By Steve Fitzpatrick
Photos and audio commentary by Otto Flores & Matthew Pappas
Posted: 1/18/2010
In an era of air conditioned luxury boat trips complete with gourmet food, Blue Ray DVD on large format flatscreen TV’s, and in-room Playstation, one intrepid Caribbean surfer leads a down and dirty assault on the world’s most bountiful wave garden.
It’s now been over 30 years since Gerry Lopez and Rory Russell opened the box on the incredibly perfect surf of Indonesia. Beginning with the Bukit Peninsula and Uluwatu and then moving on to the even more fertile waters of Java and Grajagan, this legendary duo laid first tracks on what would become perhaps the globe’s most trodden waters.
Back then a feral mission was the only way to go on this new frontier of surf, with boat trips and surf camps being only part of the dreamscape that would become Indonesian surfing. But guys like Lopez and Russell could have cared less, more interested in pushing their tube riding skills to the limit than worrying about pampering their appetites for anything in the way of creature comforts. Moreover, surf travelers from the era were also equally interested in discovering and understanding the wildly foreign cultures they would encounter on their journeys, and gave themselves equal doses of spinning, belching, cavernous tubes and writhing, squirming, fidgeting helpings of mysterious customs from worlds about which they knew very little. As the years passed in the wake of these discoveries the rustic nature of such travel was slowly but surely replaced with beachfront bungalows, electricity and running water, luxury boat charters, and two or three generations of “shredding dudes” that for the most part completely overlooked the unique quality of the places and cultures they were visiting in favor of simply transporting their First World minds into Third World tubes on hit and run missions.
This past August, in an effort to hearken the days of not-so-yore, when surf travel was a kinder, simpler beast, Puerto Rican barrel monger Otto Flores teamed up with Venice, CA filmmaker Matthew Pappas to explore the depths of Bali and some of the surrounding islands, and present via a blog a real time account of their journey at www.findingbali.com. And while finding the region’s coveted surf was part of the objective it was far from their only goal spending just as much time delving into the very special elements of Indonesian culture away from the water and interviewing the locals about what makes them tick. Likewise, while they may not have been traveling on a completely feral level, neither did they take the five star route to Indo surfing nirvana.
Finding Bali Movie Trailer
Surf Caribe pinned Otto and Matt down a few days after their return to the west to get the scoop on Finding Bali and the reasoning behind it.
Surf Caribe: What was your inspiration for starting the Finding Bali blog?
Otto Flores: Well nowadays Bali has already been done every which way you can imagine, so it was definitely a challenge for me to come up with something different. I brainstormed and fed myself with lots of information and many ideas. In this day and age information is in real time so I wanted to capture the moment and present it as fast as I could in little teasers capturing the climactic moments of our trip on the blog and then present a more complete project as an extension of the site itself. We are thinking of making a short film about our journey.
Matthew Pappas: We were planning on doing a short film about Bali and then we thought a website blog would be cool to let people know what we're doing and to keep us busy working on our project. I think the blog taught us a lot because we noticed what was working and what was not. Laying out photos and concepts while already editing some of the footage into short segments, we could improve the next day on our technique and ideas. Otto became a webmaster by the end of the trip, so he's for hire in case you need a website!
SC: Do you have any specific goals with Finding Bali or is it just a way to document your trip as a personal creative outlet and share it with the world?
OF: Finding Bali started as a way to document our trip but the focus changed along the way when we hit a couple of different perspectives and realized there is way more to Bali than perfect waves and good parties.
MP: We really wanted to have fun doing something different than the standard music video with surf shot after surf shot. Since we're doing this on our own, no one was telling us what to do. So if it doesn't turn out well, at least we tried.
SC: How did the two of you guys meet and hatch the Finding Bali plan?
OF: Well, I had worked with Matt in the past when he visited Puerto Rico to do a project with ASEC (Action Sports Environmental Coalition) for which I was a spokesman at a
Board Retailers convention. While here in Puerto Rico he stayed with us and I saw some of his work and was very impressed. From that experience we have become great friends and discovered that we can work well together.
MP: I met Otto in Puerto Rico last year while I was working on the project for ASEC. I ended up doing some videos with him for Sambazon and other surf related projects. We seemed have similar interests in concept and style so that kind of got us thinking about doing something.
SC: What kind of challenges did you encounter on this mission? Any brushes with death or funny anecdotes you can share with the audience?
OF: To tell you the truth, Bali is a very special place. Things went very smoothly for the most part. The only hard part was when we had to get to work, it is so relaxed there that sometimes it was hard to change gears and do what we had set out to do. The only real liability was me behind the wheel on the left side of the road.
MP: Yeah, there were a few distractions, just that the waves were so good. Most of the time it was hard to make the decision to surf or to film. Luckily the waves are good all day so it gave me plenty of time to do both. It was also hard to find local people to interview, either they were camera shy or they didn't understand English very well. But I think we got some good interviews and some interesting stories.
SC: What was it about the Indonesian culture that drew you to Bali as a destination in the first place?
OF: In Bali hindu culture is predominant. People have simple lives and focus on detail taking their time to do things the way they want them to be done. They respect their beliefs and their surroundings. Karma has a big part in Bali’s culture, and I believe the place and the people are special for those reasons.
MP: Otto has been going to Bali for years, but this was my first time. He had been telling me about all the crazy colors, the smiling faces, architecture, and rich culture that was lacking coverage in surf films. It sounded like an amazing place and it had everything to offer for our project.
SC: Besides the subjects of your interviews, who else was instrumental in making this project a reality?
OF: Well, my friend Mark Velez was a huge asset to this project. He has been going to Indonesia for many years and knows the place inside and out. His knowledge of the area and swell prediction made him the go-to person for all the decisions we made. In other words, Mark called the shots.
MP: Definitely Otto's good buddy Mark who is also from Puerto Rico. He has been living off and on in Bali for about 10 years now, I think. He pointed us in the right direction, hooked up our rides and accommodations, and was basically our tour guide. Thanks for the help Mark!
SC: Where will you go now with Finding Bali? Is there a sequel destination in the works?
OF: In terms of its surfing wealthBali was discovered a long time ago and has now been very exposed to the world. With the feedback and all the things I’m learning from this project, I’ve been thinking of other places I want to explore but maybe not expose. Rather, I’d try to educate people about these places and share my experiences in a couple of destinations that I have had the pleasure of visiting.
MP: We’re going to compile all the footage we have and edit a short piece. If it’s good we’ll try to get some feedback on it and hopefully take the concept elsewhere. I think the idea has a lot of potential, and this was our first attempt at it so there's a lot from which to learn and see what we can improve on.
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