Ceuta, Spain 

(on the continent of Africa)

Saturday, 19 October, 2024

I like being with people and in places where I hear Spanish—the language and the people who speak this beautiful language and the places they call home are familiar to me—it’s comforting and it makes me a little happier than usual. That’s how I felt while we were docked in Ceuta, Spain.

Gary and our friend, Paul, walked all around the city and up to the fortress above Ceuta to stretch their legs, to see the historical remnants of fortifications, and to see the Mediterranean Sea from higher ground.  These two guys are like gazelles—not many in this Odyssey crowd have their endurance or stamina for climbing steep hills.   As you can see at the end of this post, Gary took some good photos from the top of fortress.

What did I do while Gary and Paul walked?  I did Mary-maintenance stuff (things that are required but not talked about in polite company).  Later, I searched for and found some ‘missing’ things I had stored in places that made perfect sense when I put them away the first time; I moved the ‘found’ things to more sensible places…maybe.  I also stared at my wrinkles in the 15X magnified mirror —when did my face and neck grow so old?  (Wasn’t I 25 just moments ago?). I also read and fretted about the US Election, the conflict in Israel, and the broadening conflicts in the Middle East. Hard information to process, so as I thought about these events, I began to people-watch from our ship balcony. The cruise terminal walkway and a couple of cruise ships were in front of me. The comings-and-goings of passengers and port employees provided a much-needed distraction for me.

After I stopped worrying enough about how seemingly tight the upcoming 2024 US Presidential and other down-ballot races were in battleground states, I was able to focus on how mostly 55+ aged people were walking and moving along the cruise terminal. There were, of course, people watching me watching them, but I didn’t mind.

There is great diversity (posture, gait, stride, pace, etc.) in how aging human bodies move themselves from place to place. These are my unscientific observations. The majority of vibrant younger-oldsters still seemed to move confidently and easily, often outpacing their much younger counterparts.  The people squarely-in-the-middle of oldsterness really seemed to distinguish themselves and illustrate differences in walking.  Some seemed to be brisk ‘no time to waste’ walkers without discernible health challenges; some seem to be at-ease-with-themselves walkers who move at a leisurely pace as they enjoyed the world around them; other walkers made forward progress, albeit slower progress, with the help of canes or walking sticks or fancy walkers with wheels; some folks, who walked with stooped shoulders and mindful steps, seem committed to slowly reaching their destination; other walkers struggled to move forward, but in spite of their difficulties, persevered towards their destinations.  Finally, there were the very vibrant walkers who achieved-their-peak-golden-years-plus walkers. Despite obvious physical differences, these walkers moved with even more agility than people half their ages. 

Later in the afternoon on the balcony, I watched more people, this time with Gary. He first noticed an older couple in their birthday suits taking some sun on their cruise ship balcony (Overseas Adventure Travelers) which was in a port berth directly across from us. Gary pointed them out to me, and I stared at them with the binoculars — I realized, after a couple of minutes that I admired these two elderly pear-shaped strangers for being so comfortable in their nakedness; and fully understood that Gary and I would never, ever publically be naked on our balcony, regardless of the situation, because both of us are shy.  To finish this observation, an hour later, the same couple, now fully dressed, came out of their cabin to their balcony—and, they were not nearly as interesting in clothes as they had been au natural!