Back from doing excercice. So let me take a page out of Uncle Joe's page and blog about that before doing the political news. And those will be funky today. But first of all some geographical background, I'll try to make it entertaining:
Cadiz is the southernmost province of spain. Cadiz Capital is a peninsula on said province. A very small and thin peninsuka off to the side, connected by one of its extremes... Basically Cadiz is Spain's micropenis. It, it's actually fairly phalic overall in fact. I'll drop a map:
As you can see the peninsula is connected by a very thin landbridge with a beach to the side. A very long beach that almost wraps around. Though there's chunks of rocky facade and walls and the bay side area past the port is... well it's a beach. But it's a shit beach. Very thin with lots of rocks and dirt and plants. And once you actually get to the other side of cortadura, nothing. Let me illustrate it with a photo:
So basically that big ass megabeach is the best area to exercice. And it really is big. I mean, compare the photo to the map. That shit's ginormous. Here's a stylised pic too so you can see the geographical distribution better:
So as you can imagine people who want to exercice go to sta maria del mar/la victoria/cortadura. Though most just call it la victoria actually. Either that or playa el chato, more on that later. It's a great place to walk up and down. Well. Today was the 1st day of reopening, and we're on phase 1 due to high density. So people between 15 and 60something yo can only exercize I don't remember which hours in the morning or between 8 and 11 of the afternoon.
As I told ya this morning. Morning was nice and relaxed, everything went fine. I went down at 8. HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK. I had not seen this much people exercicing at one time. It was almost as much people on the beach as during tourist season. Only they were all walking up and down instead. So, as you can imagine social distancing was... not great. Masks are optional over here (gifted on public transport and shit like that for safety but never mandatory) so most people wore no mask. I carried one and planned on carrying it by the string and only putting it on when near people (because exercizing with a mask is hard as fuck and a good way to get dizzy.) But with so many people I just wound up wearing the mask until I couldn't take it anymore then saying fuck it. I mean. I was already infected once anyway, might as well see if reinfection can happen. It has less of a chance to kill me than lack of oxygen. God it was hard.
Either way. I did my usual schtick, which is walking until I literally can't keep on, then trying to walk back as fast as my strength lets me (without running or stopping), and I can get very far. So let me illustrate you the typical route. First you start on playa la victoria. I mean... Either that or santa maria. But I don't know where the limit is, nor do most people, so if you ask the locals they'll tell you it's la victoria anyway, unless they're pedantic history nerds. So then you get to the fuerte de cortadura, as it is historically named. Or La Muralla, as the locals call it. (Which literally means "the wall.") Here's a pic of that beauty.
Once you cross the line you're officially into Cortadura. Though the locals either call it playa el chato or think it's still playa victoria. Seriously, our history books talk about cortadura being outside cadiz, so most don't get that the town has grown into it, and they just think cortadura is past el chato. Which is kind of hilarious once you realize La Muralla is literally called Cortadura's Fort officially. Anyway. Once you cross the wall you're also past the walkway, which means you're unlikely to see many tourists and general beach goers. Which for regular beach biz is great intel but for today doesn't matter. So then you walk until El Chiringuito. Wanna guess why it's called that way? Here's the pics.
There's a nice parking there and it has food and drinks so it's a good spot for beachgoing. It also makes for a good landmark. Past this point most casual walk people turn. If you meet people exercizing it's the hardcore mofos and idiots that need to lower their weight like my sorry ass.
Finally you have El Chato. Pic above. It's a nice restaurant. Got another parking. Great spot for beachgoing. It is about 10 to 15 minutes from el chiringuito so again good landmark. This is when even idiots like me tend to turn if we aren't breaking ourselves. Past this point only massive fitness enthusiasts remain. Well that and me when I am breaking myself.
That. Is the usual routine. Today I went well past el chato. And it still felt great. Seems being stuck exercizing home has done a number on my psyche 'cause after the shower my whole body hurts. But more on that later. Point is, it seems most people were suffering of the same. Because holy fuck. Not only el chato. While I was on the way forward I kept meeting people coming back, I swear like dozens of mofos made their way to mainland fucking spain. Holy fuck that was a lot of people. On the way back I met less. Which was probably because of the time, because holy shit was I walking for a loooooong time.
On the way back I thought on the way there I should've made pics of the amount of people. Sadly it was too late. I made a few pics anyway since the sunset was beautiful, so here they are:
I also thought I should take pics on my way there tomorrow. But to be frank. I don't know if I'll be able too. Not because of the fact that my whole body hurts after walking so much. Though that too. But because, well, remember how I told you that I don't usually live in cadiz except on vacation and only came here shortly before the lockdown? Well. I did not go walk on the beach since last vacations. So I did not notice my shoes got holes in there. And sand can enter those holes. And a lot of it did. And when sand enters the shoes it basically chainsaws your soles. When this happens to you, you need to take off your shoes. Believe me. Walking barefoot will be quite pleasant. It is to begin with. I didn't do it because I planned on going faster. But my dumb self didn't have a bag for the shoes and instead of just carrying the shoes on my hand like a reasonable adult I realized it didn't hurt as much and kept going on. Protip: although your feet don't hurt in the morning. After the shower they fucking will. A lot. Holy fuck, my feet feel like they're on fucking fire and I'm fairly sure I have a ton of ampollas. Fuck it hurts so much... so yeah. I think tomorrow I won't be able to stand up, and even if I do, I need to fix my shoes. So we'll see if I can send pics.
On the meantime while writing this I was sent a video of how the cathedral's walk looked. Daym. Here it is:
And finally, politics. The right wing's gone full bypollar again. Both claiming the government is comunistic for locking down and saying that it needs to be lifted NOW while also claiming the government is responsible for our deathtoll for not locking down hard and fast enough. Right wing andalucia is being the fastest to open and laxest with its rules while right wing madrid is the slowest and harshest, which would make sense based on density except they're both insulting the government for not forcing all other communities to follow their lead while PP segment of Congress claims the government is too authoritarian for forcing ANY rules on the communities. Welcome to political hell. Even right wingers are memeing it up at this point. They managed to unify everyone. Now only the karens and crazies take them seriously. Fuck the political landscape so hard.
