Often in life, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. During a magazine trip to Peru, when someone offered me a job managing a hotel, I said, “heck, why not?” Aiming the bar a little above this non-Spanish-speaking Australian girl’s head? Never! Peru is a land of desolate beauty. Once away from the mountains and jungle, she’s a barren place of sand dunes and howling offshore oceans. My hotel was a small boutique lodge, sitting pretty on the most perfect left hand point break in the north. The vibe was a strange one as the place was a previously abandoned oil and military town–a mix of gutted and falling beautiful old buildings with new developments popping up everywhere.
Running a business in a South American country is a whole different ball game. I come from a place with a very high minimum wage so understanding different work ethics and village politics is not an easy thing. No one spoke English, so we spent our days crowded over my computer using Google Translate. But when the wind would blow, there was no internet connection and I was on my own. Some mornings I’d awake to a view straight out of a magazine. I’d sneak out at dawn before the clients were up and the staff was there and have a quiet moment to myself. When the wave was on it was unreal. She’d start down by the rocks, peeling for miles along the beach. The take-off was easy and a perfect sandy barrel section sat in the middle. The waves were so long you’d have to jog back up the point as paddling back was simply too far to go.
Trying to implement business changes like time sheets, financial records, and daily cash flow was no easy feat either. But as the months passed, things became easier. My Spanish improved as did my understanding of the staff. It was a strange feeling being responsible for feeding someone’s family. My cleaning lady taught me that. She worked two jobs to raise her three kids. One day at work, she broke down telling me in Spanish her kids were hungry. Her husband was a fisherman and there were no fish. She didn’t know what to do. I held her for what felt like hours as she sobbed in my arms.
My other escape time was late in the evenings. Sometimes the crowds in the surf were unmanageable so I’d paddle out right at nightfall. The ocean was dotted with oil rigs that would light up in the darkness. It was surreal surfing with the lit up fiery landscape and the glowing phosphorescence in the water. I’d stay surfing late into the darkness with the perfection of the point break making wave position predictable. Freezing cold, I’d finally return to the hotel and get ready to face another day.
