🇪🇸 Peatonal

Hello Adventurers, 

Every now and then my Mum gets sentimental and says, “You’ll always be my little boy.” And while I’m not a mother — let alone a parent — I think I can approximate her in-retrospect-awe; she created life within her body, birthed a wiggly / needy being, and then reared a goo-goo-ga-ga into an independent person (raised over decades to be adequately prepared to weather the wilds of this world). Thanks Ma!

Me? I’ll quietly nod along as I receive these motherly monologues…before I rudely interrupt Ann’s tender tangents with a well-timed joke; to purposely ruin the moment / test my parent’s patience (the latter being the lifelong responsibility of any child; we gotta keep the ‘rents on their toes…lest we accept their mental sedentariness). Plus, as my Mother ages into her silver years, it’s sorta my duty to trip her up with golden zingers (and while I lack evidence, I think my off-colour curveballs stimulate deep brain activity on her part — via the processing of my abstract preposterousness — and such keeps her cranium firing on all cylinders / offsets neurological decline). Basically, my comedy is charity and/or a fool’s love language for Mama.

Anyhoo, one spectacular byproduct of this year’s Marathon Earth Challenge is that I’ve been able to use it as a vehicle to see family all ‘round the world; whether they live in far-flung places or are visiting them. Much of this was unplanned from the jump, serendipitous, or re-routed pivots on my part…like, when others gave me advance notice ‘bout their travel plans (and I could go meet them…like, if I was in their part of the world). As such, I was able to get to Mexico City in the spring for my brother’s wedding (where I saw tons of fam), I met a distant Cousin in Amsterdam this summer for the first time ever, I met another Wien-by-way-of-Manchester Cousin in Austria this autumn, I recently saw my Auntie and Uncle when they were visiting Athens…and I’ve just spent weeks and weeks in Andalusia with the Fedora Mafia (aka my Mum and her partner El Roberto).

Talk is cheap — and I believe in being expensive — so if I am Ann’s perennial little boy (her words, not mine) then it is prudent to do my due diligence, be a man child, and test her claim; so I’ve been a freeloader on her European vacation, imposed on Rob’s meticulous-booked accommodations (i.e. me as dirtbag couch surfer)…and of course brought along my own guest to up the ante / increase the collective load on ‘em both. Mostly, I was just a S’pain in the ass from the backseat of the rental car asking, “Are we there yet?” as soon as Rob jerked the clutch / lurched the whip out of any driveway.

I kid, I kid…me and my wife were formally invited to tag along — and this was the first proper vacation I’ve done with my Mum since I was sixteen (we last went to England and France together 25+ years ago) — and it has been such a humungous gift to spend so much time with Mum and Rob abroad (like, I don’t know if we’ll ever have this splendid opportunity ever again).

This issue of the newsletter is a dispatch culled from lots of marathons executed across little towns and cities sprinkled ‘round southern Spain. TBH, I’d have never ended up in this part of the world on my own volition — with all due respect, it is the realm of senior citizen tourists — but I’ve loved being a passenger on someone else’s adventure, and have been pleasantly surprised by Spain’s subtleties at every turn. So let’s get into it,

- Ben Pobjoy

BUT FIRST…

Before proceeding, I gotta give a massive shout-out to Mum and Rob for the super generous invitation to join them in Spain. And I want to sincerely / specifically thank Rob who researched everything, created the suggested itinerary, booked the numerous accommodations, figured out the trains, got the rental car, organized the day trips, did all the driving, etc. More importantly, Mum and Rob gave me a powerful, real-time tutorial on how to age well; these two are infinitely curious, super engaged with the world, walk like 10-15 kilometres each and every day, and maintain a daily pace that’d tire people half their age. The takeaway? Get outside, stay inspired…and move it or lose it!

And my husband Christine…who for the third time this year moved mountains to get time off from work to once again join me on the road for weeks on end. No one has sacrificed more for this project than Christine, and I am eternally grateful for her love, support, and understanding. She is Queen…and I’m Court Jester…and our love is real (an applicable word whether read as English or Spanish).

2023 TREK TRACKER

Where in the world...record am I?

