Siguenza to other Waters

These past 10 days or so have been full of aquatic activity. It all started after the last day of the fiestas de Siguenza. I woke up at around noon after having gone to bed with the sunrise, and strolled down the hill from Pablo’s house to the pool. Swimming felt great, or at least felt much better than trying to keep my balance on land. I had spent the past two weeks going to the pool in Siguenza at least once a day, and came to know so many people around the pool. The lifeguards, many of the kids, the familias, and the beautiful girls that always sat at the edge of the pool with their feet in the water. Knowing that it was my last day, I began to say goodbye to all the people around the pool deck. It was really heart warming to realize that I would miss these people, and that they would miss me, and that we had all come to know each other from our time shared around the pool. Everybody wished me suerte con el Estrecho de Gibraltar, and I left feeling like a home, or at least a transient community, had been created.

Next I went to Pablo’s office and checked my MCAT score. YES. I started to scream at the top of my lungs, and even had a few tears that strolled down my face. Oh my god, gods, gosh, mother earth, ocean, sun, yes, fuck yes and sweet ripe figs, I wont have to take that exam again. I was prepared for the worst because I felt destroyed coming out of the exam, and even though I had studied all summer long, I didn’t feel confident about the test. I think that I didn’t want a bad score to taint this Watson year. But now, with a good score, I can think yes to the relax of life and my project and these next two years before medical school. All is good, and I thank everything and everybody for this, everyday and all the time.





So. At that first swimming competition that I went to during my first few days in Spain, the 2.5km Travesia de Palmaces, I met a ton of great people that invited me to spend some time with them in various parts of Spain and engage in various swimming activities. The first of them was Angelon, and I am actually writing from his home in Guadalajara. Angelon is an amazing human being who has gone out of his way to help me by introducing me to a great group of Spanish lifeguards and by showing me various parts of Spain (and even France). The other group of swimmers are from Madrid, and all swim on a predominantly gay swim team called Halegatos. They are super fun and funny and we have all gone on a few trips together outside of Madrid, as well as in Madrid. This group includes: Margarita, Javier, David and Gonzalo.

I left Siguenza in a funky state of hang-over/extreme MCAT happiness with a friend, Pilar, who I met during the fiestas de Siguenza and at the pool. She gave me a ride to Guadalajara where Angelon picked me up with his friend David, and we left for the French side of the Spanish/French border to connect with a group of Spanish lifeguards from the center of Spain (the Castilla-La Mancha region). I basically slept the whole way to France, and Angelon woke me up to say that we had arrived at the camp site. I met the crew the following morning as they returned famished from their morning workout at the pool. It took me a few days to figure out exactly how they all ended up here, in France, together, but it all made sense as soon as I put the various pieces together. They were all selected to represent the Castilla-La Mancha region of Spain in the Spanish Lifeguard Championships, and if you look at a map of Spain, you will easily see that Castilla-La Mancha is in the dead center of Spain and has no coastline at all, and so they came to the coast to catch some waves. The lifeguard competitions, or the international lifeguard competitions for that matter, include a series of ocean events that I am familiar with as well as a series of pool events which I had never seen before. So the crew was cogiendo olas, or catching some waves, on the French coast, but bascially doing some heavy training to get ready for their national competition the following week . I was happy and grateful to train with them for a few days, to catch some waves, swim in the pool, and just hang for a few days with a great group of people. I learned all about the various pool events, which include dragging water filled plastic manequins across the pool, and was exposed to the scene of international lifeguard competitions. This crew has been all over the world to compete, from South Africa to Argentina, and all over Europe. I’ve invited them to California, it would be awesome for them to do some sort of training or simple pay a visit with the L.A. County Lifeguards.





I left France and the crew of Spanish Lifeguards with Jessica, one of the Spanish crew, and her family who came to pick her up. They live in Guadalajara, a town about an hour outside of Madrid, and so dropped me off at the train station in Guadalajara where I took the train back to Madrid. The next day I left with Margarita and her crew of swimmers for Alocen, a town on the border of a huge water reservoir about 120 km north-east of Madrid. We went to compete in another 2.5km swim, which was the last in a series of three 2.5km swims in various bodies of water around central Spain. I had competed in the second, in Palmaces, which was where I met all these amazing people, and arrived eleventh. This time, however, after weeks of training in the pool of Siguenza, the fiestas de Siguenza, and with the Spanish lifeguards in France, I came in fifth, dropped three minutes off of my time, and won 50 euros. I wasn’t sure what to do with the 50 euros, or even if accepting money was against some Watson rule, so I decided to just give the money to my friend Margarita for gas, because after the awards ceremony and paella, we left with the friends Gonzalo, David and Javier for the south coast of Spain, the Mediterranean Sea.






