Gringo3

Part III

Setting off from Esperanza

The third and final day of competition was based on the island of Vieques, 8 miles due east of one of the main island's bigger port cities, Fajardo. A private ferry whisked us to our destination while flying fish ripped across wave caps. Once on the small island we made our way to the town of Esperanza, the smaller, quainter of the island’s two towns where we were picked up by a small dive boat. Buzzing past rocky coral cliffs topped with lush hurricane-proof vegetation, our captain pointed out some of the more remote and hard-to-reach white sand beaches. We didn’t see a single person or inland structure for miles and when the anchor dropped to the seafloor beneath us, the sun began to bake us to crispy perfection. It was then that we were given the instructions for our next challenge: snorkeling.

In my mind, I always saw snorkeling kind of like I see golf. The activity moves – as it should – at a snail’s pace, and to get the best of it, one needs an expansive travel budget. I had heard of speed golf and saw that as a way of springing things up a bit, and that’s just what they did for us in the clear water off Vieques. Our leader gave each of us a printed copy of a satellite image. Superimposed over the image was an x marked by “you are here,” and a shaded circle of about a half mile

Climbing the Coral

away. “There is a plastic box on the seafloor in this circle somewhere,” we were told, after explaining that each of our names was written on a note inside a small waterproof box that had been anchored in the 20-foot water. Each of us had to find our own box, detach it from the rope anchoring it to the bottom of the sea, and return it to the dive boat. We donned our masks and flippers, dropped into the ocean, and waited for our starting command.

I was annoyed by the fact that this competition would be influenced in part by luck. I knew there were three cases attached to the seafloor, but was aware that the one who coincidentally happened upon the one with his own name in it would likely be the one to win the event. The only way to push to odds would be to arrive at the location of the boxes first. Oh, and I have a really lousy stroke and truly hate swimming.

Inverted Aerial - Navio Beach

Swimming at the quickest pace I could muster while wearing a snorkel was a challenge but it was diminished a bit by the scenery – most of the colorful fish scattered from me but the rays just ignored me as I swam past. A half mile is a long way to go in open seas in my book and I had to stop to check my heading frequently.  Reaching the boxes within a minute of each other, the three of us swam a 3-dimensionally chaotic course between points on the surface and the sandy bottom, gasping for air after each ear-popping descent. By the time we found our boxes and returned them to the dive boat our lungs were ripe.

The Navio Run

Our second event of that long day came after discovering the current winner of my personal lifelong quest to find the best fish tacos in the world (though based on the number of diners at Duffy’s in Esperanza, they don’t need a plug). While we digested, it was explained to us. Following a ¼ mile sprint across remote and beautiful Navio Beach, we’d rock-scramble our way up one of the sharp coral bluffs bordering  the soft sand, out to a 10 foot overhanging bit for a flying leap into the aquamarine waters. Then, a swim to three moored kayaks awaiting us would wrap up the stage, and the third stage, a kayak race, would come next.

Eight months later, I was back in Esperanza, eating those fish tacos once again. I’d won the return trip for two, but instead there were three of us.

To be continued . . .

In the next part: gringo tourists are welcomed with open arms when carrying red-headed white babies

Photos: Moncho Dapena & Ryan Bair

Production Assistants messing around in Esperanza

Gringo2

Part II

Day two brought us to the island’s interior. The elevations in the mountainous regions of Puerto Rico rise above 4000 feet, creating a system of rivers and creeks as steep and voluminous as many of those back home. But, it's a jungle. 

Near the village of Utuado our convoy of production assistants and technicians parked the vehicles and began a trek into the jungle. Locals had been hired to carry cameras, sound gear and (fortunately) lunch into the jungle.

A few miles later we were deep in the canyon of the shallow, rocky Tanama River. After the people in charge spent half a day telling the others what to do while we sat around, we were given our gear bags for the day. Each one contained a life jacket, helmet, and a headlamp. We were ready for our first event of the day: run the river (on foot, that is). They called it canyoneering. Splashing through the sometimes deep, sometimes shallow water, dashing across rocky beaches, and leaping off boulders into the calm pools is what they meant by river navigation. I am used to selecting lines downriver through whitewater in a kayak; I was now faced with a different kind of line selection: whether to take a dry line across a rocky bank or run through the river. Dry lines presented serious ankle-twisting risks and progress on foot could be hindered by giant boulders, but I didn’t know how deep the river was in most places.

