towards backpackers and students (read: broke people).
Once you know where you want to go, I suggest creating a bucket list of things you want to do and see while you’re out there, and use that as a basis to plan your route and time frame. To budget, look at transportation costs and do some math to figure out where you can afford to stay. Always always always account for unexpected extras, and then throw in some more money for emergencies, just in case. Spontaneity is a necessary component to a trip of this nature, in my opinion, but especially if you’re going it alone, a general framework never hurts. You can deviate from it, of course, but I say that you should always have some sort of plan, especially where sleeping arrangements are involved, to fall back on. There are also lots of organizations that run organized gap year-type trips, ad even travel agencies specifically geared towards student travel. All that comes with a price tag though, and though they all look amazing I found it a lot more economically feasible to go it alone.
A final word on travelling solo as a woman, because this is another thing I get asked a lot about. I wish we lived in a world where people’s right to safety and freedom was respected regardless of their gender and where we taught our boys not to attack people instead of teaching our girls to carry keys between their knuckles every time they go out after dark, and I hope that someday we do. Being female should not carry an expectation that you will be assaulted. It is not right and it is not fair and it should NOT be normalized. Not by our society, not by the media and especially not in our own minds. By saying things like “a girl traveling alone is asking for trouble”, you are perpetuating the idea that men have no control over their actions, violence against women is this normal, unavoidable reality, and worse, that it is all somehow women’s fault. This is bigotry defending itself, and like assault against ANYONE, it should not be tolerated.
End rant. Now, because this is not the world according to Kelsea (yes, bad things can happen and women do make more appealing targets than men while travelling abroad), there are certain precautions everyone, men and women, should take. Don’t hitchhike alone. If you absolutely must hitchhike period, a man and a woman together is the safest combination, and usually more likely to get picked up than two guys. Don’t publicize the fact that you are travelling solo. Don’t read guidebooks or maps on the street. Try to blend in. Study up on the local language before you go, and know how to contact emergency services if you need to. Keep you money stashed in at least two or three different places- a money belt, a secure pocket in your bag that takes some rummaging to get to, and an emergency stash tucked in an empty Chapstick container in my toiletry bag are usually the way I go. Dressing a little more conservatively than usual won’t go amiss.
It’s easy to get caught up in the safety stuff when travelling alone, especially when its all brand new and a little bit scary, but despite everything I just said, you also have to trust people. The vast majority of folks don’t want to hurt you, in fact most of them will prove to be helpful and friendly if you give them a chance, especially within the backpacker network. And you aren’t going anywhere that totally normal people don’t live and work and play every day of their lives. Just don’t make yourself an easy target by being oblivious to your surroundings and you’ll be fine.
And most of all, its totally worth it. Even if you have to get another job to save up, even if you have to fight your parents every step of the way. Other people may not love your choices, but they aren’t the ones who have to live with giving them up. I never, ever want to look back on my life and regret times I didn’t follow through on my dreams. No matter how hard you have to work for it, no matter how many opportunities you have to force into existence with your bare hands, I say its worth it. For the trips and the experiences themselves, of course, but also for the knowledge that you can achieve what you set your mind to. There’s really nothing more empowering than living life on your own terms. I want to see the world, experience it in every way possible and learn everything I can so that’s what I’m setting off to do. No reason you can’t do the same. My quote of the moment is from Calamity Jane and it goes “I figure if a girl wants to be a legend she should go ahead and be one.”
And why shouldn’t life be as legendary as you can make it? Pura Vida baby, I’m going to Costa Rica tomorrow!
An American coast guard named Craig once said to me “You know, people seem to think that you can take a big trip and get all that restlessness out of your system, but it doesn’t work that way. You never come back from an adventure satisfied, you come back wanting more.”
“It’s like change smoking cigarettes to get rid of your nicotine cravings,” I agreed.
He laughed and said ” Kid, I think you’ll find its more like heroin.”
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Since I was very small it has struck me as tragically unfair that we only get this one life to live.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been grateful for my absurdly privileged assignment as a middle class white girl in a first world country with free health care and public libraries.
But I want to know how it feels to be a courrier du bois.
I want to know what life looks like from a remote fishing outpost in Norway and from a tenement in Brooklyn, from a thatch hut in Sub-Saharan Africa, from an indigenous village in the mountains of Peru, from a cattle ranch in Texas.
I want to live my life one hundred different ways. I want to build an existence for myself in one hundred corners of the world, see the universe from one hundred different vantage points. And I want to write about it because by nature I am a compulsive scribe.
This is my challenge to myself- to spend my allotted time on this planet living my life one hundred different ways. I already know how to live the life I was born into, and I’ve gotten a glimpse into what it is like to be a Canadian nomad. Two down, 98 to go.
And as of January 15th I will be taking off again, this time for remote rural Costa Rica to spend three months living and working on an organic permaculture farm buried deep in the tropical rain forest.Three months is a good time frame- long enough for any one experience to begin to feel like home.
What I will be doing is called wwoofing, which essentially boils down to working for room and board at one of the member farms of WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities of Organic Farms). These farms are located all over the world, and are united by a mandate to teach sustainable ways of living off the land to anyone who wishes to learn. Volunteers are not paid (hence volunteer, duh), but are typically given three meals a day and a place to sleep in exchange for 4-6 hours of manual labour on the farm. The farming experiences themselves are as diverse as organic vineyards in Italy to cattle ranches in Australia, and wwoofing has gained a lot of popularity as an inexpensive way to travel and to immerse yourself in another culture and lifestyle.
The farm I’m going to is called Villas Mastatal and is located in Central Pacific Costa Rica. Villas Mastatal is an organic permaculture farm and Eco Lodge that grows pretty much all of their food on site. There are chickens, cows and pigs, a hydroponic system and a medicinal herb garden. Pretty much all of the buildings are built using the indigenous methods of the region (so, a roof and not too much in the way of walls). Their hot showers are powered by compost. Check out where I’ll be sleeping-
Some reasons I’m crazy amounts of excited right now-
1) For three months I will be living, eating, sleeping pretty much entirely outside, in the tropical rainforest. I don’t count it as indoors if there aren’t any walls, and in one spot on their website they advertise their toilets as having “great views”
2) More or less everything I’m eating I will have played some part in growing. Talk about the 100 mile diet, this is how humanity survived pretty much from when we invented the house until a couple hundred years ago. In our world of fast-paced, large scale, and wide spread, where the ingredients of my breakfast most likely came from five or six different countries, I will be removing all the intermediaries and doing what one might say is the least common denominator of human existence- working to feed myself. Not making money to go to the grocery store. Literally putting the things I eat in the ground, harvesting and cooking them to survive.
3) Villas Mastatal is gorgeous. Check out the Gallery page on their website which I linked to above (double click on the words that show up blue Grandma!). There’s a waterfall on the property. It’s a fifteen minute walk away from La Cangreja National Park which has a massive network of trails, a bat-filled cavern and another waterfall to explore.
I can’t wait. Yes, fan club, I’ll be blogging when I’m down there. I’ll be aiming for weekly updates as blogging will involve a 20 minute walk into town to an internet cafe that is described as “fairly reliable”. I don’t know what upload speed will be like, but I’ll do my best to get you some pictures too.
Part of the experience is that I will be more or less without my technological tethers and thus a pain in the butt to get a hold of, but your best bet is to email me at walker_kelsea@yahoo.ca, leave a comment on the blog or send me a message on the About Me page (as those will be the things I’m checking most regularly). I’ll have my phone for emergency, help-mum-I’ve-been-detained-at-the-border purposes and I’ll be receiving texts but not sending them.
Oh, and as of late I’ve gotten a couple people asking questions about the first trip, and how to go about planning a gap year adventure. I’ll put up a how-to guide post later today for you precious people who seem to be under the impression that I actually know what I’m doing.
And lastly, thank you thank you thank you to all you wonderful souls who read this blog for reasons unknown. The fact that I’ve garnered an audience besides my mom and dad never fails to amaze me. Follow me along, its adventure time again!
Am I scared? Of course. I’m headed to work on a farm in a remote part of a foreign country that I had to get a bunch of vaccines to even get a doctor’s okay to visit, the only things I reliably know how to say in the local language are “where is the bathroom?”, “can I get a beer?” and “I am a female Canadian”, and I’m doing it alone. But you know what? The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all, and as Jack Canfield said
“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.”
Let’s go get lost.
My last week in Victoria was characterized by the time I got to spend with my nephew (second-cousin, whatever he is) Mason. We went to the playground. We cuddled. I took him to the petting zoo in Beacon Hill Park and got up close and personal with some goats. The sheer range of experience on this trip is part of what made it amazing. One day I’m having epiphanies at the sight of the wide open Pacific and climbing some mountains just for kicks, the next I am trying to stop baby goats from climbing onto my lap with a baby braced against my hip and having the time of his life yanking on my hair.
