This past weekend, we traveled to Huatulco with Abby's swim team. Day 1, a 1K race on the beach, day 2, a swim meet at an aquatic center.
What an interesting experience! Absolutely, Huatulco is an amazing coastal area. Of the nine Bahia’s (or bays) in Huatulco, we visited two. It was a short trip (much of which was spent on a “first class” bus…I’ll write more about that below). The team, the coach, all the people with whom we traveled were wonderful. There were plenty of jovenes (teens) travelling without families, but a few like us, travelling as families. We were 40 people.
The first Bahia we saw was Santa Cruz, a marina area, plus beach. Abby and many others swam the 1 kilometer race here. The distance wasn’t awful, but standing from shore, it was very far out into the Bay, to the point that you could hardly see the swimmers at the halfway mark. Basically, they swam around an orange buoy and back to shore. Abby swam like a champ, despite the fact that her goggles broke right at the start and she had to borrow someone else’s, a lame start that put her in the back of the pack where everyone was kicking water into her face. Also, she is terrified of heights and deep water (she says they’re similar fears). She almost quit the race because of it, but didn’t and finished with an okay time. I was happy she overcame the fear, a bigger deal in my mind than placing in the top three. (Abby finished sixth...photos show after, before and during...I'm still terrible at arranging photos on this blog program...sorry!)
The first Bahia we saw was Santa Cruz, a marina area, plus beach. Abby and many others swam the 1 kilometer race here. The distance wasn’t awful, but standing from shore, it was very far out into the Bay, to the point that you could hardly see the swimmers at the halfway mark. Basically, they swam around an orange buoy and back to shore. Abby swam like a champ, despite the fact that her goggles broke right at the start and she had to borrow someone else’s, a lame start that put her in the back of the pack where everyone was kicking water into her face. Also, she is terrified of heights and deep water (she says they’re similar fears). She almost quit the race because of it, but didn’t and finished with an okay time. I was happy she overcame the fear, a bigger deal in my mind than placing in the top three. (Abby finished sixth...photos show after, before and during...I'm still terrible at arranging photos on this blog program...sorry!)
Later that day, we went to Bahia Maguay, a popular snorkeling destination. Snorkeling was good. Jason and I have seen better reefs in Cozumel and Akumal, but kids don’t remember those so well, so it was fun to witness them seeing that underwater world for the first time, making their own discoveries and feeling confident in the water.
The next day Abby won 4 of her 4 races, though I will say the competition wasn’t too stiff and Abby could have performed better had she felt other swimmers breathing down her back. Still, fun and such a unique experience. Similar and yet very different than how a meet would run in the states. The coaches here are fighting a lot of cultural barriers to get folks to sign their kids (especially daughters) up for a swim team and competing on a world stage becomes an almost staggering proposition.
The next day Abby won 4 of her 4 races, though I will say the competition wasn’t too stiff and Abby could have performed better had she felt other swimmers breathing down her back. Still, fun and such a unique experience. Similar and yet very different than how a meet would run in the states. The coaches here are fighting a lot of cultural barriers to get folks to sign their kids (especially daughters) up for a swim team and competing on a world stage becomes an almost staggering proposition.
I read an article about the young woman who trains at the pool where Abby swims…a triathlete named Ruth. She just won won her first world competition (she’s seventeen and she placed first in the junior world women’s triathalon…later competed with elite triathletes of all ages and came in 19th.) Her coach wrote a piece that I found online, on a website called Goswim, interesting rambling writing style…but very compelling story in terms of how everything from Oaxacan diets (kids here eat a lot of packaged junk food and candy) to a prejudice against walking or riding a bike (reveals poverty…so why ride to school or jog, when you have a car…no middle-class person in their right mind would choose that mode of transportation)…Her coach feels that training is more integrated in US, Canada, Europe…places where there is a culture of fitness.
I do know that about ½ of the best high school distance runners in Southern California were Mexicans(back in the 80s when I was running competitively)…they’re natural athletes, many of them, with amazing endurance. Eugenio Cruz was on our team, our fastest senior when I was a sophomore running cross country. He would always joke with us after winning a race, saying, “That was nothing. You should have clocked my time when I was crossing the border…” and then he’d laugh, but there was a glimmer of truth in his eyes. I’ll always remember that line.
As for the bus ride. I don’t know what to say, except that I’ll wake up in a cold sweat for the next four months, imagining I’m on that long and winding road utterly dependent on a bus driver who likes to stop at a fruit stand and buy fruit for his family back home…or stop for coffee…or stop to make a cell phone call…thus, turning an already grueling 7 hour trip into a 10 hour trip. The kids were awesome…did not complain at all. I was miserable…
I do know that about ½ of the best high school distance runners in Southern California were Mexicans(back in the 80s when I was running competitively)…they’re natural athletes, many of them, with amazing endurance. Eugenio Cruz was on our team, our fastest senior when I was a sophomore running cross country. He would always joke with us after winning a race, saying, “That was nothing. You should have clocked my time when I was crossing the border…” and then he’d laugh, but there was a glimmer of truth in his eyes. I’ll always remember that line.
As for the bus ride. I don’t know what to say, except that I’ll wake up in a cold sweat for the next four months, imagining I’m on that long and winding road utterly dependent on a bus driver who likes to stop at a fruit stand and buy fruit for his family back home…or stop for coffee…or stop to make a cell phone call…thus, turning an already grueling 7 hour trip into a 10 hour trip. The kids were awesome…did not complain at all. I was miserable…
I emailed these details in a letter to my parents yesterday and my mom wrote back, saying..."In 10 hours, I'm in Copenhagen..." She does that trip a lot, on the way to Sweden to visit my grandmother. Somehow, that comment put so many things in perspective. High-powered American lives compared to the simple lives of most Oaxaquenos. An alternate universe. A place where we have received rest for our souls.
No comments:
Post a Comment