 

The three of us ran at full-tilt through a canyon several hundred feet deep. The canyon’s walls were lined with swinging, vine-like roots reaching from the canyon rim to drink the waters of the Tanama. Each bend in the river presented a new decision to make and a new natural system to take in.

Swimming? Wading? Racing!

Truthfully, the competition became secondary to me as I ran the most stimulating and fun mile of my life. I was Indiana Jones running from a mob of angry natives; Tarzan sprinting through the jungle to rescue Jane and after what seemed like an instant, I rounded a corner to find a man standing in the riverbed with two arms outstretched: our finish line. 

At that moment I became suddenly aware that Zak was immediately to my right, running across a gravel bar as I swam/waded through thigh-deep water, scraping my fingers across rocks with each half-assed stroke. Through pure luck I found a shallow spot, rose to my feet, and began my sprint. We both dove for a photo finish, crashing and splashing into the inches-deep Tanama. I sat in the water and let it cool me while I gazed back at the remoteness of where I was.

The Cave

For the second leg of the day’s competition the entire crew moseyed downstream. I took the opportunity to float on my back in the Tanama, slowly moving downstream and looking up at the sliver of sky at the top of the canyon. Before long I was behind everybody and holding up the entire production.

One last bend in the river revealed a 100-foot high cave through which the Tanama runs unobstructed. The cave exit was not visible at first giving it an eerily mysterious, terminal effect from upstream. And, once inside the cave, a hard look at the high ceiling provoked a confusing pattern of lights and darks that ended with the realization that there is a vertical exit from another cave above us that leads to a dry entrance halfway out of the canyon. This place is a crazy and complicated system of caves, rocks, tunnels, and water.

A canyoneering obstacle course was described to us, which was intense and unnecessarily dangerous (I was becoming skeptical of our hosts). Our leader pointed to one of the small waterfalls shooting off the canyon wall. Swinging from the apex of the 50-foot falls was a chain ladder.

After climbing the ladder, we’d bushwhack to a trail and then run to the top of a different cave entrance (this one about 40 feet). We were to rappel down to the foot of that cave's entrance, and then embark on a a headlamp-assisted sprint through the cave to the brink of a 125-foot drop to the river below. That last drop was enough to make me glad that I hadn’t eaten much.

The Rappel from the top cave.

Without question, this competition was fool-hearty and completely unsafe. For starters, rappelling (twice!) in a race is risky because you don’t want to rush your initial attachment to a rope. But, to race through a cave, fully aware that at some point the floor would drop to nothing but thin air for over 100 feet? What if I tripped? Was this a race to the death?

Zack, Mike, and I made a pact to not compromise safety. I'm pretty sure none of us stuck to it, though.

It took me about 8 minutes. The memory of it is a tactile mesh of thick vegetation against my legs and torso, the grit of sandy dirt in my hands, the thunder of a waterfall beating down on me, and the enormous gulp I took before launching myself into the highest free-rappel I’ve ever considered. And, I’m afraid of heights.

To be continued . . . 

Next Part: a snorkel competition, beach sprint, and (almost) marathon kayak race. Stay tuned!

Photos by Ryan Bair

Git r dun!

Gringo

GringoBus

Being a self-proclaimed amateur adventurer, I generally avoid being corralled into a converted school bus,when I could just as well be participating on my own accord. Maybe it’s snobbery, but I guess I just like to explore the natural world on my own, guideless. So, when I found myself in Esperanza, Puerto Rico, a passenger on that school bus gleefully coated with the words Island Adventures, Bio-Bay Tours, Snorkeling, Kayaks, Puertorican and Mexican food hand painted in bright bubble letters over a pastel backdrop while I was holding a small life jacket and towel, I had a small panic attack. This is so not me. Surely the locals were saying to each other, “there goes another bus full of gringos!”

It had started a year earlier when my friend, Mike, told me about a contest being held by Mens Journal magazine, suggesting we both enter. “I’m not a beach guy,” I told him, “and I don’t really feel like putting together a video of myself; that’s too much work.” Mike proceeded without me and when it was ready, he showed me a well done but simple sequence of still photos that ended with him riding his bike into the camera and asking, “which way to Puerto Rico?” To provide contrast, he asked this question to the camera on his urban neighborhood street in Washington, DC with cops speeding past in the background, lights flashing. It was paradoxical, interesting and funny and the entire video looked simple to produce.