But honestly, the goats were the best thing ever, he loved them.
Melia asked me if spending so much time with the Walker babes had been good birth control. And I mean, ya, I was beat by 9 o’clock every night but guys, your kids are all awesome, and I really want to have that someday. Not anytime soon though, cause sleep is REALLY, REALLY AWESOME, and the ability to travel without a circus caravan of play pens and highchairs in tow is something I want to hang on to. I really should have taken more funny pictures to show them when they’re 18 and come to visit me wherever I end up someday.
Man, can’t wait to whip out this one when I have a teenaged Mason crashing on my sofa.
What else did I do… The days all blur and pass by faster than you can imagine. I went to the new Robert Bateman Centre and saw some photo-realistic nature paintings. Bateman is actually a bit of an idol of mine as well, mostly for his work in conservation and his philosophies on the importance of the next generation having a sense of place, an ownership and commitment to the natural world. More recently, he’s done some pretty evocative pieces to bring awareness to the changes in the natural landscapes he loves.
Melia, Hailey and I (with the babies pack-sacked once again) went on a little hike to a beach just outside of Sooke with a gorgeous waterfall you could walk under.
On Saturday I took the ferry over to Salt Spring Island to go to the famous market in Ganges.
Salt Spring is this totally, utterly hilarious place, another end-of-the-road where all manner of ageing hippies and back-to-the-land types run to. Tie-dye, dreadlocks and small sustainable family farm complexes are prevalent. It is very, very small.
There is a bus that runs every two hours from the ferry dock in Fulford to the main town of Ganges. I say bus, but it was really more of an oversized van when it came down to it, and there were about three times as many people waiting as could possibly fit. We were delayed for nearly twenty minutes as everyone piled in on top of eachother, backed out, asked for change and sent the poor driver into conniptions as he tried to organize the chaos. And everyone was so achingly polite and nice.
“Oh no, you have a bag, here, you take my seat, I’ll hitchhike”
“No no, I can hitch a ride, it’s no trouble! You were there first and you’ve paid”
“Well if you insist…”
“Don’t worry, we’ll just flash some farmer and get a lift no problem.”
“Hey man, I only have five cents, can you cut me a break man?”
It was hysterical. The lady beside me said “I’m from Main Island and we’ve only just got a bus, so this is pretty funny.”
I replied “I’m from Toronto, this is HILARIOUS.”
Eventually some people caught a lift instead (after the whole bus shouted out tips ranging from where to stand, to do it fast before the ferry traffic dissipated, or, in the case of the out-spoken homeless looking guy in a floor-length trench coat, suggested either crying or showing some leg) and, after ascertaining that there were no BC transit employees aboard and making us all promise not to sue in the case of injury and/or death, the frazzled driver (a white, middle-aged guy named Tao) let some people sit cross-legged on the floor and perch on the hockey bag one guy had squeezed through the door. Best public transportation experience of my life.
Ganges is a cute little sort of town caught in transition. Salt Spring Island is being torn away from its history as a counter-culture refuge with every rich Vancouverite or foreign investment banker who decides it’s a great place for a vacation home. Crystal shops and herbalists are slowly being replaced by real-estate offices and upscale boutiques with nary a mu-mu in sight.
The Saturday market that runs through the summer to the end of October was probably the best example of things as they used to be, stocked as it was with vendors selling hand-picked mushrooms, up-cycled clothing and a variety of spiritual miscellany, all interspersed with buskers rocking it out on the fiddle or guitar.
I got my fortune told for five dollars paid to a dreadlocked, gypsy lady sitting in a tent on the end of a row. It’s a gap year, the whole point is to do the things you would never, ever do. I like to think I’m open minded and getting more-so, after all.
It wasn’t like the palm readings you gave your friends at sleep-overs where you counted the breaks in their love line and forecasted 17 divorces and 82 children. I won’t tell you everything she said, because that’s between her, my palm and I, but the main things were that I’m destined to live an adventurous life, characterized by restlessness, change, and loving deeply whether I want to or not. She told me that passion is my greatest spiritual attribute and that when I embrace it fully instead of guarding myself against it I will reach my full pre-destined potential. Don’t judge a hippy by the length of her dreads, that’s not bad actually, as advice based on lines on one’s hands goes.
I said goodbye on Sunday, not just to Cam and Melia and Mason but to the West. I hung over the railing of the ferry and said goodbye to the mountains and the beaches and the cedars and the sea and if I teared up a teensy bit then that is absolutely none of your business. I wish I could tell you that as we pulled into Tswassen harbor a whale leapt out of the waves and was silhouetted by the setting sun and I felt a deep sense of satisfaction and closure and then the screen faded to black, but no, Michael McGowan did not direct my life, even if sometimes I like to think of it that way when I’m listening to soundtrack music and staring out bus windows.
I’m back in Vancouver now, doing nothing so much as waiting to get on a plane to Arizona to meet up with Cole and my parents, forgoing my solitary freedom to be part of a whole again. Because when it comes down to it, this journey of mine wasn’t so much about what it was that I did, but the fact that I did it alone.
It is so important to spend time alone with ourselves, and I think in this extroverted world its something we forget. I don’t mean anything as specific as taking mental health days or bubble baths. I just mean making time to be quiet with yourself, until you can’t help but get a sense of who you are. If you wanted to get to know a new coworker or classmate you would spend some time with them one-on-one, its the same thing.
When I was in grade eleven I did my final English project on the journey of self discovery as a concept, as a subject in literature and as a reality that I was planning to embark on myself. I have always been intrigued by the concept of “finding oneself”, like, how does that work? Why do people feel the need to don over-sized backpacks and bandannas and sleep in hostels to achieve it? Is there a method that everyone knows abut except me? Was I sick the day of the three-step power point presentation?
For that project I looked at The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara, Eat, Pray, Love and One Week, all chronicles of formative, life-changing journeys. I talked about philosopher Stuart Hampshire, who believed that a person’s “self” was a thing of substance that could be discovered and understood through reflection and an understanding of the events in one’s past that caused their present motives and reactions. I talked about Jean-Paul Sartre who described the “self” as a never-ending project, always in flux and under construction, and David Hume, who maintained that the self was a bundle of all of our experiences and thus could never be discovered, only be temporarily understood at a specific moment in time. And at the end of my half hour presentation I had to look out into the faces of my drooling and semiconscious peers and tell them that I still didn’t get what exactly it meant to discover yourself, what such an undertaking required or why travel seemed to be an important ingredient, but I really really really wanted to try it for myself.
I wish I could go back in time and send a letter to younger me, who was so bored and desperate and hungry for adventure and a life where she didn’t wake up knowing exactly what was going to happen that day. Because I think I get it now. “Discovering yourself” means different things for everyone, but to me it means getting to know who you are just like you would anyone else. And travel? I like to think that a lyric from the Dave Matthew’s Band sums that up
“Sometimes the best way to find out who you are is to get to that place where you don’t have to be anything else.”
In our daily lives we tend to define ourselves in relation to other people, as daughters, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, employees. And we are all chameleons. I know I am. I used to wake up and put on my cheerful, wonderful daughter face (or my surly teenager face, but let’s not go there), go to school and be silly and loud with my friends, friendly to my classmates and polite to my teachers. I would go to work and put on my 1000 megawatt retail smile and act professional in ways that would boggle people from other corners of my life. Maybe I was myself for the hour I spent alone in my room before I went to bed, but the whole day long I was acting for the benefit of other people’s expectations, the only way to avoid it is to get to a place where I don’t need to be smart or funny or dependable or a single damn thing except what I am. And that place is within the walls of my own skull, in a part of the world where no one knows who I am, where there’s no one left to be.
If you want to get to know yourself, go be anonymous in a city that doesn’t know your name anyways. Don’t talk to another living soul for an entire day. Sit on a rock with your feet in the sea and wonder where we go when we die, or whats more terrifying- that we might be all alone in the universe or that we might not be. Remember things from your childhood that make you cry. Mouth the lyrics of your favourite song. Picture your life in 10 years, or 20. Close your eyes and think of nothing at all. Listen to your own opinions. Laugh at your own jokes. No one here knows you anyways, you’re thousands of miles from real life, you can be the crazy girl giggling to herself on the beach. You don’t have to BE anything, just be.
