Exploration as Art

A blind river fish from the Rio Bameno, Amazonian Ecuador.  Known as "wiami" to the local Huaorani.

Mountain View, California.  Beyond all else, exploration is my greatest passion. It is the process of discovery with risk. It provides the opportunity to experience what few others have and the potential to witness that which no one else has. It is both the hazy cloud of the unknown and the shining beacon of enlightenment. And to me it is worth any cost.

Unidentified mantis at the Bilsa Biological
Station.  Mache-Chindul Range,
Western Ecuador.

Exploration is an art. Like all forms of art, it is a means of self-expression, discovery and a reflection of reality. It is also the tool by which I paint the picture of my life. The means through which I tell stories in written word and film. It is an ever-changing landscape on a kaleidoscope of color, culture, geology, climate and biodiversity. It is a deep crevasse of self-awareness, the mechanism for finding one’s own place in this world and understanding the texture of our souls. Nothing shows you who you are quite like that which you are most not. Exploration places you in intimate proximity with your counterbalance. It entwines who you are with who you are not, with who you may be and most of all, who you appear not to be, but in fact share almost everything. In doing so, exploration catalyzes the creation of something new. This creation is artistic expression of life in its purest form.

The author, Arlo Hemphill, straddled with a killed peccary during a hunt with the Huaorani.  Amazonian Ecuador, 2003.

Surfing as Exploration

Marina del Rey, California. Surfing as exploration began in my life in 1992, when a group of college buddies and I joined a work trip to Antigua, WI in order to check out the surf in this far flung corner of the Caribbean. We eventually spent three spring breaks and two complete summers on the island, hosting sports camps for local youth, conducting botanical surveys in local forests and, of course, doing a lot of snorkeling, diving and surfing.

In 1995, Boca, Rabbit and I made our first of many trips to Costa Rica, exploring the Pacific coast of that country and developing a relationship with this region that would prove to span into the next decade of our lives. The trip was destined to become an annual, and somes multi-annual, tradition that has since been joined by a brotherhood of surfers.

But the draw of exotic waves couldn't keep us in Costa Rica alone. Our wave expeditions have since taken us to El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina and Australia. And the list will continue to grow. The hunt for good surf is one of the rawest, most sensory-immersed forms of exploration I know. The landscape is not seen from tour buses or hotel windows, but rather felt, smelled, heard and tasted through every pore in one's body as you run barefoot through the muck of coastal swamplands, swim through untamed river mouths, get caught nearly naked in torrential tropical downpours, come into intimate contact with local people and wildlife and, more often than not, venture to remote, underdeveloped corners of our host nations, far off the beaten track of the typical tourist.

Through surfing exploration, I have experienced some of my fondest moments in life and have faced challenges in remote settings that surpass even my work in the sciences. I have also made and nurtured the best friendships of my life. A brotherhood of surfing explorers who are closer to me than any genetic blood ties I know. This has been my greatest gift in this life.