I didn’t sleep at all the night before the 10km jellyfish swim. We arrived in Cullera, a town on the coast near Valencia, around 11pm. The organizer of the swim let us set up tents on the rugby field of this sports complex outside of town. But by the time we got our tents set up, had dinner, and chilled out for a second, it was 1am or so and we had to get up at 5am to check-in for the swim at 6am to start the swim at 7am, and I was so excited that I couldn’t even sleep.

From the beginning it was so fucking awesome. As we were checking in at 6am, there were swarms of people leaving the night clubs, still dancing and singing to the distant music of the clubs. And they all had a field day with us, about 80 people in swim suits, putting Vaseline under our arms and around our necks, eating weird jell foods, and getting ready for a 10km swim. After we checked in, they herded us into a public bus. It was cramped and smelled like bananas and Gatorade. We attempted to cruise through the city streets but the bus was too wide and the other cars were not parked all that well, and so we actually couldn’t fit through the first few streets. We were stuck in the bus, and couldn’t move forwards or backwards, and the only thing left to do was…pick up the cars in front of the bus and move them out of the way. So groups of swimmers exited the bus and together, simply, and at times not so simply, picked up the cars that were in the way and moved them over towards the sidewalk. This whole time the organizer was trying to explain the course for the swim, and it was all so confusing. Nobody really knew what was going on, but basically I pieced together, with my friends, that it would all become clear during the swim, and it did, more or less.

The first 5km were a straight shot from the beach, across a bay and around a point in the distant horizon. It was beautiful. I felt like I was flying. It was early and the sun was rising over the water as a fire stricken peach, red and deep orange and good morning. Simple, just swim towards that point in the distance, which at first looked so far away, but we all eventually arrived there. After that point things got a bit tricky. Buoys and jellyfish appeared, and I had to be a bit more focused on the details of my swimming direction. There were so many jellyfish. Swarms, oceans, fields, herds of jellyfish. It was at first scary, and then annoying, and at times beautiful. Swimming over a huge white jellyfish with long purple tentacles on a background of Mediterranean turquoise. The most bizarre sensation was when I wouldn’t see the jellyfish ahead of me, and would run directly into the head of the jellyfish and simply stop dead in my swimming tracks. Holy shit, it was crazy, but I love intense experiences. But the greatest part about the swim was that even after a 2.5km competition the day before, and on no sleep, at the end of the 10km I wanted to keep swimming. I still felt great.





Well, that is enough for now. After the competition in Cullera I returned to Madrid and spent most of the week there, swimming and getting to know the city. I went on a few great side trips, one to Toledo where I stayed with Navalon and David (El Moron) from the Spanish lifeguarding crew, and another trip to a small lake in the mountains outside of Madrid with Margarita, Gonzalon, David and Javier. Such beautiful and amazingly kind people. Gonzalo prepared this delicious picnic that was so abundant that we even had enough for dinner. We also stopped in Segovia on the way back from the mountains. Gonzalo also has a catering service, and needed some help, so one night I found myself working as a waiter, serving food at a super posh night club in Madrid. It was a modeling event, with a runway and all. Crazy. Now I am in Guadalajara, staying with friends. Angelon got me to come out here to go to the big reservoir and swim and play around, and now I’m staying with Pilar at her house. Yes to it all, and mostly THANKS to all these great people!

Viaje a la Alcarria

Here are just a few photos from an amazing journey I went on with Pablo and two of his friends from Madrid, Raul and El Puma. We left, in part, to escape the fiestas de Siguenza. Two days and 200km on mountain bikes along dirt roads, passing through small towns, orchards, rivers and pine forests. We traced the route taken by the Spanish author Camilo Jose Cela, who published the novel “Viaje a la Alcarria” in 1948, describing the countryside and small towns he encountered along his journey. I haven’t read the book, yet, although it is on the list of books to read (as soon as there is more free time).

One of my favorite part about the trip were the public fountains we got water from. Each small town we passed through had a public drinking fountain in the center of the town’s plaza mayor, near the ayuntamiento (city hall). The water in some of the fountains came directly from wells. This water was cool and clear and tasted fresh, and was a cool relief to the heat of central Spain in August. It was really hot. Mid-day on a bicycle, no shade, and hot air, temperatures of 38 Celsius. Cool well water tasted sweet.

These were my last few days with Pablo (Nacho). After the bicycle trip we went back to Siguenza for two days of the fiestas, and then I went north to the Atlantic coast, to the French side of the French/Spanish border with a group of Spanish lifeguards. THANK YOU PABLO!!! Everything feels like it is moving, flowing along, and I must thank Pablo for giving me a place to stay, and the first few connections that have since evolved into an entire aquatic community of swimmers, lifeguards, and just great people. And I have come to love the Spanish province of Castilla-La Mancha, the heart of Spain.