• Countries visited: 60

• Flights taken: 61

• Kilometres flown: 86,419

• Marathons completed: 188

• Kilometres trekked by foot: 8,949.9

• Total kilometres trekked since 2015: 72.041

RAPID WEEKLY RECAP

A speedy synopsis for time-crunched readers

• The Wildest Thing: The Andalusian siesta…much shuts down in the early afternoon here…and I didn’t know the traditional nap was this real of a thing! And it seems like the siesta is gonna be a prophetic global export for our ever-warming world🥱

• The Biggest Obstacle: Spain has excellent motorways and public transit…but some of my routes this week backfired (i.e. attempted marathons to Cádiz and Arcos de la Frontera) because the only way to get to these places was on the shoulder of some rural 90 km/h roads in the countryside…and I frequently had to backtrack to safety because whizzing-by-me vehicles were too taxing on the nervous system😮‍💨

• The Lesson Learned: Warm and sunny places — where the third place is enshrined in local culture, and where elders hang outdoors late into the evening to cool-off and socialize — are truly hospitable to aging well (because people in these parts stay engaged, don’t disconnect and disappear to the indoors, and retain an indisputable love for life out in the physical world)🥳

FIELD NOTES: ANDALUSIA, SPAIN

Life governed by sun and siesta

Spain has always been on my to-do list…and I honestly can’t explain my procrastination (i.e. why it took me so long to get here). Like, Spain has a stacked history, is an indisputable culinary powerhouse, and has produced some of my all-time favourite art / artists; Dali’s wildly imaginative surrealism — expressed through precise draftsmanship — illuminated me to what painting could be (I remember being with my Mum and first seeing a knock-off print of his at like 11 years-old in a framing / print shop in Bronte, Ontario…and it stopped me dead in my tracks / I couldn’t compute how someone could dream it up), Picasso’s Guernica IMO is the best anti-war artwork ever created (more prescient now than ever), and the multidisciplinary artist Joan Miró is my absolute fave (and has been for decades). And dunno…Spain has so much magnetism — like, when I stop and think about it — and yet I’ve always gone elsewhere…which is even inexplicable to me…but here I am now ala ‘better late than never.’

Anyhoo, me and the fam have spent the last few weeks in Andalusia; mostly anchored in tiny Jerez de la Frontera (which I marathoned loads as well as to everything nearby), and then we road-tripped to Granada (which I also marathoned ‘cause we spent a few days there too).

As such, this dispatch is a loosey-goosey regional one — which isn’t me being lazy and lumping everything together — rather, it’s sensible because everything is sorta similar; places small in size, places sunbaked and siesta’d, white homes everywhere with the ochre-y mustard trim, Spaniards valuing family above all else, parts once Islamic / now Catholic, and scenic / hilly roads throughout / through seemingly endless rows of olive groves (as well as the occasional vineyard).

Broadly speaking, there are four major attractions in Jerez de la Frontera…and I hit three of ‘em by foot (and avoided one simply ‘cause I’m not a boozer); here, you go see Flamenco which originated in the region (the dancing is mesmerizing by virtue of its intensity and near violent stomping / gesticulating…while the music is spellbinding due to its polyrhythmic time signatures, the insanely technical ‘both hands finger picking’ guitar playing, and the hypnotic ‘call and response’ styled singing), there’s the Real Escuela de Arte Equestre where lauded Andalusian horses perform dressage (in a beautiful arena on spectacular royal grounds), and there’s the Alcázar — being a Moorish castle — that has roaming peacocks, pomegranate trees, and the vestiges of Arab baths. Visiting geezers love all this shit — and I was the youngest person at each by like 1,312 years — but everything slapped so I guess it does have mass appeal.

Lastly, Jerez is the epicentre of sherry production…and according to Wikipedia, the fortified wine’s name represents an adaptation of Jerez’s previous Arabic name, Sherish. There are notable producers here — where you can do tastings — but I didn’t do a winery tour because I’m a lightweight AKA alcohol doesn’t sit well with me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Here, the sun rules…and urban places become heat domes at high noon…hence why locals siesta from approximately 1:30PM to 5:30PM daily. Because towns are blazing by day — and much is closed — I often found myself marathoning the hilly countryside to make my own fun / catch a breeze (i.e. winds made the sun bearable). Sometimes I’d start a marathon at 5AM and catch a gorgeous sunrise, other times I’d start at 5PM and catch a gorgeous sunset…and regardless of when I started, I’d always be able to marvel at a starry night. Swoon.

The views and vistas in these hilly parts are something else, and I throughly enjoyed marathoning the countryside. The trails / terrain aren’t that challenging…but the heat is deadly (like, if you don’t know how to manage your hydration / glucose / sodium levels…especially because there’s no one for miles)…so proceed with caution, and with much preparation. While it was scorching, it was chill in terms of vibes…and the peaceful expanses were conducive to some undisturbed deep thinking…well, until a frightful cottontail rabbit would jolt out of a bush (which comically startled me every damn time, LOL).

The land is so hilly — and things are so dry — that I was surprised by the massive amount of agriculture everywhere (I can’t stress enough how many olive groves there are)…and the fertile earth made no sense to me…given so little precipitation!

No photograph can do justice to the farm-y panoramas here…so do get out to the countryside to take in a view should you visit.

