Montañita – Day 4: Ambition at Sea
MONTAÑITA
Day 4: Ambition at Sea
October 21, 2025
With Patricia gone, Pedro decided to up his yoga game, with the morning’s flow proving much more active and demanding than those of the previous days.
With some free time to myself, I decided to actually visit the town of Montañita. It was only a 15-minute walk away, but given how sore I was all over, it felt as if I were running a marathon, with every step eliciting an internal moan. The town itself wasn’t unlike most other coastal towns I’d visited throughout my travels. It felt kinda like a mix between Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and El Tunco, El Salvador. The nicest part, of course, was the sea, with the waves looking much gnarlier and taller than at any point since I’d arrived.
Barefoot and free, I walked all the way back to Balsa Surf Camp along the beach, collecting seashells and pebbles while thinking about my cute little adventure with Pina back in Playa Sisal, Mexico. It’s funny how random chance encounters end up shaping us, huh? That one old lady who had asked me to collect shells for her grandchildren had somehow lodged herself in my memory, becoming one of the many adopted grandmothers I’d been lucky enough to have throughout my life, if only for a short while.
Chasing Green Waves
And just like that, it was finally time for my last surf class with Carlos. Having already surpassed my expectations for the course, I grabbed my surfboard and headed towards the beach.
We’d be trying to move on to green waves, meaning unbroken waves with open faces rather than the foamy baby waves I had previously surfed. In this case, they were around a metre high. This, of course, meant I’d have to paddle hard past the breaking waves to reach the line-up, a feat that would leave me breathless before I’d even attempted to catch anything. Having said that, I noticed a definite improvement in my paddling and stamina, especially when I realised that Carlos’s cries of “REMA, REMA, REMA!” were spurring me on rather than discouraging me, as they had done the previous day.
With my paddling already a hundred times better, I also noticed that I had refined several other skills over the previous few days. I could get onto the board immediately without losing my balance, orient myself towards the beach and recognise which waves to go for and which to leave. New and improved though I was, I still didn’t manage to catch a green wave. According to Carlos, however, the fact that I’d nearly managed was good enough, and I thought so too. It showed me that if I ever dedicated more time to surfing, I could continue learning and improving.
Painfully aware of how inconsequential four classes were in the grand scheme of things, and knowing that I’d probably forget much of what I had learnt by the time I got to surf again, I was still happy with what I’d accomplished. Maybe one day, I’d manage to spend a few months doing nothing but surfing. Maybe one day, I’d actually learn to ride larger waves. Maybe, just maybe, one day I’d get to see the green room, that hollow space inside a breaking barrel.
One Last Story
After class, I could finally treat my oh-so-sore body to a much-needed full-body massage included in my package. Have I mentioned how much I love these package deals?
Fully replenished and restored, I had one final dinner before sitting down with Pedro and Möna, a German woman who was on holiday, for a chat. She told us that she had been battling breast cancer until the previous year and, after a year of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, was finally in remission. Although cancer hadn’t changed her life per se, beyond forcing her to put everything on hold, it had made her realise that there was no time like the present to do the things we always tended to postpone, including adventure holidays such as this one. Hearing her story was awe-inspiring, to say the least, although she spoke about it as if it were no big deal. Kinda reminded me of Nightbirde – one of the most inspirational people I’ve ever come to known.
After our conversation, I headed back to my room. As I lay in the hammock smoking one last cigarette before calling it a night, I thought about what she had told us. You see, ever since I’d started working in emergency medicine, I’d felt as if I had struck the perfect balance. One short trip every two months and one big trip at the end of the year. Only recently, that balance seemed to have been taking a toll on me. Travelling so often was leaving me exhausted in between one trip and another – so much so that I ended up resenting travelling!
But sitting here, after a day spent doing such incredible things with such incredible people , I still found myself wanting more. Coming back from my gap year, I thought I had found the perfect balance. Now, once again, I was wondering if that could ever really exist – an existential crisis I did not want to revisit. Not so soon after my gap year, that is. I wanted the balance I’d found to last forever. That, perhaps, was a tad too naïve of me. What I knew for certain was one thing: I didn’t wanna abandon medicine for another year again – not for now at least.
I had four years of higher specialist training ahead of me. Taking a few months off would probably extend my training and might even force me to repeat an entire year. While I was very aware that medicine was only one of my many passions, I also kinda wanted to get my training over and done with as soon as possible – especially if I wanted to move abroad and begin a new life elsewhere. At the same time, how could I ever properly improve my surfing with only a few days of training every year? I wanted to become a proper surfer. Not a professional one, mind you, but someone who could surf freely on real, unbroken waves rather than only riding white water. I’d probably need months of training for that, and I really wanted to do it. The question was, would I ever get the chance?
I swore to myself that after Ecuador, I’d take some time to figure out my next step. Maybe there was a way to come up with a new balance that would have me feel fulfilled.