South American Blunders

I am now learning to both surf and fire dance ("poi"). Both are frustrating and painful but I´m determined to figure them out. I bought my surfboard on Friday, I´m essentially renting a really quality (but small and therefore hard to learn on) board and bag for $50 for a month. I went yesterday with my new board and not only couldn´t stand up even once but got stung by so many god damn jelly fish that my body is criss crossed with welts. The blue bastards nonchalantly (sp?) float up to you and then, if you happen to graze against them, wrap their horrible pain inducing tentacles around your flesh and just hang there, stinging you, until you desperately tear it off.
As for the poi. Gabriel is teaching myself and 2 other Planet Drum volunteers to fire dance on the beach. For some reason the tennis balls in nylon stockings that we use to practice have mistaken my testacles for tennis rackets and, each time I practice, have a crippling match at my expense. I can usually go for about 1-2 minutes before the tennis balls strike each other and one of them ricochets up into my crotch at high speeds, leaving me on the ground in the fetal position. Then I get up and do it again. Unlike surfing however, I am starting to get better at this and can reasonably hope that within a few weeks I´d be ready to use fire. Sorry madre.

In my last entry I mentioned having my sandals stolen while I slept in a tent on the beach. My tent bag and stakes were also stolen in that incident but I found them on Friday. As I was getting off the standing room only bus in Canoa, an old man got on with my ´Kelty Teton 2´ bag strapped to his backpack. As we awkwardly maneuvered past eachother in the aisle of the bus we discussed the possibility of me getting it back:
Me-That´s my bag.
Prick-Yup.
Me-Can I have it back?
Prick-Nope.

And with that I stepped off the bus with nothing but impotent bitterness to show for myself. If I find him in the streets of Canoa I intend to follow him and steal it back. Oh he will get his comeupins.
Last point of interest-I´m planning to leave from here to the Andes on Dec. 1st with, hopefully, a couple of the volunteers from here. We´re going to do a 4-6 day hike from the Andes down into the jungle. It should be epic and amazing.
Hope everyone had a happy halloween, ciao.