You will realize for the first time, you feel secure in your own head. You know yourself like you know your little brother or your friends. You feel safe. You’ll realize that you actually sort of like yourself. You’re brave. You are funny. There’s a lot to like. You can be your own friend. You will be able to go places where everyone is talking and feel at peace being quiet. You will still feel scared some days, but then you’ll realize that you have something safe to fall back on, just like you would depend on your parents or your friends, you realize you can depend on yourself too.
Now that you have that foundation, that realization that if everything blows up in your face you still have that solid ground to retreat back to with your own being, you can build yourself. Go do cool things. Do things your friends would never want to do, that everyday you would never want to do. Start conversations with strangers. Listen to their stories and let them shape you. Go see things so beautiful that they make you cry. Climb high things and stare back down the slope at what you can accomplish. Add layers to your rock-solid core of self. Tell your own story to strangers. Come to the realization that you are interesting, that everything and everyone is interesting if you look carefully enough. Fall in love with yourself and everything and the whole wide world. Be an fortress with unbreakable walls and floor-to-ceiling windows. Let the sun shine in.
Then, when you have found yourself and loved yourself and built yourself, you will be at home whatever mask you put on, whatever force tries to throw you down or shake you off, wherever you go. And when you finally do come home, hold that knowledge tight, folded away in your deepest corners. Keep it unshakable and safe. Tuck it away with the postcards and ticket stubs and go back to being a sister, a brother, a lover, a friend. Put your masks back on in bumper to bumper succession. But it will be different. People might say that you’ve grown up, gotten worldly, but the reality is that you now have the time-tested knowledge that you can do it.
You can put yourself or be put in a situation of the least common denominator. You can find yourself all alone in a place you’ve never been, with everything you own in the world strapped to your back, (some people’s idea of the worst case scenario) and know that you’ll be okay. Everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve found myself with the thought that I could stay there forever. Tofino, Jasper, Victoria, Vancouver. Every single place I’ve been able to visualize the life I could carve out for myself and be happy with. I’ve seen life lived a hundred different ways in my travels, and I haven’t really gone that far. I’ve spoken with suburban queens and bush-wacking surfers and Welsh economists and people who were living a life they didn’t like and who had the strength to get up and walk away to find one they did.
There’s no “right” way to do it. There’s no formula of career, kids and white picket fence that means you’re really living. Its not a matter of running far away and never, ever stopping either. Actually, forget about right, its a hard thing to get wrong. Live a life you’re proud of. Fill it with love and experiences and the things that bring you joy. If you’re not happy, change things. That’s an option. It’s something you can do. Dye your hair, throw your phone over a bridge and move to Timbuktu if you want. If there’s one thing I know to be true, its that your life is yours, and you’re a perishable good so act accordingly. Do what will make your life what you want it to be and do it as soon as possible. Don’t procrastinate on being happy, cause guys, you never know when your end date might be. Live on your terms, because when you’ve only got one chance does it really matter what other people think?
I don’t know what I want to do with my life yet, I might not until I’m actually in the midst of doing it and that’s okay. All I know is that I want to keep moving. Peter, my Australian fiance (as soon as he buys me that beach house, that is) said it well- you don’t come back from a trip like this satisfied, you come back more restless than before, with even more things on your bucket list. I want to pick coffee in Costa Rica and eat rice and beans every day. I want to plant trees in the mud and sleet and rain in Northern BC. I want to live and work in London, Oslo and rural India. I want to live my life a hundred different ways and keep doing cool shit. When I go I want to die without a penny in my bank account and a bucket list checked off.
But as much as this trip was about being alone, it was also massively about being with family, family who I unfortunately only usually see at weddings and funerals. I have always been grateful to be part of my massive, ridiculous, far-flung tribe, but never more so than when I was actually able to come across the country and be greeted with open arms by people who hadn’t seen me since I was twelve. To everyone, related and otherwise, who opened your doors, gave up your couches and let me into your lives for a little bit, thank you so so much. I learned so much about the people I come from and the clan that shaped me, and it was so great to meet you all on adult terms, as someone besides “one of the kids” or “Dale’s daughter”. Now I have a whole other coast to miss when I’m at home. My love to you all.
So that’s what I’ve learned. And it wraps up Act 1, I spose. Now for a week in the desert, a three month hiatus and then hopefully something entirely new.
Thanks for reading home-listeners, catch you all in January.
Your friendly neighbourhood vagabond,
Kelsea
In all honesty, I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that this trip is actually happening at this point, and now I’m on the last leg. Well, almost last. I’m still flying to Phoenix to see the Grand Canyon with the fam jam after this but I don’t really count it as part of my wandering. In all honesty, Victoria is lovely and I’m having a great time but it feels like a bit of an anti-climax too. It feels like the beginning of heading home.
Victoria’s a great city, somewhat of an over-sized Kingston on the ocean, with a little dash of new age eclectic and international cool. Its downtown is pretty and old-fashioned looking. Its homeless population is one of the relatively largest and most visible in Canada due to the city’s favourable climate and status as the driest place on the wet coast. Lots of mass-market hipster-esque boutiques and organic bakeries scattered throughout.
But it’s also the place my cousin Cam and Melia laid down roots with their five-month-old babe Mason, which is the main reason I’m here for two weeks. Cross-country backpacking trip and grand tour of the Walker babies, that’s the idea.
Mason is amazing. I’m completely in love. I’ve never spent extended periods of time with a baby before, been able to figure out how to make them laugh and get to know their favourite songs. I’ve cuddled him to sleep and watched him try real food for the first time and waltzed with him around the kitchen and it is going to be so hard to leave. I don’t think I could ever get over how pretty much every other thing he does is a first. He tried banana today, the only other things he’d ever eaten in his whole life up to that point being milk and rice cereal. And his face when it hit his tongue… I got to watch a brand new human being experience flavour for the first time, and that’s pretty incredible.
Mason is awesome. Babies are awesome. I’ve discovered this whole maternal aspect to my personality that I didn’t even know I had.
And I’ve done some really neat things around the city too! After I explored China Town and the downtown core on Tuesday, Melia, Mason and I drove back up Nanaimo-way to the small town of Coombs whose claim to fame centers predominantly around its hilariously offbeat marketplace known for its grassy roof and the goats that wander around cheerfully grazing it. Goats on the Roof became a sort of small-scale Mecca that all other sorts of alternative retail flocked to, and now Coombs is a weird, wonderful little grouping of grass-topped stores.
On Thursday we took Mason on a short hike along the water in Sooke while Cam was at work and when he got home he and I left to climb Mt. Finlayson in Goldtream Park, a fifteen minute drive from their house. That’s what I’m going to miss the most when I get back to T.O., not having to drive for two hours to find somewhere beautiful to walk and something tall to climb.
On Friday I went to see an exhibit at the Royal Museum of British Columbia that Neil from Wales in Tofino had whole-heartedly recommended. And it was fantastic, it centered around the British and Norwegian teams that raced to be the first to conquer the South Pole in 1915, braving 250 km/hr winds in waxed canvas jackets and reindeer fur boots. Only one team came back, and their stories are the sort of utterly insane, uplifting tales that make me wish I was born a century earlier so I could have experienced the golden age of exploration first hand.
While I was at the museum I decided to go see an IMAX movie that tied in to the exhibit about another Antarctic explorer, Earnest Shackleton. For those of you who haven’t heard the story, Shackleton set out to be the first person to traverse Antarctica from one side to the other, but his ship got stuck in the ice pack miles away from land, forcing his crew to spend the winter in one of the most isolated and forbidding places on earth. The spring break-up didn’t end up freeing the ship, as they had counted on. Instead, the shifting ice pack began to crush it. Eventually, the men were forced to abandon ship, and camp entirely lost and given up for dead on the ice.
Shackleton’s new goal became to get them out, no matter what. And he swore he would do it without losing a single life. So began an epic lifeboat journey through relentless seas and dangerous ice-floes in weather-worn lifeboats rowed by malnourished men who had just spent nearly a year aboard a doomed and grounded vessel or in tents out on the ice. After ten days, they made it to Elephant Island and stood on land for the first time in 15 months. But they were far from safe. No one would look for them there. There seemed to be nothing for it but to starve to death. Shackleton wasn’t done though. He had the ship’s carpenter reinforce one of the ship’s battered lifeboats with cannibalized wood from the others and set out with a handful of his men to attempt the impossible and sail 800 nautical miles in an open boat to the whaling stations on South Georgia. It was a journey that no one has been able to replicate since. And then, by some phenomenal stroke of luck and fate, they did not get pushed by the currents and miss the tiny island of South Georgia entirely, but made windfall on the opposite side of the uncharted, mountainous and glacier-covered land mass from the whaling stations that would be their one chance at salvation.
