A week long festival starts tomorrow in Tarragona. We kicked it off tonight with a guided tour sponsored by the Tarragona tourism office to visit the training sessions of two teams of human pyramid builders. Our only exposure so far had been viewing the statue in the middle of the Rambia (wide pedestrian walkway in the center of town).
Our guide took us to the first training spot. It was a former fish market that the city government has turned over to a Tarragona team as a practice arena. One of the members who spoke very good English explained all the details, even wrapping my wrist in a long bandana to demonstrate a climbing method. They also wrap a foot wide, ten foot long, heavy scarf around their waist to provide a toe hold for climbers going higher.
The tame statue on the Rambia did not prepare us for the real thing. The tight packed bunch of big men on the bottom, women interspersed through the base, strong young men on the second level, then the balance/strength members on up until finally three children. The two bigger children supporting a small child of 6 or 7.
Different styles of pyramids were built. The first one we saw was a single column, 4 high.
Next was the 5 high. Note the woman headed to the 4 position and the girl in the red scarf who is 5.
We moved on to the next training arena. This one was in an old nunnery, once again donated by the city. I have no pictures here because I was invited to join the pyramid. As you can well guess I was assigned to the base.
I saw the climber coming on my right and was prepared for the hand on my shoulder as he hoisted up, but I missed the climber on my left and was surprised when a foot stepped on my left shoulder. I was already well tensed and did not embarrass myself. Besides these guys are not that heavy and I was jammed in so tight by the other bodies that movement would have been impossible anyway.
The scrum, base, whatever the bottom people are called does have some slight sway. That is bad. Too much sway in the first two layers increases the difficulty above for the balancing members. We did a six high pyramid successfully and came apart without any injury. De Anne noted the team captains were not impressed with technics, but to my untrained eye it went just fine because no one fell from 30 feet on top of me.
A fun evening and the festival begins tomorrow!
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