The Pacific Ocean's Shiants
In a complete moment of luck and fate, I bumped into a friend in Antigua, Guatemala. There was no reason for either of us to have been there. It was just one of these life things where when it happens, you have to follow the path and see where the road ends.
"Tom!''
''Luke!''
We embraced each other in a crowded square of people, and headed immediately for a bar.
''So how do you fancy coming down to the Pacific coastline for a week and looking after some baby turtles. There's no TV, Internet or radio. Just a house with five hammocks and three rooms. Oh and there's no toilet either,'' said Luke.
''I'm there.''
Within 12 hours of that conversation, I was lieing in a hammock, watching the 18ft waves crash down creating seahorses of a similar size. The beach was deserted for miles either side, with the odd house, no bigger than a single room in most cases, scattered along the smooth sand.
The kitchen entailed of a gas cooker, which was filthy, and some vegetebales which looked like they could have been there for two weeks. The three wall to wall rooms, where no bigger than the size of most bedrooms you would find in a terraced house in London with bad lighting in all. None of this mattered.
Despite being here in the most barest of circumstances there was a civilised manner in everything that you did. Time somehow slows down to a snails pace, and with that is the deepest relaxation that you could ever feel.
Scinarios enter your mind back England: your mum would be in absolute histiria to get you to school on time. The fact that you had no clean socks for that day, or for that matter clean underware. The stress of money, girls, cooking, cleaning and working all evaporte in this place and you are just left with the pure essentials of thought.
If there was an Alcoholics Anoymous for thought then this would be the place. A place where you cleanse your mind and see things in their simplist form.
I'm sure anyone reading this now would saý 'huh, some kid, doesn't quite understand the difficulties of life. Hasn't had a proper job or understand the pressures of what it's like to support a family.'
To that person, I say, yes you're right I don't have the feintest idea of waht that's like and it must be hell. But hear this. When things do get sticky, I will remeber writing this, and remember that things, whatever they are, are solvable given a careful and precise thought process.
On the same note, the locals there are some of the most incredible people that you meet. Working long hours to earn perhaps 50p an hour they are all happy. Depression doesn't exsist as far as I could tell. They have absolutly nothing. And we have so much in our society, earning rediculous wages for little or no work, so we can be in places that others will never see.
Back to the beach.... There is no way I can descibe the incredible sunsets that you see everynight around 6.30PM. After a football game on the beach betwen the locals where I scored a perfect volly and nearly impressed them with a David Beckham like free-kick, we jumped in the sea, drenched in sweat. The sun, by this time, was only half visable over the horizon of the sea. The orange colour, scattered itself inconsistantly across the water indefinately. If someone could measure us between as far as you could see, it must have been 500 miles. Coupled with the scerenic beauty, was a gentle breeze on your back, evermore slowly cooling you off.
It was as close to paradise I have ever come.
On the final night, we ate prawns which had arrived at the bar 15 minutes before we had arrived. They were, needless to say, fresh as they sounded. So much so, that I ate the whole thing with its shell still on. (Bar the head). But I've never eaten so well. The price was 1.50. Enough to buy you a portion of chips down the local chippy.
I look forward to my return.
If you want more details on the turtle project, where you save a endangered species you can e-mail Luke here, (be patient with the reply as there is no e-mail and checks it every two weeks): lukey92@hotmail.com
"Tom!''
''Luke!''
We embraced each other in a crowded square of people, and headed immediately for a bar.
''So how do you fancy coming down to the Pacific coastline for a week and looking after some baby turtles. There's no TV, Internet or radio. Just a house with five hammocks and three rooms. Oh and there's no toilet either,'' said Luke.
''I'm there.''
Within 12 hours of that conversation, I was lieing in a hammock, watching the 18ft waves crash down creating seahorses of a similar size. The beach was deserted for miles either side, with the odd house, no bigger than a single room in most cases, scattered along the smooth sand.
The kitchen entailed of a gas cooker, which was filthy, and some vegetebales which looked like they could have been there for two weeks. The three wall to wall rooms, where no bigger than the size of most bedrooms you would find in a terraced house in London with bad lighting in all. None of this mattered.
Despite being here in the most barest of circumstances there was a civilised manner in everything that you did. Time somehow slows down to a snails pace, and with that is the deepest relaxation that you could ever feel.
Scinarios enter your mind back England: your mum would be in absolute histiria to get you to school on time. The fact that you had no clean socks for that day, or for that matter clean underware. The stress of money, girls, cooking, cleaning and working all evaporte in this place and you are just left with the pure essentials of thought.
If there was an Alcoholics Anoymous for thought then this would be the place. A place where you cleanse your mind and see things in their simplist form.
I'm sure anyone reading this now would saý 'huh, some kid, doesn't quite understand the difficulties of life. Hasn't had a proper job or understand the pressures of what it's like to support a family.'
To that person, I say, yes you're right I don't have the feintest idea of waht that's like and it must be hell. But hear this. When things do get sticky, I will remeber writing this, and remember that things, whatever they are, are solvable given a careful and precise thought process.
On the same note, the locals there are some of the most incredible people that you meet. Working long hours to earn perhaps 50p an hour they are all happy. Depression doesn't exsist as far as I could tell. They have absolutly nothing. And we have so much in our society, earning rediculous wages for little or no work, so we can be in places that others will never see.
Back to the beach.... There is no way I can descibe the incredible sunsets that you see everynight around 6.30PM. After a football game on the beach betwen the locals where I scored a perfect volly and nearly impressed them with a David Beckham like free-kick, we jumped in the sea, drenched in sweat. The sun, by this time, was only half visable over the horizon of the sea. The orange colour, scattered itself inconsistantly across the water indefinately. If someone could measure us between as far as you could see, it must have been 500 miles. Coupled with the scerenic beauty, was a gentle breeze on your back, evermore slowly cooling you off.
It was as close to paradise I have ever come.
On the final night, we ate prawns which had arrived at the bar 15 minutes before we had arrived. They were, needless to say, fresh as they sounded. So much so, that I ate the whole thing with its shell still on. (Bar the head). But I've never eaten so well. The price was 1.50. Enough to buy you a portion of chips down the local chippy.
I look forward to my return.
If you want more details on the turtle project, where you save a endangered species you can e-mail Luke here, (be patient with the reply as there is no e-mail and checks it every two weeks): lukey92@hotmail.com
posted by Tom Nicolson at 6:06 PM
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