Now, just a few years back, three trained mountaineers attempted to replicate this crossing of South Georgia. They were healthy, rested, experienced, had the blessings of good equipment, and they knew exactly what lay ahead. It took them three days. Shackleton and his companions had not slept in a week. They were frost-bitten, wind-chapped, beaten-down skeletons with leather boots, a carpenter’s adze for an ice axe and 50 feet of rope. The only thing they knew was that they had to go north. It took them 36 hours.
They emerged from the freezing grasp of the mountain pass and made their way to the station. They were led to the station-masters house. He looked at these three frozen, beaten, filthy husks of men and said “Dear God, who are you?”
“My name sir, is Shackleton.”
The station master broke down and wept.
Four months and three attempts later, Shackleton managed to lead a successful rescue mission to Elephant Island. Twenty-two ecstatic figures greeted them on the shore. Not a single life was lost. If you have a more heroic story of the human spirit then that I want to hear it.
Later that day I walked over to the Emily Carr house, her childhood home turned museum in Oak Bay. It was charming and beautifully restored. They were in the process of working on the facade when I was there, and I walked up the side to the cozy glassed-in porch to find 3 contruction workers sitting on the painted steps playing with a little black cat. Elvis (the cat) followed me inside and bounded up on to the welcome desk like he was planning to serve me. One of the most passionate volunteers I’ve encountered pressed tea and a self-guided tour sheet into my hand before more or less taking me on a tour herself while explaining how it should be done. I love when people love what they do. The best part of the house were the plaques here and there in every room that displayed quotes from Carr’s memoirs that took place in the rooms they were found in. The whole thing was cozy and friendly and a lovely end to the afternoon.
On Saturday I went to the Art Gallery, which is half-contained in this beautiful old mansion. I saw an exhibit of contemporary Native art, toured again by a very enthusiastic volunteer.
Sunday Melia’s brother in law, his one-year-old, Cam, Mason, Kona the dog and I went for a rainy day hike up to Jocelyn Hill. I want to be a stick-the-kid-in-a-hiking-pack-and-go parent one day. The babies were neutral and only got a little bit damp, and I had a ton of fun. Modern fatherhood on the west coast, I love it. That night I crashed a bi-weekly family dinner with Melia’s mother, sisters and associated family mambers. I love families, my own especially, but other people’s too.
And today? I’m back at Wild Coffee downtown, taking a slow day and writing to you!
“Pacific Terminus of the Trans-Canada Highway reads the sign identifying our village where the road terminates in town, 10,000 kilometres from its beginning. Perched at the tip of a long peninsula, on the edge of an island, at the end of a continent, Tofino looks out upon the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Next stop Japan.”
–Shirley Langer, Road’s End: Tales of Tofino
I had originally planned for Thursday to be a bit of a laze-about-town day, but I woke up to local radio predicting upcoming rain with near-apocalyptic urgency and more or less pleading for everyone to go out and enjoy the last day of sunshine.
Good travel tip by the way- give a local radio station a listen, it gives you a really good feel for a place and they’ll usually discuss upcoming events (Monday has been dubbed Power Outage Day, as the electricity is down for maintenance, for example. I would have been wondering why my cell phone wasn’t charging). I also have a soft spot a mile wide when it comes to small town radio. If you want some surf tunes, off-kilter humour and a little taste of Tofino check out Long Beach Radio.
Thus thoroughly guilted into going outdoors, I started off my day with a little walk (I hesitate to call it a hike) to Tonquin Beach, just outside of town. Much more sheltered, rocky and treed than my previous beach experiences here, it was so so peaceful. I climbed up onto a little rock outcropping and sat in the sun for legitimately an hour, watching with my hand shading my eyes and my knees pulled up to my chest for passing marine life and waving good morning to passing dog walkers. The beach is bordered in with step cliffs of fractured rock, creating lots of little sea-side caves that I had fun poking around in. Except for this one.
I followed the continuation of the trail up to a lookout and then down to another beach. Totally glorious the whole way, as you can see.
The trail exhausted itself eventually and my butt was sore from being parked meditatively on rocks all morning, so I wandered aimlessly back into town and into the first shop I found. Poked around the t-shirts until the facially-tattooed proprietor and I got to talking and he sternly booted me back outside with firm instructions to go to Meares Island and come back when the weather inevitably turned to rain. Meares Island was a name I recognized from the kayaking tour brochures as being the home of “big trees”. Okay. Trees were cool. I liked trees. Hugged them when I got riled up enough. I’ll go look at some “big trees”.
Big trees that were mildly inconveniently on an island rising up to become Lone Cone mountain out in the relatively sheltered waters of Clayoquot Sound. Cue a return to the bench on the porch of the hostel to do a quick Google search. First result- Tofino Water Taxis. I turned my head to the left to see the little shack labelled none other than Tofino Water Taxi at the foot of the First Street Dock about 200 yards away. Bingo.
I had good timing too, when I wandered down to investigate my options in person the aging surfer dude at the counter sold me a ticket and informed me that the Taxi had just pulled in and I had 2 minutes to get my butt down to the end of the dock to catch it. I joined my fellow Taxi-catchers and our driver hopped out and looked at my flannel shirt doubtfully.
“Do you have a rain coat? You might get a bit wet hon.”
It was gorgeous and sunny out. The waters looked beatific and calm.
“No no, I’ll be fine thanks.” *Flash a smile to go with my application of local vocabulary* “It’s no worries!”
Everyone else pulled fluorescent rain wear out of their packs, tightened the hoods around their faces and grimly settled in as far away from the bow of the open-top, squared off steel boat as they could get. This would have been the point I should have known better. I sat right at the front facing into the spray, pretending furiously that I did this every day of my life. Then we made a turn around a small out-cropping of rock and I got hit with what felt like a 5-litre bucket’s worth of cold sea water leaping up over the side as we crashed down from crest to trough.
When we pulled up beside the rough black landing rocks of the shore my right side was entirely saturated. And ya, I meant to say landing Rocks, not Docks. This is the intertidal zone and any sort of dock that us lake-vacationers are accustomed to would be totally useless. Thus the protocol is to make your way to the bow and when the driver hits a swell and yells jump, you launch yourself as far as you can and channel your inner mountain goat to get a good footing on the often slippery rocks.
Man am I glad I made the trip. I ducked through a narrow hole in the thick bush and made my way along a rough boardwalk about a foot and a half wide in places and all of a sudden found myself in some sort of primeval paradise of soaring cedars and branches and deadwood decked in thick fur coats of Spanish Moss. I was struck the same way I was upon witnessing a rainforest outside of my television screen for the first time on a biology course in Costa Rica a couple years back. Everything was growing on top of everything, it was all teemingly, vibrantly alive.
I balanced my way along the disintegrating boardwalk and came upon my first big tree. Oh. BIG tree. Big enough to park a Smart Car within the circumference of the trunk and probably have room to open the door. I had been skeptical to say the least when my aunt had talked about feeling the life vibrations of plants and animals around you, but standing there I felt something. Majestic. Commanding. A thesaurus-full of adjectives couldn’t do it justice. Standing with a hand against the bark my smallness and my youth hit me like a brick wall. I was a baby, a restless infant in comparison to the forest in which I stood. Respect, reverence, whatever you want to call it came to me so naturally, immediately and palpably I cant even picture a human being whose soul would allow them to look at those cedars and hold a chainsaw to their bark. Its something dark and numb and broken in our culture or our consciousness that allows these places to be dismissed as only “resource”, something to be consumed. It terrifies me.
Some history for you. In 1983 permission was granted to MacMillian Bloedel to clearcut Meares Island. That made the citizens of Tofino and the surrounding Native communities more than a little angry. And we aren’t talking people who just really liked the trees. Macmillian Bloedel was planning to clearcut a section encompassing Tofino’s watershed, which would not only compromise the town’s water supply but would effectively leave the mountain at the forefront of the waterfront view that tourists were already pouring in to see ugly, charred and bare. The protests began. Finally, loggers arrived on the shores of Meares Island to find the road blocked by locals, news crews, environmentalists and the Nuu-chah-nulth people, who welcomed the chainsaw bearing workers to the Meares Island Tribal Park while the world watched. It was a curve ball and no one knew what to do. The issue proceeded through every tier of court until it reached the Supreme Court of Canada who said that they did not have the authority to rule on the issue. The highest court in the land announced that it was a land claims issue, and thus was not their jurisdiction. And everyone went mental. So far, the issue has been in moratorium for 20 years. Since then, anthropological evidence has been able to prove Native presence on the island for at least the past 700 years, give or take, so the case for a Tribal Park is looking pretty good.