Las Fiestas de Siguenza

Ah, las fiestas de Siguenza. I have never in my life seen anything that compares to the fiestas in Siguenza, and nor do I expect to experience anything that could compare (or survive anything similar for that matter). Siguenza is a small town north of Madrid, with about 5,000 permanent residents, and many visitors during the summer- especially during the fiestas. I spent the first two weeks of my time in Spain in Siguenza with my friend Pablo (Nacho), who I met in Yemen. I’ve come to realize that the life of the town revolves around the fiestas; it was all that people spoke about in the week before it all began, and during the 5 days of celebration, the town took on a special party schedule. Banks and stores were only open half of the day, people went to bed at 8am and awoke at 2pm, alcohol flowed like water, and there were always small marching bands playing music on the streets. A bit too much alcohol (and for that reason I don‘t think I could have survived more of the fiestas than I did), but if we think of alcohol as a social lubricant, then the good vibes were flowing like honey on warm toast. Honestly, it was awesome. Everybody was down and ready to dance and drink the day into the night, and into the next day.

The way it works is that everybody belongs to a club, called a peña. Each person pays a certain amount of money to the peña for food and drink during the 5 days of the fiestas. The peñas are set up in various parts of the town, but are mostly in places like abandoned lots filled with rubble and dirt. One of the peñas that I went to was a bit more established, it was the peña for young parents and their small children. It was in a real building, with a roof and a tiled bar, an oven and a fireplace. The look of the peña doesn’t really matter, however, they all serve the same purpose: a place to congregate and drink and eat and talk and get ready for the town’s festivities. And it is really nice that you don’t have to think about money, that you can just go to the bar and serve yourself, or get something to eat if you want. Also, by paying a single peña, you can go to any of the other peñas. It works on some inter-peña system that I don’t quite understand.

I will always remember the fiestas of Siguenza by the the Txarangas, or the small marching bands that are dispersed throughout the street in the perfect concentration so that you can always hear the band in the distance, are never overwhelmed by the music, but can always find the band if you want to, and when you do, you are so pleasantly surprised that you feel as if the party were just getting started again. I loved hearing the music, the trumpets and trombones, drums and symbols. YES. I danced the streets of Siguenza for nights into mornings, to see the sun rise and hear the last distant chords of music finally stop.

So I only survived three days of the fiestas de Siguenza, which officially last five days, and unofficially six. After two days of the party, Pablo (Nacho) and I went with two of his friends from Madrid on a two day, 200km tour on mountain bikes through the small towns of a region called Alcarria in the province of Guadalajara (all near Siguenza). We returned for the last day of festivities, and went out strong. It was the perfect mix, however, because I really don’t think that I could have lasted the full five days. But I got the chance to experience the beginning and the end of the fiestas, and also the opportunity to take an amazing trip throughout the countryside of central Spain….

Siguenza, Spain

Meet Pablo Ignacio Franco Matamala, otherwise known as Nacho. Nacho and I met in Sana'a, Yemen in the spring of 2008. We were both studying Arabic, but more importantly had a similar group of friends that we always hung out with to chew qat, chill, and talk. We all kicked it in a small room above one of the public bath-houses in the center of the old quarter of Sana'a (and if anybody goes to Sana'a, stay away from the new part of the city at all costs). When I told him that I was coming to Spain, he gave me the warm welcome that felt similar to how we were both welcomed in Yemen. After my two red-eye flights from L.A, Nacho picked me up from the Madrid airport in the morning and took me back to his apartment where I left me bags, showered, and then we took off to see the city. Nacho is not actually from Madrid, but from a small town called Siguenza about 120km to the north-east of the city. He works as the journalist for a small newspaper produced in Siguenza, with information and stories from the region. So after one night in Madrid, we left the following day for his small town. Now, I've been in Siguenza for about a week and am swimming everyday, meeting lots of other swimmers, eating well, drinking at many different bars, and organizing the rest of my time in Spain. I even swam in a 2.5km swim competition in a lake within the first few days of my arrival. So all in all, I am having a great start to this year...or just a continuation of the good life, it is hard to tell.

Siguenza es tierra del girasol. I've always thought that the sunflower is the most beautiful flower to exist. To me, it is beautiful because it has the most distinct human qualities of any flower that I've ever seen. Both in size, shape, and aura, a sunflower seems like a shinning, smiling person. And when there are fields of sunflowers all around, the world appears to be full of happy people, which I am sure is true, but sometimes forget. All around Siguenza are fields of sunflowers the surround small towns and old castles, rolling hills and patches of pines. The countryside of Castilla-La Mancha, this particular province of Spain, is extremely beautiful.

