Saturday, October 3rd - Salou, Spain

Well, today was a really non-exciting day.  Aside from going out on my balcony a couple of times to check the weather, I never left my apartment.  I didn't get up too early, as usual.  I had breakfast, cleared e-mails, checked out facebook and the internet, and puttered around until about 2 and then I had lunch.  I started another blog and got part way through it before getting bogged down.  Hmm, bogged down in a blog - sounds serious, doesn't it?  

Oh yes, I also did another load of laundry and hoped that I had the machine set right this time so it would actually take less than two hours and it would drain and spin my clothes before I had to hang them up.  Well, over two hours later the cycle was finished but once again I had sopping wet clothes.  This time I did mange to run the spin cycle on its own, without redoing the wash cycle again like last time, so it only took another 40 minutes.  However, by the time I put them out on the drying rack it was so late I knew they wouldn't be dry today.  I guess it was a good thing I wasn't planning on going anywhere.

I don't know where the rest of the day went but I think I'll blame it on the bogged-down blog.  At any rate, I turned on the TV about 6 p.m. and got a very pleasant surprise - not that it was in English or anything, but at least I knew what it was all about.

I didn't go to Reus today and I'm glad I didn't.  It's still cool and cloudy and threatening rain, which makes for a great indoor day.  Besides, when I turned on the TV, a program on the human towers in Reus was on.  Having now watched them build two of the twoeers, I'm glad I'm here watching TV to see what's really happening.  Standing in the square I would have stood a lot and seen very little.  The red team on TV was pretty quick.  The blue team took two tries to accomplish the same thing.  The purple team is just starting now and it is absolutely amazing to watch.  I was expecting 10 or 12 people building a pyramid but there are hundreds of people involved in these towers.  They start with a big group of people building out from the centre about 10-12 people deep all the way around and really tightly packed.  There isn't an inch of space when you look down from above - something I wouldn't have seen from the ground - and they are crammed so close together that the climbers can just walk across them without falling through, and big guys do just that. 

They start sending people in and up from the outside over the tops of everyone and start a second level and then they add another level and just keep going.  Some of the teams make the towers very thin, meaning only 2-4 people from the second row up while others put dozens of people on each layer at the bottom.  The one that is building right now is piling a lot of people on each level and it is a really bulky and shaky pyramid.  Now at the top they only have two people. It's generally females in the middle part and then children at the top.  And the last people have to climb up six, seven or eight people very fast but very carefully.  And when they get their seven or eight or nine layers up, then they start sliding down one by one and that part looks pretty slick too.  I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it.  But I still think it's better to see on TV where you can see the aerial view.  One of the teams that built a loose structure with only 2-4 people on each layer, got to the top but there were people climbing up the inside of the structure at the same time.  I couldn't figure out what was going on but when the top people started pealing away there was one single column six people high of people standing on each other's shoulders.  That was impressive!  

It's interesting to see how tight the peopel at the bottom layer hold the next layer up   those who have free hands are holding legs and butts and anything else they can get a handle on.  They all wear thick belts like weight lifters but looser and those are used for others to grip when climbing or as toe holds when coming down.  Everyone is barefoot and those going to the top all have helmets on - well, maybe that's just the children.  The group now has done four different columns going up and that seemed really easy for them but Im' guessing it wasn't.  Judging by the perspiration and concentration on the faces of those at the bottom, it's all hard work.  It is definitely precision and team work, not just muscles, that is making it all happen.  When they start the inner circle of the bottom layer they actually check the distance/space between each person to ensure the foundation is stable to start with.

The group now has the first four on the second level with elbows bent and hands on each other shoulders - a square  Next people came up and went around them with their arms straight.  Another group came in on the inside and strengthened it out.  It's like a pile of ants all moving when they get going and, because each team is in costume, it looks really choreographed from above and the arrangements look like mathematical shapes (hyperbolic curves I think they're called).  

The current one on TV looks like the start of another tower that will have lots of people on each level.   Wow, they got 8 levels and that is obviously good.  It was pretty impressive.  However, after the first few layers got down, they then just fell apart.  I have a feeling there will be a few nasty bruises from that one although they all seem to be celebrating.  Perhaps because they only fall to the next level and then on down it's not as bad as it looks.  After that one there were several more falls.  It doesn't look any nicer the more often you see it and apparently people do get injured as there is always an ambulance standing by.

It would have been nice to have been there to have had a picture or two.  However, it started at 5:30 and it's now 8:30 and they are still going so it would have been a lot of standing around and very little watching.  The highlights on TV were much more efficient - complete with instant replays - for my purposes.  I'm sure this really isn't very exciting reading but then this wasn't a very exciting day.    Maybe you should just google castellers if you are interested.  There is lots of information there but I can't seem to do the cut and paste on this machine.  Apparently these towers or castellers are so unique and have been going on for so long that they are now rated as a UNESCO cultural event.   The YouTube Human Towers UNESCO is particualrly good and explains what they are all about.  They seem to do it all over the Catalan area.  I'm not sure whether it's in the rest of Spain as well.  I think it is happening in Tarragona next week so maybe I'll see some in person yet before I leave.

Oh speaking of leaving, I heard from Canadian Humanitarian last night.  The good news is that our visas did arrive back from the Ethiopian Embassy in Ottawa as expected and mine will be sent to me by courier on Monday so I should have my passport back by Thursday.  That is the good news.  The bad news is that the Embassy dated all of the visas October 17th so I can't enter the country before then.  To say that I'm disappointed would be an understatement.  I really wanted to go there at the beginning of the month but because I was out of country I agreed to go through the group visa process because that was easiest.  The Embassy normally dates them as of the day they are issued - in this case the 1st or 2nd - so I would have been able to go in right away.  However, that didn't happen this time so I will just have to find another place to hang out from the 10th to the 17th and make the best of it.  After this week being so cool and damp here, I'm not wanting to stay another week and I'm thinking of something farther south like Sicily or Malta or Crete - but then flights to/from get expensive.  I might also go north and get closer to Frankfurt which has the most direct flight to Addis.  It might be cooler but it would be something different.  I've got at least a week to worry about that so no problem.  I will keep you posted though.

Okay, I think that's it for me today.  It's nothing too exciting (unless you really get into the castellers) but at least the blog is done and months from now, when I've fallen behind again with my blogs and I'm trying to get caught up, I won't have to wonder what I did on this day.  It's hard enough trying to figure out what to write about when you were on tour and had a busy day and saw lots of things.  Trying to remember what you did when you really did nothing would be a whole different challenge and I don't think I'm up to that.  Now I'm going to bed to read for a while before I go to sleep.