Before long I had produced my own video, just like Mike’s, of me climbing and paddling whitewater. I laced together a slideshow of my favorite moments captured on film and ended it, just as Mike had, with the question, “which way to Puerto Rico?” I'm posting it here, despite its embarrassingness.

It worked. Mike and I were both picked as contestants for the Explore Puerto Rico Challenge. We’d be going to Puerto Rico along with a third entry to compete in a host of events “such as mountain biking, caving, ropes, snorkeling and swimming, surfing, and paddle boarding, as well as other activities.” I'm fairly certain that not many others entered the contest, because another friend was coincidentally there shooting photographs.

Paddle boarding? Snorkeling? I live in Pennsylvania and I play in the mountains. I had sworn off caving years ago after being jammed into a cave that tapered down to about14 inches of vertical space. I remembered that and freaked out. I considered a polite thanks-but-no-thanks but my travel-savvy wife would have no part of it. It was about time, she encouraged me, that I have an adventure outside the Appalachian Mountains. The prize, an all-expenses paid return trip for two, may have had something to do with her pressure.

 

Trash-talking began, well promoted by the writing staff for MJ. I was asked for a few comments and somehow I replied with this signature line: “in the pure sense of adventure, the one to finish first is often the one leading the others.” This was published in the magazine even before the competition and I was relentlessly prodded.

“Isn’t that like saying, ‘the team with the most points wins,’” my brother Marc asked me.

“Sure, but I didn’t want to come off sounding arrogant.”

"I think you came off sounding like a knucklehead."

 

Zak

The third competitor, Zak, had said “I’m in the best shape of my life and I’m ready to dominate the competition.” After reading this, I was happy with my knucklehead remark. But, Zak was not lying and judging by his photo he could finger-flick my head off. And, he was well-versed in something I’d never heard of: Cross-Fit. I Googled it. “This guy’s going to crush me.”

After a late night flight and 5 am wake up in San Juan, the groggy team saddled up. Each day of the competition began with a gas station breakfast. Then, the next 6 – 10 hours were spent driving to a location and then waiting around for cameras and other equipment to be positioned. There were production assistants, photographers, and cameramen. There was a sound guy. And, there was even a host, a nice guy named Zay Harding (Google him; he's been around). Then, there were three people to tell all of those people what to do. 

Mike, Zak, and I became comrades in those hours of waiting.

Waiting

At a pre-competition meeting we were given schedule of events. Day one would be a mountain bike race. Day two’s stages would include “river navigation,” climbing, rappelling, and caving. The third day’s races would include snorkeling, running, and sea kayaking. Paddle-boarding did not make the list, but somebody said the ‘c’ word, and I was already shaking.

“There’s no way I’m getting in a goddamn cave,” I told Mike.

We were also given a point system and I deduced that could completely tank the caving event altogether and as long as I mostly swept the others I could win the free return trip. This last bit, sweeping, didn’t seem all that likely when I looked at Zak.

And we were off.

On Puerto Rico’s west coast lies the center of the island’s surf scene, the small town of Rincon. At a popular break called the Domes, the beach is shaded by a thick forest riddled with mountain bike trails. Those trails were closed all day long for our three-dude event. The three of us were each given a junker of a mountain bike and told to let ‘er rip.

“I’m worried I’ll break this bike,” I told one of the production assistants.

“Go ahead,” he replied, and pointed to a nearby truck holding about twenty more brand-new junkers. "We've got it covered." I pulled out a bike tool and began to adjust the bike to my liking.

Entering the forest at the Domes

The race against Mike and Zak took several hours, far less time than we spent waiting around for the race to begin. It was worth the wait. I’ve been mountain biking since around the time mountain bikes were new. I’ve sought out singletrack gold in the mountains all over the Central Appalachians and now live adjacent to (arguably) the best single track in the area. But, coming out of thick woods after blazing through rooted and rocky descents and steep, healthy climbs to see a crystal clear 8-foot pipeline crashing over coral and sand was otherworldly. 

The sea winds cooled me off on my way to another loop through the Domes trails and to another lap in the mountain bike race. At the end of the race, we thanked the local bike shop support and our electronic caravan of lights, cameras, and microphones headed to the nearest dive for local gastro-cultural bliss.

To be continued. . . . 

Next Part: Enjoying the island's mountainous interior and dropping 125 feet out of a hole in a rock.

Photos by Ryan Bair 

(except the first one, which was hijacked from the Internet, and the video, which I made and it's supposed to like amateur work, honest)

Git r Dun!

Now You're Waiting