Update from Julie - Fish Spears Surfer

Update from Julie:

Sayulita, Mexico

As I write I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of John, Lobo and our friend Michele who is hitching a ride from Texas. I have been here in Sayulita for six weeks working, tending to the house, and ducking for cover in some of the crazy rain and lightning storms of the tropical season. I started working in a new school that is being referred to as a “project” by my director. The idea is to have a non-profit school with an ecological focus, which also serves as a cultural center and a resource for environmental sustainability in the area. So far we have the school
part up and running and I teach math, science and English to 3rd and a combined 4,5,6th grade class. We have six other teachers in the school for preK-6 and the cultural center is offering after school English and computer classes to the public school kids. There are lots of jobs for English teachers in town if anyone is looking for a project. When John gets here I will take some photos of the school and some of my students who are a mixture of Americans, Mexicans, Canadians, and Italians. I only have five 3rd graders right now (up two more from last week) and supposedly more are coming as their families return for the high season.

The story I want to share though is one of those “What are the chances?” kind of tales. Last weekend was the Mexican Independence day so we had a much deserved four day break from school. My friends Steve, Cassie, Mike and I piled into a car and headed south to La Ticla to find some waves. The first morning we paddled out and caught a few waves in the slop. After a bit I was just tired of the hot, extra salty water and the New England style smushy waves so I got out to hang on the beach with Cassie and watch. As we were sitting there another surfer entered the water, and minutes later was stumbling out of the water waving his hand looking desperate. As I walked towards him, he was pointing to something in his chest. Yes, IN. There was a two inch barb-looking thing sticking out of his check just below his right collarbone. As we sprang into action to lay him down he explained that a fish had jumped AT him and something on the fish had stuck. He wasn’t sure if it was a tooth or what. It looked to us like something from the dorsal fin of a needle fish. Who knows, really, but it looked like a two inch square stick with serrated edges and we had to get it out. Steve and Cassie ran back to the campsite to get water and a first aid kit and Mike and I stayed with the patient.

As he calmed down I started making small talk with him and I asked where he was from. Here is the crazy part: he was at University in Guadalajara but originally from Costa Rica, and he had been a student in one of the first schools I worked in as a Chemistry teacher, and he was on the soccer team I coached!! After a minute his face started coming back to me. He had been a senior at the time, and he remembered when I had made the team run up the hills of Escazu on the first few days of practice. Such a crazy small world!!

So now I had to pull the scale out of his chest. No options for hospitals or clinics very close by to do anything else really. We checked that it didn’t have a hook on the end, we couldn’t feel anything under his skin that might get stuck, so we all decided the best thing to do was grab it as close to the skin as we could and pull it out. It hurt him, but it came out cleanly. Then a little more cleaning of the wound, a bandage, and all set. Turns out he was camped right next to us! Crazy world.

Note: I am pretty sure that the chances of getting speared with a fish scale while surfing ranks around there with lightning strikes, so I am not deterred about getting in the water.

Tonto to Storage in Atlanta

BIG NEWS!!!
TONTO goes into storage. As much as we hate it. We traded in Tonto for a Jeep, or rather we traded one new computer for John´s mom Julie´s old Jeep, to use while staying in our house in Sayulita for this year. There is not really a good parking or storage option for our beloved Tonto here, so its sad but a good decision. Maybe Julie and Dennis will take him for a spin and write an update to fill in the blanks here. Still, I am going to use the Tontotrails site to keep recording memories and friends! Come see us!

Long Road Home and Back Again

I have a HUGE hole in the Tontotrails Series, and there are some drafts written, somewhere, but not here.

Here´s what happened from March 08-Aug 08 in a nutshell..

1. Took Tonto on a major cross Mexico adventure through to Oxaca, the Sierra Nortes and back again. Lots of tails and history to tell. Lots of mtn biking and driving. Awesome trip.
2. Lived in the house in Sayulita for a few months to work on projects.
3. In early May high tailed it in Tonto north to Atlanta. Long drive with some interesting boondocking sites...my favorite was under a bridge in Texas.
4. Mid May - July Lobo was bunking with his buddy Bailey in Atlanta while we worked the Shimano Coasting Tour with a fully wrapped Taureg pulling a trailer of Coasting Bikes from Columbus to San Fran and then up to Seattle. Julie stayed a few extra days in Seattle to meet up with the Dixons and Sean Hartman and then a stop over for Sharon K´s bachelorette in Chicago. Good times.
5. July-August time on the East Coast with family and friends at Lake George and Salter´s Point. Wedding planning in full swing consuming a lot of time but getting things checked off the lists. Its going to be great Sept 12 09!
6. John and Lobo returned to NJ to work on the 3-family apartments and had quite the adventure with a flood and a fire in just one 24hr period. Learned a lot about getting rid of smoke damage and sanding floors the correct way!
7. Julie flew to Sayulita Aug 4th to start a job in the Costa Verde International School.


Will post some highlight photos soon!!