But lots of old-growth forest around Clayoquot Sound was still unprotected and the logging companies set their sights on clear cuts in other areas that posed significant danger to the local ecosystems, migratory birds, salmon populations and just about every other natural chain link you can imagine with the introduction of the Clayoquot Sound Land Use Plan in 1993. The result was one of the largest peaceful acts of civil disobedience in Canadian history, with 11000 people participating in the road blockades and busloads of people being arrested every day. So what happened? A solid protection plan was eventually established. The negative press forced many of the involved logging companies out of the region and the Native people were able to take over a significant portion of the operations, leading to an agreement known as the Memorandum of Understanding, signed in 1999 by Iisaak Forest Resources Ltd., ensuring that logging would not occur outside areas that had obviously been logged before and that were outside the intact ancient forested valleys of Clayoquot Sound. The protest also had the not-totally-intended consequence of launching Tofino from backwater status to fame (or infamy, in some circles I’m sure).
If you want to learn more about the protests and stuff, check out http://clayoquotaction.org/events/clayoquot-summer-20-years-after-2013-07-02/.
I came back to the dorm and bumped into my new roommate Mags from Ireland on her way out. I mentioned a plan to go watch the sunset back down on Tonquin Beach and she asked if she could come along. A word about hostel life-
Awesome.
More words about hostel life-
It’s really, really awesome and I kinda never want to travel any other way. I’m going to go back to Toronto and forget that you can’t just walk up to strangers and ask them about their life story. We all congregate in the common room or out on the patio and navigate nightlife as a pack. I have to say, as a chick alone immediately having 12 friends tagging along with you is pretty awesome.
Everyone has a nickname, typically based on nationality. I’m either Canada or Legs depending if I’m the only Canuck in the room or not (there’s another thing, have to remember that real life people will be weirded out by having their hand shaken and being told “call me Canada or Legs or Kelsea or whatever you want”).
There’s a guy here who has caught a massive salmon every day and cooked it for the whole place every night.
There’s a Australian guy who has proposed to me 17 times now. That one started out as a bid to get citizenship before his visa expired and is now an increasingly public and elaborate running joke that has everyone rolling on the floor and people who just got here very confused. So far I have been presented a ring pop while he was standing on a table, sung to and had a large fish dumped in my lap as an offering. Most recently he actually went to the real estate office and got me the info on a beach house I pointed out and said I’d marry him for one time, and that he’ll apparently buy me if I consider (in 60 years when he can afford it).
There’s a guy here who has hitch-hiked across the country and BACK and a lady who has literally not stopped moving around for 30 YEARS.
They are the nicest, weirdest, most friendly, interesting and generous people you will ever meet.
So that’s how I ended up sitting on a rock with an Irish girl, a Welsh guy and aforementioned intrepid Australian watching the sun go down, practicing each other’s accents and drinking Chilean wine out of chipped coffee mugs.
Friday had been billed as a “five star day” for as long as I’d been listening to the radio. It took me a couple head-scratchings and a local translator to figure out that that meant big waves. 12 footers. And that a surprising amount of local businesses would be shuttered as their proprietors hit the waves. It would be the sort of day that might actually kill me if I tried my humble balance act on it, so I walked down to Cox beach to watch the people who actually do these things go at it.
Did I mention it was pouring rain? This is why plastic anoraks, rain pants and gum boots (you’d know them as rainboots) are so in vogue here. I worked at Threads, I thought I knew waterproof. But low and behold the weather infiltrated the cuffs and collar of my jacket and trickled down my neck and my boots took on a distinct swampy sensation. I was determined though (and I had bought a burrito at Tacofino on the way so I was thus thoroughly fueled). The waves were tremendous, and the beach was populated by hooded yellow-clad ghosts in the mist, peering out from thin eye slits at the slick black figures weaving up and down the towering waves. It was worth it.
After hanging every single thing I had worn outside on the line I retreated inside to the round table group forming in the dining room. I mentioned wanting to go check out a bar. I had six followers by the time I left to go take a shower and on my way back down people were inviting me to my own proposed outing. I think we had 12 in the end. Mags, an Irish couple recently moved to Toronto, Neil the Welsh guy, Sven the German, Xavier the Australian, Peter the other Australian (we call them Oz One and Two), Anders from Slave Lake Alberta who fights forest fires and has six sisters, Jason the hitchhiker, Donna, Tom. Who knows, we took over a corner and rubbed shoulders with off-duty surf guides and gum boot-sporting locals. We stayed until last call and moved en masse down to the pier at 3 in the morning where it was voted that everyone had to share a folktale or a song or something from their country. Which is how I ended up sitting on an overturned rowboat singing Un Canadian Errant under the stars and boisterously reciting The Cremation of Sam McGee with Jason and Tom. There were Irish rugby songs, some weird-as German stories. Hilarity ensued.
And the whole time everyone talked about how much they loved Canada. I’ve never been either so surrounded with other cultures and so in love with where I’m from.
I splurged on Saturday. I surrendered my Sunday surfing and booked a six hour tour of Lemmen’s Inlet with the Tofino Sea Kayaking Company. My previous “sea” kayaking experience had been gleaned in summer camp-loaned boats that were more duct-tape than hull and whose buoyancy could be best described as middling. Thus it was a totally new experience to have a rudder that actually, yknow, worked.
Our guide was fantastic- originally a London, ON boy, Andy moved out to the end of the road 13 years ago and has been guiding kayak tours for 17. He says he doesn’t know everything but he’s lying. There were two other people in the group, a husband and wife from Montreal. We left the harbour with the tide working to our advantage, cut between two of the small rock outcroppings that form an exploding halo around Meare’s island and passed over a kelp forest.
Andy dipped his hand in the water and pulled out a starfish and a bright red crab with a nonchalance and immediacy that suggested witchcraft. He talked about the kelp forest ecosystem and we rafted together, sheltered from the current. That was another interesting part about the trip for me, as a novice ocean kayaker- the currents and the glassy stillness of eddies formed by the retreating tide proved totally fascinating, and a bit unnerving when it grabbed the boat and threw me off course. We made our way into the passage of Lemmen’s inlet that cuts Meares Island nearly in two.
There was an unusually high tide so we ate lunch in a flooded meadow, grateful for our big black gum boots in the shin-deep water. We paddled through an oyster farm, prompting a discussion of the issues of fish and oyster farming in the region, something I’ve never even given thought. The last stop was on Meare’s Island itself for a walk on a lost branch of the Big Tree Trail I had hiked earlier that week. Andy pointed out places where the Native people of a couple hundred years ago had cut tall thin swaths of bark from the towering cedars in order to get the fibres they used for everything from clothing to shelter without killing the trees. The tree won’t grow any more in the place the bark has been removed from, so the trees begin to grow around the spots, eventually swallowing them with only a thin cleft left in the bark to ever denote what was lost there. We looked at the rocky streams where hundreds of salmon would run in the next month or so.
Andy talked some more about Clayoquot Summer, faced as we were by the evidence of what would be lost if the island was ever clearcut. If the trees were cut down, the now-shady streams would heat up and not hold as much oxygen as they do when running cold and the salmon that leap up them against the current each fall would asphyxiate and die before they could spawn. Now, each of these streams is surprisingly tiny, but the island contains hundreds, producing enough salmon each year that their loss had the power to destroy one of the regions primary industries.
We rode the outgoing tide back to town, after a race against time to cross the shallow mud flats that dry completely with every outgoing tide before our paddle turned into a portage. These mudflats are another vital ecological component. Not only do they provide hunting grounds to the local wildlife (wolves among them), they provide one of the few rest stops for the thousands upon thousands of shorebirds that migrate from one pole to another twice a year.
I don’t mean to keep hitting you over the head with this, but if Meares Island was laid bare, erosion would push mud down from the hills on to the flats, covering up the vegetation and little creatures that the migratory bird populations are counting on being there. If they weren’t, the next closest stop is in California, near San Francisco. The birds might not make it if they can’t refuel, their loss forever altering the make-up of all the natural environments they pass through. Everything is connected.
The last dregs of fog had lifted and the sun was shining as we pulled back up on the beach under Main St. I fell asleep at 9:30 that night.
I spent my last day sitting on Chesterman’s Beach, looking West. I’m head over heels for Tofino. Completely and irrevocably. The beaches, the coves and the bays. The friendly locals always ready with a smile at The Common Loaf Bakeshop or hanging out on the benches outside the Co-Op. I’ll be back someday, with a permanency yet to be decided.
The Pacific Surf School van (a milk truck that now hauls surfboards) passed by, both Trey and Alistair (my instructors) sitting up front and waving, while I was walking back. About 10 seconds after they had driven off down the highway the heavens opened and it started to POUR. I barely had time to bury myself as effectively as possible within my Gore-Tex before the van reappeared and pulled up alongside with these two guys I had spent 3 hours with each leaning out the window and asking if they could give me a ride to town.
