“Summer of ’69”

Like the song says: ”Some of the best days of my life” were last summer of ’07. Starting off in Phoenix, Arizona, I joined Fischer-Sports for an internship. This is a clinic for therapy and conditioning of mainly professional sports players, where I learnt an immense amount regarding training and conditioning, as well as therapy-wise. Moving on East, towards Thatcher, Arizona. That is where I studied my senior year of High School, and conserve some of my closest friends and family. Let me recommend a hot summer vacation to the vast amount of wildlife and recreation in the Arizona deserts, and National Parks and lakes. What I feel for the state of AZ, cannot be expressed with mere words. So, I’ll show you a few images, in an attempt to transmit that special feeling, which not only goes for this particular and very special State, but for all of the West. Many of you might not know what sort of feeling shoots through your veins, floats around your head, or pumps in your heart when, for example, you jump off a 15 meter cliff into a dam without knowing what’s underneath the surface, shoot a semi-automatic gun, a shotgun that bangs you harder than you'd imagine, or when your hand is a few short centimeters away from a rattlesnake, and you are tempting the devil. But that’s nothing to worry about. If you’ve 900 Euros to spare, you can book a flight to Tucson, or Phoenix, and start walking once you land. In any direction. I won’t show you around, unless you pay my way, but I will very happily tell you where to get lost (for real, no sarcasm intended), and assure you an encounter with all of the above. Then, you could know what that feeling is. That is only if you are getting a tinge of interest from reading this, of course. In Thatcher, apart from soaking the desert sun, chase reptiles, and swimming in dams, there is much more to do. I enjoy passing time with my close friends the Curtis Family. Yes, there are many of them, but these are “the ones”. The ones who make this small town in the middle of the desert so important to me.

I had another internship at Eastern Arizona College that summer. I lent a hand with the Athletics Program sports, and athletes involved. After these internships, it was time to get wild and high on encounters with animals. So, I set off to San Diego, California, to visit my Uncle Bob, Aunt Marilyn, and cousin Katie. This side of the family is nuts. Wait! Don’t leave yet, man. Finish reading, and before you proceed, you must know that there is no greater animal lover than me. Perhaps my sister, and on top of that, the late Steve Irwin, because he made a living out of it.

A food chain is as it is, because nature set it that way. Now, imagine: I arrive to San Diego, and Uncle Bob says he’s got a couple rabbits for the “little boys”. I haven’t seen the “little boys” since I was a little boy myself. Slide the door open, there are two of the biggest Pythons I’ve seen outside a zoo. X is 54.5kgs, and Y is 40kgs. We each take a rabbit, walk into the cage through separate doors, and drop it immediately as the pythons approach us separately. Can you imagine the sensation right about now? Yeah, get the hell out! And within seconds, the snakes throw a lightning-quick attack to the rabbits, and suffocate them. Feeding an animal of that size and power is no game.

The visit to Dana, a friend of mine up the coast, in Los Angeles, was not short of thrills, either. One slow day near Hollywood, we decide to go to Santa Monica beach, and as we’re walking into the water, a man rushes towards us warning of the presence of sharks seen in the shallow waters of the wave break. Initially, it’s a big saliva gulp you swallow, but screw it, let’s see how close we can get. Since I had never in my life seen one in the wild, I went knee-deep, as I skimmed the wave break visually, in order to detect the shark. After a long half hour of walking up and down the shore in this cold Pacific water, the unexpected happened. I was swiped by the tail of what I have come to recognize as a Nurse Shark. A few seconds later, it bumped my leg from the side, with its head, and almost threw me off balance. I estimate the size of this fish that made me scream like a chica, at around 2 or 2.5 meters, because it was clearly bigger than me. After this most adrenaline rushing experience with a prehistoric animal, that is absolutely unpredictable and you are defenseless against, I come to realize how lucky I am to still be able to run, walk, and be here writing this. I have just now read, that the few Nurse Shark attacks reported have proceeded with the same sequencing as my encounter. Swipe, nudge or bump with the head, and attack. Beginners’ luck?