Emails from the Emerald Forest.
There is a REASON why people don't go to Columbia, y'know.
Stuart 'Barbie' Butler had disappeared off to Central America, on a quest for surf and exotic ladies, while avoiding civil insurrection, guerillas, bandits, and drug dealers. Although civil insurrection does seem to follow Barbie...
These are his emails home...
You can read more of Barbie's amazing adventures at OCEANSURFPUBLICATIONS
'Lies from the Land of Latino Lovelies.' 26Nov2000.
Ladies and gentlemen How is everyone hope your all getting good waves, (although not to good!). IŽm in Ecuador at a place called Montanita where theres supposed to be a good right, although it seems more like a summers day at Paignton, not of course that this is a bad thing. IŽve been here 3 days and had a few waves, but small around 2-3ft. Still its hot and they sell big bottles of Rum for $2, i drank, i danced and then somehow convinced some girl that her life would be infintley improved if she spent the night with me - iŽm not sure if she was so convinced of this in the morning though. IŽm meeting up with the others in 10 days and then its off to Columbia to undoubtly impress numerous latino lovlies with our dancing skills. I think we're going to have to skip a bit of the SW columbian coastline and fly into a city further north, as a journalist i was talking to yesterday has just come from south >Columbia and said that in the last month things have got really heavy in the south - he was held up by rebels twice in two weeks. If anyone sees Johno or James donŽt tell them this as iŽve lied to them and told them that its perfectly safe there now and the war is over - what they donŽt know canŽt hurt them, well technecially not actualy true in this case! Anyway iŽm going off to make up some more stories about all the girls iŽve pulled here and will relate them to you next time. If anyone has the remotest bit of interest you can keep up with what weŽre doing every couple of weeks on the ceefax surf page, the saltrock website and www.surfmagic.co.uk
Stuart and the eight Colubian twin sisters (aged 17) that hes just met
'News From the Land of Latino Lovelies'. 8Dec2000
Ecuador is a hoax, dont ever come here, theirs been no waves in days and isnŽt going to be any for about a hundred years. IŽm back in Quito and met up with James and Jono the other day. Due to this place being so utterly shit we are bailing out on it as we have just seen that theres going to be solid swell in the carribean for the next week or so.Tomorrow we head up to Colombia and then fly up to the Colombian carribean coast where it will undoubtly go flat as soon as we arrive! After there hopeully the swells will have started hitting in the Pacific so we will contiue down that coast line. I love surfing, its such a cheap and easy hassle free lifestyle! the other two are super happy having just arrived from the carribean. Other news is that we went to a club yesterday and i kissed an Ecuadorian bird, but then she ran away from me. WeŽre going out again tonight and will all without fail pull beautiful latino girls. Probably the highlight of the trip though, (maybe even the highlight of my life), was getting a mysterious e-mail from some Swedish bird who i have never spoken too, she said that she saw me at the beach, but left before she got a chance to talk with me, saw a friend of mine and got my e-mail from him, now she wants to meet up somewhere!! Anyhow iŽll send some pissed off message about no surf in the carribean in a week or so, that is if all those Colombian girls let me out of bed.How big is that swell about to hit Europe! I want to be back home riding good waves.
Stuart and his team of lady and wave hunters, (not very good at either though)
No Subject. 9Dec2000.
We danced, we sang, we drank and then we all went are way with different ladies. YouĄll all be pleased to know that i managed to pull the only ugly girl in a club full of models, whilst James the bastard pulled the nicest bird in there. Now we go to Colombia and entertain the ladies there.
Stuart
No Subject. 11Dec2000.
Hello everyone WeŽve finally after much hassle made it into Colombia, but seem to have ground to a halt in the southern mountains, as their is no onward travel connections, noone wanted to sell us a flight to the north and overland travel through these mountains is to dangerous, due to it being the middle of the drug growing region and the area is controled by guerrillas who have a serious chip on their shoulder about foreigners, espically Americans, unfortuntley everyone thinks we`re Americans! On the journey to the border some guy was standing on the bus crying and going on about something that happened in Colombia - fortuntley none of us understood him! First night in Colombia and there was a big peace protest thing going on in town, whilst we got chased around by some bloke trying to sell us coke and women. Today graffiti had appeared overnight in the city telling foriegn gringos to get out of Colombia, and we have been told to leave town because its getting to dangerous for us to be here! Fortuntley we have just managed to blag our way onto transport out of here and are leaving in a couple of hours, hopefully for some Carribean waves. We have also seen some photos of the Pacific coast which show waves, so we may be in luck there and apparently we can get around the coast by boat. Anyway hope everyones getting waves with less hassle than us, happy birthday Robin.
No Subject. 17Dec2000.