This week has been a surprising experience in opening up. I honestly think the experience of the hostel and whatevers in the air in this end-of-the-road place has made me more friendly. Amazing things happen when you don’t write people off. Talk to the guy with long hair and two full sleeves of tattoos. You’ll learn he’s hitchhiked from here to Newfoundland and back and is working on a book, working title The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Crossing Canada. The two frat boy types work for the American Coast Guard and are taking a shore leave before sailing to Antarctica on an ice breaker. Talk to strangers. They rarely fit in the boxes you set out for them as well as you’d think. You may even find yourself with email addresses, candid photos and new found friends.
On Monday Anders (from Slave Lake) and I grabbed a ride to Nanaimo with Carmel and Kevin (from Toronto via Limerick). We stopped in Cathedral Grove and for one last look at Long Beach and they swept me up in bearhugs before dropping me off at the bus station and heading to catch the ferry.
And where in the world am I now? Victoria! Specifically sitting in Wild Coffee eating a panini after checking out China Town and skulking around Chapters drinking dark roast and taking down the names of Environmental Economics books I’m going to try to find in the library or an independent before I resort to chain stores and reward cards.
Thanks for listening to the weekly drabble! Happy trails y’all.
Oh, and guess what. I found the surf shop from One Week.
Alternatively Titled : There is a Thin Layer of Sand Covering Everything I Own
One Week ends in Tofino. Sort of. It was the end of the road, where Ben found what he was looking for in the sunset waters off Long Beach.
I don’t really know what I was looking for when I rented a bike and pedaled the 17 km from town (Oh, and let it be noted that the movie makes it seem like you just walk out of the surf shop out onto the sand). But when I climbed over the pile of drift wood onto Long Beach I felt like I had found it. After six years of working weekends driving golf carts and explaining the benefits of Gore-Tex for cash and some serious parental persuasion, I was standing at the edge of a continent, mere feet from the massively open expanse of the Pacific Ocean. In that moment, it felt like the edge of the world.And it was one of the most ecstatic moments of my life.
I had found West.
I spent three hours wandering the beach with a massive grin on my face and my hair being whipped into a turbulent halo by the wind. When I made the arduous journey back into town I went grocery shopping and made dinner in the hostel. I had noticed a poster advertising a “Monday Movie” at the local community theatre. It was Star Trek: Into Darkness. I hadn’t seen it and it was something to do. I went to check it out.
An elderly woman wearing a bingo visor sold me my ticket, and greeted most of the people coming through the door in twos and threes by name. There was popcorn- being served in an eclectic mixture of bowls and in one case a large plastic measuring cup- but most people were drinking tea and coffee from miscellaneous chipped mugs. The lady who organized the event, and who everyone seemed to know, came to the front and launched into a synopsis of the film before someone interrupted her to ask about upcoming vacation plans. She announced that she was off to New York and that someone named Nick would be showing the movie next week which prompted several moans and a taking of bets on how many tries it would take him to start up the projector. In short, the whole thing was bloody hilarious in its smallness. The theater seated maybe 75 in rows of folding chairs placed in haphazard rows. The guy beside me kept up a running commentary throughout the entire movie but he was pretty funny so it was okay.
A guy who I recognized from the hostel spotted me at about the same time I did him. Neil from Wales turned around at the whole vacation discussions mid-speak bit and asked with a laugh if he thought they did this in the Cineplex Odeons. He and I talked about kayaking and surfing and Doctor Who and how awesome everything playing out in front of us was. I have a big soft spot for small towns.
Tuesday was the first day of my surf lessons.
I wish I could tell you that I took my first lesson and discovered that I was born to surf. I wish I could say I shocked all the beachgoers speechless with my natural prowess and that the end of the day had me carving like a pro off into the sunset and that my instructor gave me his number and told me I could hit the waves with him anytime and that all the surfers came together to let me join their Cool People with Salty Hair club and made me their queen and gave me free stuff.
But unfortunately, in the interests of journalistic accuracy, I have to tell you that my first surfing experience bore more resemblance to a soggy t-shirt going through the spin cycle than The Endless Summer, and I swallowed so much sea water that my sodium levels must be through the roof. Surfing is hard people. Surfing is even harder when you have no balance and find it difficult to make the jump from lying on your stomach to standing without tipping over while on solid ground. But you know what? Even when you’re really bad, it’s still really, really fun. And there lies the magic.
My instructor’s name was Trey (of course) and he was tall and tan with curly brown-blond hair down to his shoulders (of course) and was every single part a walking cliche except from the fact that he was originally from Barry. I wanted to get you a picture with him for posterity but I think I filled my Weirding Out Hot Boys quota for the day when I asked him if Trey was his real name or a surfing alias (it’s his real name, FYI). I spent a lot of time pretty much boogie-boarding and a lot of time being thrown around in the wash with my arms curled protectively around my head, having given up on keeping a hold on my board or my head above water for the time being.
As I got used to it I was gradually getting to my knees and then sorta awkwardly jump-sliding to my feet in the least graceful way manageable before falling either half way up or a split second after being more or less upright. The official lesson ended but the good thing about the package I chose was that I had the gear for two whole days. I had a snack on the beach and nursed my wounds before hopping back in. For three more hours. Whenever I got tired of being violently thrown around I paddled out beyond the break and sat on my board facing out to sea. And it was gorgeous.
Not having a car complicated things a bit (its a recurring theme) but luckily the surf shop rented me a bike with a surfboard rack. Yup, that’s right, I’ve been tooling around town on a beat-up 3-speed with a surfboard strapped to the side and a milk crate holding my balled-up wet suit on the back. Its actually not that hard or even noticeable to bike with a surfboard, balance wise. It’s heavy though, and going up hill usually results in it sliding backwards off the rack until it needs to be rescued. Tofino does run a bus service during the peak months, but those end with August so I was stuck going full hippie. No worries though, there are expansive and well paved bike trails along a good portion of the Pacific Rim Highway, almost all the way to Cox Bay. The culture is very bike friendly too, so even in town you get friendly wave-throughs, not honks, in the streets.
I don’t know if I have ever appreciated hot water quite so much as I did when I back to the hostel. There’s a big surfboard and wet suit storage shed out back and places to hose both off, and I wasn’t alone in doing so, leading to much swapping of stories and tips and complaints that we would never be able to do a push-up again. And then I sat and read for a very long time.
When it felt as if my shoulder muscles and bruised hips and knees may have been starting to forgive me, I set out to find a slice of pizza in town. Talked to the guy at the counter while I was waiting. He asked if I had been out in the sun, and that’s when I realized that my hands and face were about two shades more tan than the parts of me that had been covered up in neoprene (so, everything else). His name was Neil and he gave me his number and then I went to eat my massively over-priced pizza in a little park overlooking the harbour.
When I had walked through it before while killing time before the movie the other day, there had been an older guy with a thick accent and a pack of Marlboros, a digital camera and one of those little bottles of rum they give you on airplanes lined up beside him on the bench at his side, watching the sunset. He was there again, three mini bottles this time, one empty, and since there was only the one bench I sat down and made his acquaintance. Because that is the sort of thing I do now.
It was almost like he was waiting for an audience to stumble by so they could hear his life story. His name was Alex. He was Dutch. He was a retired policeman with twin sons and a daughter who had run off and married a Brazilian and his wife had passed away four years ago that day. One of the last things they had done together was take a trip to Canada, starting in Banff and working their way out to Tofino. After four years of worrying about how the kids were taking it, he had come to follow in their footsteps and “miss her properly” by himself. He told me I should be grateful because I born with the most beautiful country in the world as my inheritance. He also told me to only go horseback riding in Canada because they didn’t do it properly in Europe. He smiled and thanked me for watching the sunset with him, I proposed a toast to his wife’s memory and clinked my Nalgene to his two sips of rum and we sat in comfortable silence until it was dark.
I woke up at 6:45 this morning not wanting to go surfing so terribly badly. My everything was either salt-chapped, wind-chapped or sore. But I got up, went on a high-speed mission through town to find a cup of coffee and, after calling the shop for directions, loaded the gear onto my bike and took off for North Chesterman beach.
My friend, Lucy, who had originally been doing the camp with me, was not a fan of the biking arrangement so she begged off the second day. The other two guys from yesterday’s lesson had also ditched for reasons unknown, leaving me with a private lesson with my new instructor, Alistair. He swapped me for a bigger board that would be easier to stand on. We ran drills on the beach and in the water and then he came out into the chop with me yelling things like “NOW NOW NOW” and “HANDS ON THE BOARD NOW JUMP”. He was awesome. And the more instruction-heavy session was just what I needed- he had me surfing (well maybe, teetering would be a more accurate verb) in on the wave breaks. Not carving the green waves but hey people, I have no balance, its a start. He also showed me how to paddle out in the heavy waves and some stretches I could do to get more flexibility in my back. I don’t want to say I love surfing, (because can I even say I’ve really surfed at this point?) but sitting on the tail of my board in a wet suit swapping stories and bobbing up and down in the waves is my new favourite thing.