No matter where we were in Spain, the story was always the same; places are dead by day, and absolutely bumping at night. Here, things re-open late post-siesta — be it stores or restos — so the nightlife is truly a late-night thing…that goes late. The food is consistently good — and the wine is always flowing — and I found it charming how generations of family were tapas’ing at like 10PM whether it was Tuesday or Saturday; where a newborn one month-old would be in a stroller beside a one hundred year-old grandparent in a wheelchair (and such was like a tableau that illustrated how life begins — and ends — in a similar manner; us dependent on family for love and care). Here, the entire extended family goes out — sorry parents, no date nights — and I found it very touching (because the deep connections are so genuine and generational).

While we were staying inland in Jerez, I did marathon to the coast a few times…because me loves me some ocean. El Puerto de Santa Maria was my go-to because of proximity…and I loved the beach-side Torre de Santa Catalina there (being a 16th century fortification now crumbling down from a cliff onto the sand below…which resonates with me because I glean a lot of humility from observing / making peace with our impermanence). El Puerto de Santa Maria also has a very old sun-baked plaza with ornate masonry and a lovely little fish market…and I enjoyed poking around ‘em both. I can’t say this little town fully warrants a visit…because every little town in Andalusia deserves a visit…and basically, you can’t go wrong here ‘cause everything has something, and all towns and cities are laidback and easygoing.

We punctuated our time in Jerez with a little road trip to Granada — and I’m glad that we did — because this winding / hilly city had some architectural gems…and many beautiful sidewalks with inlaid stone and/or textured patterns. I didn’t do anything of outright importance here — not ‘cause it was lacking — but because I simply dug how the new coalesced with the old, and how the Moorish holdovers jived with the Spanish structures…and it was just real pleasant and fulfilling to stroll around sans plan or destination.

Lastly, on much of this project, I’m sweating my ass off…and thus craving a refreshing dip in some water to cool off…and I can’t do it much ‘cause I mostly only ever come across seas and oceans (and their salt water leaves you chafe-y / sticky / itchy if you can’t rinse off). As such, I will trek far for the prospect of a fresh water lake (something I try and identify on a map) — and man, it’s so embarrassing to admit — but the amount of times these ‘lakes’ have turned out to be no-swim-resevoirs-for-drinking-water is too numerous to recount. Ha ha, I made this mistake for the umpteenth time outside of Granada (pictured below)…and I’m just sharing this anecdote so you don’t replicate my dumb-ass mistake(s)!

Also, Ann and Rob did a day trip to Seville, walked 15 kilometres around it, raved about it, and showed me their photos…which were stunning…and I totally regret not going there to marathon. So if you’re in the area go see Seville…and sidestep making another one of my mistakes!

BEST LOCAL THING-Y

I have a love / hate relationship with Spanish tapas; I wholeheartedly love Andalusia’s pickled preserves — be they carrots, peppers, asparagus, artichokes, etc. — always topped with / drowned in the region’s top-notch olive oil (i.e. the veg is so bright tasting…and the oil is so robust in flavour)…but the miniature serving size is a nightmare post-marathon, LOL.

Yes, I could’ve ordered like 7-10 tapas dishes for myself at various restos…but I lacked the confidence to look so ridiculous…so I’d eat some measly 700 calorie dinner when I actually needed a 3,000 calorie one (like, this is after 43 kilometres of trekking…so please understand my predicament).

Anyhoo, everything I ate everywhere in Spain was great — there were no gastronomic Ls whatsoever — and basically…I soon discovered that if I first ate a full dinner at home then went out to eat ‘tapas appetizers’ with my wife (after my ‘main’), I wouldn’t be shaking from hunger…so shout out to Aldi for selling the dirt cheap / amazing tasting vegan pizzas I ate near-daily in Jerez.

Spain is beyond affordable (if you earn North American wages) — and my fam ate 1,000 pounds of meat and seafood for nada (while Ann and Rob drank 90¢ USD 1 litre boxes of Spanish wine on at the reg…which they claimed were great / didn’t taste like paint remover) — and all that I’ll add is that I had some awesome veggie burgers — here and here in Granada — ‘cause Spain seems to put this wicked spicy BBQ sauce on all burgs.*

*Plant-based eaters…it’s a bit of a challenge to find well-balanced vegan meals with some sort of protein in smaller Spanish towns.

POBJOY'S GLOBAL PRICE INDEX

This is an on-going documentation of how much things cost in different places around the world. Here are some of the things I bought in Jerez de la Frontera, Granada, and El Puerto de Santa Maria (all prices converted to USD):

• A 540 gram jar of chickpeas, a 185 gram packet of plant-based döner kebab meat, two heads of romaine lettuce, and three 336 gram frozen vegan pizzas with the fake cheese from a grocery store in Jerez de la Frontera: $15.41

• A soy latte, a café con leche, and a 330 mililitre bottle of sparkling water from a café in Granada:: $5.72

• An espresso from a heladeria in El Puerto de Santa Maria: $1.49

MARATHON MUSINGS

On third place and time manipulation

“I wish I had time to…”

From my university days onwards — and then across decades of working a professional career as an ideas man — I’ve said those bolded / italicized introductory words more times than I’d like to admit. For me personally, they’re akin to a pathetic IOU — never honoured or repaid — where I’ve shortchanged myself time and time again by prioritizing ‘the grind’ at the expense of my health, severely reduced my overall presence in life ‘cause I’ve worked late into the night / on weekends / on vacations (and hence missed those little / special life moments — with others — that stitch an existence together with magic and meaning), and just...y’know me erroneously choosing work over the pursuit of leisurely non-moneymaking things in my limited off-time that provide small joys / fulfill silly interests.