The cursed surf trip continues - we made it up to the carribean coast, via a night in a 5 star hotel in the centre of Bogota, (you wouldnŽt believe the quality of the young ladies there!). We got some waves in the carribean, i was suprised as i always thought of it as a bit of a shitty place to surf, but it was a powerful swell, not very big - about 5ft at the most. Problem was there werenŽt any decent spots, we must have spent 6 hours a day cruising around different spots all we could ever find were close out shore breaks with amazingly hard paddle outs, got a few photos done though, so i guess its an improvement on Ecuador. We are now about to start the long journey to Colombias pacific coast, (where it still seems to be flat, maybe 1 metre and a bit if we are lucky. IŽm going to look at it positivley though, we may be getting small crappy waves whilst once again europe and Morocco get pounded, but we are in an unsurfed area, so anything we find out is new information and will make a story. Still only 36 days until i can get back to france and go surfing again in proper waves, canŽt wait. Rob - who else is up for Morocco, for how long, where abouts, (West Sahara), may be interested, if i can afford it. Niki - South America, is it for a travel piece or a general thing, Colombia has some interesting stories, donŽt go to Ecuador as its shit and full of fuckwit hippie backpackers with money from daddy, they will spend all day trying to talk to you about the woggy woggy temple and visas, very interesting. Mind you its much the same here, although i think we ,ve managed to alienate ourselves from them all, the last place we stayed at we were hated by them all for constantly taking the piss out of them. Still its entertained us! What are you doing now? Ollie - Could you pay that bill for me please, do you want me to send you a cheque or wait until i get back down there and sort you out then? Tara - where is it that you have to go in the Alps and when, IŽll be all for sharing petrol costs over there, but youŽll have to fly down to Biarritz and weŽll go from there, as thats where my "car" is. Its super cheap with Ryan air. Glory Bay - where is this snowboard trip to, when and how much? Any of you up for coming down to Bayonne in late febuary for a weekend of self abuse and carnival in Spain?
Stuart.
NoSubject 30 Dec 2000.
God i really know how to have a good time at Christmas, spent with nothing to eat, bouncing around in some crap car with a drunk driver through a desert and then on a super long bus journey. Combined with last years succesuful christmas and new year, i was thinking that noone could possibly have more fun at this time of year than me. So if anyone wants to book up for next year, iŽll be offering holidays in hell for christmas, where youŽll be treated to a horrible disease, annoying people, no food and a generally crap time. Now its nearly new year we are in a town having a fiesta, but i feel ill so will almost certainly spend new years eve in bed - no change really. Just came from 2 nights in the most horrible place any of us have ever been, ( could include it in my christmas tour), Medellin, not really a nice place, combine the pollution of Cairo, the chaos of Calcutta, the ugliness of some of the girls iŽve seen my brother with, the excitment of Winner street in paignton, more deformed people than a leper colony, an entire city of a red light district of the seediest kind and finally of course their was that special kind of violence that only a Colombian city can produce. At night we had armed guards walk us around the place - even if only 50 yds. CanŽt really expect any more from a city that was ruled by Pablo Escobar and the biggest drugs cartel in the world! Actualy you know the film "Escape from New York", well Medillin must have been where it was filmed. Also had our first incident with the "men with guns" (on christmas eve), another great idea to add to next years tour of hell. All our talks of heroics and bravado dissapeared in an instant. Had some waves- they were crap.
Happy new year; Stuart
NoSubject 6th Jan 2001
Waves at long, long last. Good ones as well, though small. Found / saw some amazing spots today coming through the jungle on boats - never seen waves like them, it was like they were river bore waves or something, one left must have been half a mile long on a longboard. Literally youŽd be cruising down some river channel surrounded by trees, go round the corner into a lagoon and thereŽd be waves. We didnŽt even know we were by the sea - very strange. This is supposesd to be one of the wetest places on earth - it doesnŽt dissapoint!
Stuart
NoSubject 7th Jan 2001
The bastards have finally defeated me, for the first time on a trip iŽm bailing out early and coming home - and i canŽt wait. I may even be able to surf again!. The diciding factor came yesterday when after spending 2 days and nights on open top boats in the rain, we got to Colombias most southerly town and found that to get to the beach (15minuite boat ride away) would cost us a small fortune whilst onward travel to ecuadoçr would be a mere 1000000 pesos (its as much as it sounds, over a thousand US!) We got on a bus with the intention of crossing the border that way (50k) failed and had to go 600km out of our way. Half way and one of those powertripping police who give them such a good name everywhere in the world, dicided that my boards contained drugs and started trying to slice them open. Naturally i was non to impressed by this and pushed him away from them telling him to fuck off, (I was tired ok!) this pissed him off a touch and he took me out of site of all the othe rbus passengers and started pushing me around, punching me in the ribs etc whilst shouting at me in spanish. Being English i told him to speak to me in english if he wanted to talk to me. Still it amused everyone on the bus, and when i did get back on some bastard had stolen my seat an drefused to give it back. Arrived in Quito at 3 in the morning and couldnŽt find anywhere to stay. Woke up this morning with a headache and an email saying that the place we were supposed to meet up with ome Ozzy surfers hadnŽt been over a foot for weeks. Dicided to sack it whilst i and some south americans were still alive. Any disaster that befalls these people isnŽt bad enough!
Anyone want to come on holiday with me to Peru next year?!
Stuart.
NoSubject 12thJan2001
Now iŽm really fucking happy! Surf still utter, utter shit, always packed, always onshore and always worse than Paignton. Then to improve things even more i lost a thousand pound worth of camera gear today and a load of used camera films, (this now leaves me with no surfing shots and only 4 saved films), after the whole lot got soaked and swept into the sea by a 2ft shitty wave. You canŽt beleve how much I love this place! Hopefully tomorrow iŽll be crucified. Got on a plane a couple of days ago and it landed in the wrong city! I wasnŽt suprised.
4 and a half days, 108 hours, 6480 seconds. Curry thursday, noone ever speak to me about this period of my life again.
Stuart
By Barbie.