Alistair gave me a lift back into town in the surf truck, which looks like some sort of refurbished food truck or something, but choc full of boards. And thank god because biking back would have been way not fun. I took a heavenly shower and slept for two hours.
I had returned the surf gear but held onto the bike for a while longer, so after waking up hungry I biked 10 minutes out of town to try out the highly recommended Tacofino, a food truck that makes berth in a parking lot between surf shops and a hotel. I grabbed a taco and a Lime Mint Freshie and biked back down to North Chesterman’s to eat it sitting on a rock and watching some little kids run in and out of the surf. Perfect day.
I really love it here guys.
I can’t get over how quickly my month in Vancouver flew by, even though that’s the longest I’ve ever been anywhere besides home (a bit of a funny way to think about it), and by the end I was griping about midday traffic from all the people spontaneously taking a half day off (its a Vancouver thing) and pedestrians in the bike lane, giving directions and helping hapless tourist types with those infinitely complicated *insert eye roll here* ticket machines at the SeaBus and SkyTrain stations with the best of them. I’ve never really felt local anywhere besides where I actually am (and hell, in some areas of Toronto I still revert back to tourist mode) but I came closer in Vancouver than anywhere.
Which is why I was positively vibrating with excitement to go Tofino this morning, and not just because surfing. I get the addiction of travelling, why people end up as modern nomads. Serial-travelers have a matching typology to rock climber or free divers or BMX bikers. There’s that inescapable, inexplicable drive to push yourself farther and farther, keep throwing yourself into new situations that take you beyond the borders of your comfort zone. I loved Vancouver, but I was comfortable there. I was hankering to lose myself all over again, find myself with a backpack and improbable heights of self confidence and not much else as the bus hobbled out of the parking lot. And this time there would be no friendly face meeting me at the station, which was giving me the sort of rush that gets people in trouble. Well, I guess it could be crack so that’s something to be thankful for… Though this habit I feel taking root may actually manage to be more expensive.
But all in good time, I’m getting ahead of myself. Vancouver was awesome. I have never gotten to know a city besides my own so well, and I think actually being able to check everything last thing off my to-do list was another first. If I had to come up with one lesson from that segment and the whole trip so far I would say the biggest revelation was how much creative power we have over our own existence. I could cut my hair, dye it pink, start playing the saxophone on street corners for fun, learn to tap dance, move to Guatemala. I could radically change my life, just like that. You could. Anyone could. You can do, maybe not anything, but a damn lot. There’s nothing stopping you but the artificial barriers we construct for ourselves. Formidable foes, admitably, but I assure you, they can be beaten.
I’ve spent a lot of time lately doing things I would never do, that surprise even me. Unabashedly eat alone in a restaurant, not even using a book as a crutch. Tan topless at Wreck Beach. Talk to strangers and make them my friends. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m going to do anymore until I’m doing it, and that’s a powerful feeling. Once we push past all the silly superficial barriers we set for ourselves, all the oh I don’t do this’s and the oh I don’t like that’s, you realize the sheer, giddy freedom that exists for us in this life- the power we have to shape it, mold it and become the people we want to be, living lives that are more like the ones we dream of. I am not suggesting anarchy. I am not suggesting we all go savage and run naked through the woods. I’m saying that there is a lot to be gained by surprising yourself and taking steps out of your comfort zone, by being guided not by who you think you are, but who you actually are. If you think you hate art, if you’ve spent your whole life telling people you hate art, go to a gallery. Do things you didn’t even know you wanted to do. It gives you such a better understanding of who you are, and such power over who you become.
So anyways, I had to get up at 5 to get a cab to the bus station, since public transit doesn’t run that early on Sundays. Pretty sure the last time I was up that early I just hadn’t gone to bed. I love mornings, I really do! The cool air, the sense of being awake while the rest of the world comes alive, so cool. I just wish they didn’t have to happen so EARLY. My circadian rhythm or whatever its called wants me to be nocturnal. I ended up being at the station way early for my 7:15 bus but hey, better paranoid than having a breakdown on the Greyhound platform, that’s what I always say.
Some of the pre-dawn mist that had shrouded the harbour when the taxi cab and I had crossed the bridge that morning was still hanging around when the bus pulled out of port. It made the overly-warm, loudly upholstered interior seem extra cozy. I love being enroute to somewhere. It’s my favourite thing. I love toeing off my boots, tucking my feet up on the seat, pulling my hoodie up over my bed-head and listening to my best driving music while staring out the window. Nothing left to do but arrive, might as well enjoy the trip. It’s out of your control now. Trust the driver. Observe. Enjoy.
This trip was broken up by the ferry ride from Tsawwassen to Nanaimo, which is usually stunning (or so I’ve been heard). Today it was more like a journey into the void though (the woman sitting beside me was a little less romantic, she compared it to sailing through cotton balls). It was like someone forgot to draw in the sea and the mountains and the sky. So foggy. You could barely even see the opposite end of the boat or the waves where they lapped at the hull. I still stood outside at the bow re-enacting the Titanic in full waterproof gear, until I was soaked and wind-bitten and my bangs were defying gravity.
Successfully made the transition to the Nanaimo-Tofino bus on the other side and the rest is history. We pulled into Tofino’s “bus depot” at a quarter to four and I would say about half the population of the bus made a slow, heavily, laden trek down the hill to the Whalers on the Point Guesthouse in one parade-esque line that had passersby cracking up all along the route. So far my hostel experience has prompted many inner outbursts of “why doesn’t everybody do this all the time?!” I am told, however, that Whaler’s Point has earned itself the nickname of the HI (Hosteling International) Hotel. I think the pool table and the sauna may be contributing factors.
I feel like I may be getting some dorm-life experience this year after all. Right now I can count three languages being spoken within my earshot. The lower level of the hostel has a big communal kitchen, laundry facilities, a dining room and a common room replete with the sort of leather couches you need assistance to get out of, separated by a large stone fireplace. People are lying on the floor on their laptops. People are playing a game of scrabble in German. It sounds and smells as if someone is burning a pizza and someone else is upset about it over in the kitchen. If you smile you will get a wave back, its that sort of place. Every conversation starts with a handshake and “Nice to meet you, where are you from?”. One whole wall of the space is lined with windows overlooking the water. If you couldn’t tell, I sort of like it here.
The actual accommodations are simple but great- bunk beds, clean sheets, carpet completely devoid of mystery stains and/or cigarette burns. Shared bathroom. Shower stalls. Like a super-international university dorm where people surf instead of going to class and age ranges from late teens to mid sixties. The dorm rooms sleep 4 but at the moment I only have the one roommate. Lucy is super sweet. She’s Korean and moved to Calgary to learn English and stayed. She’s taking a trip to celebrate getting her permanent resident status. She wants to do surf camp with me, so we’re renting bikes tomorrow to do a dry run of the ride out to the beach to make sure it’ll work out. We went out for dinner to a really nice little spot called Sovo. Pretty fancy, but luckily vegetarianism in a seafood town means I can eat cheap. I’m going to buy some basics and stake out a shelf in the kitchen tomorrow to cut costs a little bit.
I am so excited to be here. The town is great. The hostel is great. I have yet to encounter more friendly locals anywhere. And guys… SURFING. This vid I grabbed off one of my fave blogs- I Backpack Canada– has me even more excited…
That’s about it folks, I’ll keep you updated of course! Wish me some good weather!
Oh, and the title creds go to Luke Doucet, ever present on my “curled up all cozy on the bus” playlist…
Love and hugs home listeners! I may come home some day maybe.
Some of the things I learned this week-
1. Everybody wants to tell high school students what to do
2. Saturn and Venus are due to cross sometime this week
3. And yes, there ARE 70 year old men (wearing sweat pants with suspenders and a button-up shirt no less) who are fitter than me, and unless my blog is followed by any record-holding trail runners, the guy was fitter than you too
Oh? Context? You need context?
Okay fine.
My aunt whose room I have currently commandeered lives in a neighborhood in North Van referred to as Edgemont Village which surpasses even the Beaches in feeling like a small tourist-trap town that was inexplicably plunked in the middle of a city (or in this case, its northern periphery). I swear to god the main drag reminds me of nowhere so much as a year-round Bobcageyon or a down-sized Coburg. Actually, let’s roll with Coburg because the principle demographic is retired and small-dog-owning. Where was I going with this?
