May 24, 2018 - Meeting Interesting People at the Allmar Hostel, Sines, Portugal

May 24, 2018 Meeting interesting people in this Hostel. A fellow from Australia who is a swimmer also. He stayed here a couple of nights. So Anai from Argentina, Paula from Portugal via the US, Kim from San Francisco, Alex from France,  Deloris from Portugal via France, Josh and Alexa from Vancouver, Canada and Glenn from Australia have all provided interesting insights and perspectives from around the world. One month in a hostel feels a little ho-hum, but I have a nice place to swim and I began the yoga classes and the people pass through from all over the world, so all in all very interesting. From here I will be in private rooms for shorter periods of time. For now I think I would like to explore more and get more photos.

Going to have a few days of rough weather. I'm joining a yoga class to help fill my time and supplement the swimming. While the swimming is intense and a complete work out, the yoga will complement it, displace time sitting, and provide more direct social contact.

I am googling cold water swimming to make sure I'm not taking too much of a risk. Many extreme cold water swimmers swim at 40+ degrees F. And I think the English Channel range is 59 to 64 degrees F, and they swim from 6 to 12 hours. I swim 40 minutes: the first 10 minutes are cold; the next 10 minutes are comfortable; the next 10 minutes are off and on; the next 5 minutes are cold: and the final 5 minutes are mental survival mode.


But this is not a dangerous temperature, my core temp is still good as I'm only shivering a little and i'm still able to take a shower at the beach. By the time I'm dressed and have climbed 8 flights of stairs (a 300 meter horizontal distance) to the hostel I'm back to normal. And as the spring and summer progress  the air and water temps are warming. And as I travel south the air temps rise to extremely hot in Morocco and the water temps get into the 70s. So even though that's still cold, it will prove to be very refreshing swim in the heat. I may opt for a couple swims a day.


This trip is very different than Latin America, as you can already imagine. I'll be on this seaside town of Sines, Portugal for a month (until June 11) and after that mostly 4 to 10 day stays at my various Airbnbs ( except for a 24 day stay at Gibraltar and a month in southern Morocco, a town called Mirleft). Swimming the oceans, talking with the locals and allowing the atmosphere to sink in will be my priority. Once I get into my daily routine of pre- and post-swim preparations, and taking a nap (otherwise I fall asleep sitting up in the common areas of the hostel😮), I hardly have time for anything else. I walk around, but i also do my morning reading and semi-daily journaling. And when I meet interesting people, like the past couple of days, there is added conversation time.