Yes, because of the work ethic I was raised with (which does inform my marathoning) — but mostly because ‘the grind’ is so celebrated in my North American culture (where many structural forces engineer its inescapability) — and mostly because modern life is commodified and so darn expensive (and increasingly so in today’s cost of living crisis). So, I labour…just so I can afford to exist (i.e. how depressing). So work, work, work, work it is…

Now, when it comes to Spain, I can’t tell you much about their economics, economy or the state of prosperity here…but I sorta gotta presume that those markers are less than da numbers that workaholic North America is putting up on the scoreboard. Like, Zara is the only thing of gravitas — that comes to my mind — when I try and think of a contemporary breakout Spanish toro corporation successfully gore-ing global profits on the world’s money-making matador stage. I’m sure there are others…but you get the point; Spain ain’t known for its version of the American Dream ‘cause it’s got the Spanish Siesta…where people are literally dreaming ‘bout evening tapas when they’re asleep midday…before they rise for the half-shift…and then fart around outdoors in the eve with pals. ¡Olé to all that!

And marathoning ‘round Andalusia, I can honestly say that no one was looking outwardly flush — evidenced by how affordable everything is / how humble the homes are (because salaries here are peanuts compared to those in North America) — but no one seemed overly skint either (everyone’s put together, there’s no boarded-up businesses, very few people living — or asking for change — on the safe and spotless streets, public works is out there tidying / fixing things, and there’s just some really solid infrastructure in terms of roads and public transit). On appearances, everything seems normal and functional and developed world-y, nahmean?

However, what is strikingly different is the diametrically opposed approaches to being; North Americans live to work, and the Andalusians work to live. Said another way, the Spanish put greater emphasis / value on inputs for wellbeing (i.e. daytime siestas for life-work balance, eating real food, and communal time in the third place with friends and family), and North Americans put greater emphasis / value on health-limiting outputs (i.e. soul-debilitating productivity, non-stop ‘round-the-clock on-the-clockness, lack of rest as martyrdom for the machine, insatiable asset / wealth accumulation as bandages for the mass of wounded spirits, and famine-minded hyper individualization where the ‘other’ is the competitor…so in mistrust, we retreat back to the fortresses of our first places to seek pseudo-connection in the virtual world via parasocial scrolling in the escapist techno-algorithmic utopia).

What is most impressive is how the Spanish have magically manipulated time — making it malleable, and seemingly longer than the 24 hours in a conventional ‘rushed AF go-go-go where did all the hours go? North American day’ — achieved by Spaniards simply being themselves, and sticking to their traditional ways. And defiantly sticking it to modernity by proudly doing jack shit most of the time. Bless.

Want something in Andalusia during the day? Come back in the late afternoon after your / our nap. Want something on Sunday? Come back on Monday…when we’re maybe open. Want something in the evening? No chance…but we can maybe talk about it on a park bench in the town square.

Like, this is a place — after all — where men make / take the time to teach groups of horses how to tap dance in synchronization / pop wheelies…after someone has spent hours giving the horses braided corn rows. Seriously, that’s how far they go to safeguard personal time for fanciful passions. So here in Andalusia, time moves slow in the best way possible, nothing is rushed, and there’s ample time for togetherness as well as actually having whimsical interests; be they non-commercial and/or non-rational, LOL.

Anyhoo, we’re now allegedly in a time of global boiling. And it is funny to me how politicized climate has become, regardless of whether / weather this is the human-made Anthropocene or warming-as-spontaneous-natural-phenomenon…like what hurt does it do to collectively live a lil lighter and/or in better harmony with nature and the environment?

But hey, if we continue to bring the figurative heat and work ourselves / the planet into hellfire…maybe the Spanish siesta will finally go global (yippee) — like, when it becomes too hot to work during the 9 to 5, workers worldwide drop dead on the reg, and the labour pool evaporates ala the rapture of the slackers— and us humanoids finally get a bit more old-world shut-eye via siesta (and some fleeting time to actually have some pastimes) before civilization goes the way of the eternal sleep.

Want to mitigate calamity in the interim? Work less, live more, and demand a culture shift…Spain proves it is primo and possible (even if your exploitive boss tries to tell you / sell you otherwise).

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