Oh yeah, they park diagonally and buy organic and I (a young, back-pack toting person parked outside a coffee shop) was informed not once but TWICE by two different women with grey perms and cardigans that I should be in class. And I was sniffed at. I guess you can’t really blame them because if you live here you’re either retired or parents or living with your parents. All the houses are in the 800 000 plus range so its not a hot-spot for idle twenty-somethings or touring high school grads. Still, I must have some remnants of bratty teen embedded in my psyche because it took every incidental interpersonal-relations experience I’ve ever had to resist yelling “I DO WHAT I WANT.” But I did resist, and thus didn’t get gasped at by interfering middle-aged housewives.
I spent all of Friday wandering Edgemont and pretending that I was a writer holing up in a small town, just for a change of scene. I walked through a ravine and sat by a pond and stared at some ducks. They were sort of awesome because one of them would start doing something (I say something but the options were really a) nibbling at weeds, b) drinking, c) sleeping or d) perching on rocks) and then the rest of them would slowly follow suit until they were all doing it and the whole thing would begin again. One particularly intrepid water fowl with good leadership qualities would fall asleep with its head tucked back between its wings and slowly every other duck would stop nibbling and do the same and then the whole thing would change every 3 minutes.
The duck pond actually looks like it was pulled straight from a fairy tale book. It’s surrounded by willow trees and on the bank opposite from the one I was perched on was a little log cabin with lace curtains and a wood pile. It was actually weirdly idyllic. I started imagining that I had fallen into an alternate reality but after some investigation determined that the cabin was actually the “Groundskeeper’s Residence”. Seriously. There weren’t even any roads connected to the place, it was in the middle of the woods. Magical.
In my wanderings I walked by a family of five that was standing around on a street corner, all of them wearing medical masks. I realized when stuff started crashing and banging that they were watching a house being demolished but for one moment it was like something from a really artsy absurdist play and I couldn’t stop laughing. I wandered down the street laughing hysterically. And figured it was about time I went to bed. And that was pretty much Friday.
On Saturday I headed out to explore historic Chinatown, another site my guidebook was highly enthusiastic about. At first glance, Vancouver’s Chinatown hadn’t seemed so vastly different than what I had at home, but the area has so much more historical depth than Toronto’s multi-culty takeover bid. A lot of the stores had the same sort of junk on offer- incense, fans, cheap light bulbs, plastic Buddhas and very affordable socks all set against a background of shelves and shelves of waving Happy Cats of varying sizes (see above).
I stopped in a store that was all rough-hewn wood and creaky floor boards and hundreds and hundreds of colourful paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling and looking for all the world like a Chinese lantern festival frozen in time a moment or so after the great release. That was one of the gems. I waked up the creaking stairs to a level that was more dimly lit attic than second level retail and packed to the gills with furniture and statues. The second level only took up half the space, so beyond the stairs it was open to the rest of the store below and you could see all the lanterns from above. Most were the typical round variety but there was one in the shape of a dragon, glowing red from within, surrounded by a bunch of scattered, colourful stars buoyed up with the rest.
And guess what? I forgot to bring my camera. I know. Someone revoke my traveler’s license. I tried really hard with the limited possibilities of my phone’s camera but it really, really doesn’t do it justice.
I poked my head in tea shops and clothing stores bursting with embroidered silk, fortune tellers and massage parlours. I haggled for the listed price on some mass-produced memaborilla.
“Six dollars”
“What do you mean six dollars? The sign says they’re 75 cents each”
“No sign, six dollars.”
“There is too a sign, this is the basket I got them from! 75 cents each!”
“Five dollars”
“Three dollars or I’m leaving! I’m just asking for the listed price!”
“Three fifty.”
“Oh my god, fine. Here.”
Well… I tried to haggle.
I think I must’ve dreamt about space that night. I woke up thinking about stars and decided to figure out if Vancouver had a planetarium. My brother’s the scientist of the family, not me. I love space when Cole’s the one talking about it, because his eyes go all wide and his words speed up and mush together and he flexes his forearms like some muscle-memory part of him still wants to flap his hands around like he did when he was really little and happy about something. I love hearing anyone talking about the stuff they love really, when they get really excited and forget to be embarrassed and their voices catch fire. It makes you excited about whatever it is too. I don’t remember when or where I visited a planetarium for the first time. My subconscious keeps supplying Montreal but I don’t know for certain. I remember loving it though- reclining in the dark and moving through space until your brain got tricked into thinking it was actually flying.
Vancouver does have a planetarium incidentally. It’s in Vanier Park in the H.R. Macmillan Space Centre, near the Maritime Museum. Apparently this is where I go to miss my guys back home and go see stuff that they’d be jealous of- first Calder with the ships and now Cole with the stars. I went to see a show in the planetarium called The Searcher. The show itself was a little cheesy cause it was about an alien travelling through the galaxy trying to figure out where his fellow aliens went when their planet imploded, but the visuals were awesome. The planetarium seemed to have a real community following too- the usher greeted a lot of the fellow star-seekers by name and you had the option to hang around after the show and the the narrator dude who stood in the middle of the big domed room walked you through all the constellations and cosmic events that would be visible over the next few days.
It was a great way to spend an afternoon- laying back in a dark room watching galaxies and black holes flicker by in the dome above you until your inner ear was tricked into thinking you were flying too. Like an amusement park ride, but stationary and educational. After that adventure I met up with Brett and Sarah and we missioned it down Robson on a quest for gluten-free pizza making materials and grabbed dinner. I haven’t spent much time in Ontarian Whole Foods branches, admitably, but I’m fairly certain that the Vancouver ones are unique in their near restaurant status. There’s salad bars, hot food counters, reusable dishes and cutlery, free water and in the case of this location, a massive wrap-around patio. Sort of awesome, and pretty much the healthiest dinner you can find for $10 if you make good choices.
And on Monday? I checked off the last big thing on my Vancouver to-do list and sweated it out on the Grouse Grind. For the uninitiated, the Grind is a famous Vancouver-specific brand of masochism that involves a 3 km trail straight up the side of Grouse Mountain. Straight up. You gain 853 metres of elevation in 3 km. You do the math and figure out the grade of that trail. It’s nearly all stairs of course, each about 2 ft tall, so thank god for my ridiculous 35 inch inseam. The trek takes the average soul between an hour and a half and two hours, to quote the back of the t-shirt I bought at the top, and I made it in an hour ten. I really wanted to break an hour and earn a claim-to-fame spot alongside my stupidly fit cousins, but I guess this means I have to come back out and try again some time! But in my defense nor did I FALL ASLEEP ON THE TRAIL like someone who shall not be named as I enjoy drinking his beer.
I have to say though, the Grind offers some of the best people watching in all of Vancouver. Like aforementioned old dude in suspenders who SPRINTED up, blowing all the young things with athletic gear and three-times-a-week Pilates class memberships right out of the water. Or like the girl in jeans and converse wasting precious lung capacity SCREAMING at her boyfriend for ever thinking this was a good idea as he meekly panted on ahead of her. I could hear her almost all the way to the top, the chick knew how to lay down the law. I think he was single by the last quarter.
I went solo, but met some friends on the way who I ended up pacing with and joining to get coffee and check out the grizzly bears at the top. I didn’t stick around to see the lumberjack show because you have to leave some sights unseen. Surprisingly I’m not even sore today. I think my legs are just 100% done with my shit after Jasper and are too tired to even protest anymore. And right now? I’m in Gastown! It’s not that exciting, mostly filled with tourist trap shops filled with over-priced maple syrup and shot glasses with pictures of moose on them going for, oh, about $45 each. I’m in a coffee shop, independent and WiFi-less, so I’ll probably post this from Marie’s place when I head back.
Update: Yay procrastination! Its now about a quarter to 9 here. My Aunt Marie and I went to a little raw vegan place for dinner where I had pizza that was lacking in crust, cheese and tomato sauce (think veggies on a cracker) and was actually pretty good. And I had nut-based chocolate cake that was really good! With no sugar!
The whole area around Lonsdale Quay and up the hill where the house is has stunningly beautiful views back down towards Vancouver across the Burrard Inlet where all the ocean liners are anchored. When we were driving down to the Quay the light was rose-gold and soft and lit up all the building and the trees, the tankers in the harbour and the cranes. I understand why people come here and stay. I’ve been to Paris, Rome, London, Florence, New York, Amsterdam, Miami and Venice, but there are times when some algorithmic combinations of green mountains, blue waves and golden light make a case for Vancouver being the crown jewel of all the cities in my collection.
The Wander Year 