Siguenza reminds both Pablo and I of Sana'a for a few very particular reasons. The first is that it seems like everybody in both Sana'a and Siguenza knows each other and is somehow related. The second is that with a limited possibility of things to do, people in both cities resort to a simple mixture of mild intoxication and conversation as their daily activity. In Yemen it is qat, and in Siguenza it is beer at the bars (there are 51 bars in this town of only 4,000 people). The third is that both cities hold a rich history. And just as I fell in love with Sana'a, so am I enjoying Siguenza. I enjoy the fact that after only a week, I recognize many people, and many people know who I am and what I am doing- mainly training to swim across the Strait of Gibraltar. It's great to share my goal with the people around as it gives me a sense of identity other than that of a simple traveler. It also makes it easier for me to refuse drinks by saying "No, I can't drink that much today. Tomorrow I have to train because I plan to swim across the Strait of Gibraltar in a month". The pool in town is also amazing, an Olympic distance pool with no heat or lane-lines- just a big concrete bathtub with some chlorine. But it is surrounded by rolling fields and patches of...sunflowers. The pool in town is a place where people go as a family or group of friends to hang out for the day, and if you want to swim laps, you have to get there when the pool opens at 11am before the crowds of people arrive. Most people just splash around, or jump in and out of the water, kids play games, and sometimes the lifeguards give lessons. I swim laps with a few other people in the morning, and have been averaging 4 to 7km a day. I had the thought today that I could maybe collect enough kilometers of swimming this year to equal the circumference of the globe. Then I found out that it is 40,000km, which would mean me swimming about 105km a day...

And a few words about the Travesia de Palmaces, a 2.5km swim competition in a lake that I completed on Saturday August 8th. There was a huge paella party after the competition in the plaza of a small town near the lake that included free beer and desert. I finished 11th out of 100 competitors, had an awesome time, and met tons of other swimmers. I'm all set to go with a few of them to another 2.5km lake competition next weekend, followed by a 10km ocean swimming marathon in the south of Spain on the Mediterranean coast. I'm curious to see how this 10km swim goes...but then again, the Strait of Gibraltar will be about 20km. All in good fun, training, travel, and experience.

Ok. When I think of heaven, or that magical place where everything is good, THIS is the image that comes to my mind: the sun shinning through the California kelp beds. So here it is for all to see, and consider it a welcome to this journey. The Watson year, Swimming Around the World, living well, exploring, being challenged, discovering, having adventures...I'd like to think of it all as a reflection of this image, because life is good, and shit, I'll never know what is coming next, and so it is in my best interest to believe that heaven is here, and now, and not tomorrow, or after whatever it is I am doing, or when I die, or whatever. I guess that I am tired of waiting. I've been thinking like this for a while now, probably because I have experienced a number of grand events/accomplisments. Things like college graduation, which means the fufillment of my Six Year Plan, leaving Maine, the Potter Street Co-Op, and all those beautiful amazing people, taking the MCAT (and who knows how that went?), and most recently, embarking on this year abroad. With so many occasions so close together, I've come to realize that life is a little more continuous than I had previously thought- meaning that my persective won't suddenly change when I graduate from school or leave the country. If that were the case, I'd have changed into a whirlwind of personality over these past few months. Instead, what I do expect is a solid and gradual change grounded in my vision that we can enjoy life to a max. And I am down to embrace the bumps in the road, the feelings of desperation and sorrow, feeling lost, and all those other things we generally try to avoid. I don't believe that it is all easy, life woudn't be interesting if it were, but at the least I can stay positive.

So here is what I have to do this next year (these are both personal goals and the requirments of the Watson Fellowship)

1) Stay out of the US for a full year, avoiding countries on the US State Dept. Travel Warning List and places I have been before
2) Keep swimming, everyday if possible (and I should make it possible)
3) Try to organize a few transnational swims around the world: Strait of Gibraltar and Gulf of Aqaba
4) Work on the language skills
5) Help to develop a Junior Lifeguard program in Lima, Peru
6) Cultivate that postitive vision and embrace the challenges
7) Write about what is going on. Hence, this blog
8) Stay open to adding or subtracting anything from this list




Now, a few words about the summer...

Yeah. Two of the Potter Street Pirates, Madelyn and Charles, getting ready for an afternoon in the kelp beds of Nicholas Canyon. There were many visitors that came to the Culver City home, and thank you Dad and Monamom for your always warm welcome. So much love.

The family, missing the older brother Ben, but still able to enjoy the beaches of Santa Monica together. I love you'all so much.

The Junior Guards. I spent the summer working with a group of super cool C's, kids ages 9 to 11. We learned an array of lifeguarding skills, including ocean swimming, surfing, CPR and First Aid.

YES

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