Morocco

Halima was picking up her Tunisian friend Najeh when I met the two on a train leaving Mohammed V International Airport in Casablanca, Morocco. Twelve hours earlier on the other side of the world, a highway accident brought six lanes to a standstill en route to the airport in Buenos Aires, and if it weren't for a generous ground crew operator in Argentina who reopened the cargo pocket of the plane to add my bags in a few minutes before take off, I wouldn't have made the flight to Casablanca, wouldn't have taken the airport train upon landing, and wouldn't have randomly picked the one train car where Halima and Najeh were sitting. Which, as I would learn, would have been a real shame.

The crew: Najeh, Halima, and her friend Yassine

Halima is my age, divorced and living with her toddler in her hometown of Casablanca. She may be the nicest person I have ever met. Najeh is a couple years older, equally as nice and recently completed her degree in tourism in Tunisia, where she now works in hospitality. Najeh landed and met Halima at the airport where they met me, minutes off the flight I shouldn't have made from South America. The three of us shared the train from the airport and then a taxi to the same hotel, where we shared dinner, then a dance floor at a Morrocan disco, where, amid live Arabic rhymes and the banging of percussion instruments, we decided to share a trip to the beach the next day.

Claypots at the rest stop, no utensils allowed

The next morning I passed on my flight to Barcelona to catch a bus seven hours through the Moroccan desert to the southern beach town of Agadir with my two new friends. At the lone bus stop in some dry dirt near Marakesh, we shared home cooked beef tangine (think pot roast in a massive claypot), a loaf of wood stove-fired bread and a pitcher of Morrocan mint tea that you pour from a height above the table to properly mix the mint. I was greeted by two sets of blank stares and then laughs when I reached for a fork and knife as the food arrived- Najeh took away the utensils, Halima pointed to my hands. Right.

Off the bus in Agadir I checked in to the male-only Al-Quods Hotel, which smelled a little like an old shoe with flickering lights dotting the hallways and communal toilets clustered near the stairs. I was greeted by the owner, a friendly older gentleman who eagerly refereed to me as "New York!", and slept on a cot in front of the front desk at night. None of the other guests noticed me walking in because the Senegal-Tunisia soccer match televised in the common room was tied in the late stages. My friends stayed across the street in a female-only counterpart, since coed hotels were not proper cultural etiquette in this part of town.

Beaches of Agadir, Morocco

I spent the next couple days waking up in the beachside city to the bustling sounds of the open air market outside the motel, where Times Square-like commotion met Wall Street-like commerce that commenced in this packed corner of town just after dawn. We met in the mornings and made day trips to the beach that lined the North Atlantic Ocean, taught each other words of English and Arabic with some French sprinkled in, tried out new dance moves at discos with more live Arabic jams, drank more Moroccan mint tea and split more claypots of tangine that this time was eaten hands first, without a set of it utensils to be seen. 

It was all starting to feel normal when it came time for me to move on to my next stop. I found myself slow and stalling in checking out of my tiny smelly room in Al Quods Hotel. I gave one last high five to the owner and caught the beginning of Forgetting Sarah Marshall in Arabic subtitles inside the packed common room with the same crew of soccer fans from a few nights before. I wondered if these guys found Jason Segel funny or if his lines were lost in translation in Arabic. Hard to know.

After buying my ticket, Halima gave me a bracelet with a Morrocan flag printed on it. Najeh tied it on and made me promise to never take it off. On the street near the bus station, Halima's friend Yassine bought me a fanny pack. Like a teenager embarrassed by his mom, I tried to take it off but Halmia insisted it was imperative to keeping all my belongings in one safe place.

With my suitcase on wheels, squash bag on my shoulder and a fresh new fanny pack strapped around me, I shared one of the harder goodbyes I've had to make in a long time, to a Morrocan woman and her Tunisian friend whom I met on a train a few days earlier. In their broken English they asked if I enjoyed Morocco and welcomed me back to their respective countries any time in the future. I was stuck on how quickly real bonds of friendship can work when I climbed the stairs to the bus. We had known each other for less than seventy-two hours. My friends watched me board and waved through the windows as the bus pulled away into the darkness of the night and back toward Casablanca. 

Couch surfing the tour in Casablanca 

While looking for Humphrey Bogart at Rick's Cafe in Casablanca. We'll always have Paris...

The best tangine money can buy, at a rest stop in middle of nowhere, Morocco

Perfecting the art of the elevated mint tea pitcher pour

Argentina

In the three years after college that I spent playing squash at a local club in Boston, I would half jokingly promise one of the pros there, my friend Fernanda, that someday I would turn pro, leave Boston and make a stop to play in her native Argentina and visit her family there. For three years we laughed about the idea of me stepping off a bus in the town of Rosario, Argentina armed with a squash bag in search of the Rocha family, until last week when a bus pulled to a stop in Rosario and I stepped off, armed with a squash bag and in search of the Rocha family.

Rosario, Argentina, land of nice people and the world's best meat 

Four hours north of Buenos Aires, I was greeted warmly in Rosario by two of the Rocha family members, the two family dogs, and two of Mrs. Rocha's  homemade cheeseburgers. I moved in with Fernanda's brother Dario and his girlfriend in a house a few feet across the street from the parents and two of the daughters, with their cousins next door and other cousins down the block. Mr. Rocha threw his classic meat-packed asado barbeque upon my arrival and I got my butt kicked in training daily with the Argentine national champ at the neighborhood squash courts. I was home in the middle of Argentina. 

Lucky to hang out with one of the best families around

There was a special rhythm to life in Rosario. Red wine with almost anything, dinners starting after 10 PM, gatherings lasting well into the next morning. Time was a relative thing- if squash was set for 3 PM, show up by 4ish. There were no stop signs on the street- rather, cars just kind of figured it out when arriving at each intersection. I asked a friend about it. "Most exciting" he replied.

One night I stopped by a bodega to get a bottle of water with Fernanda's older sister Ana. An elderly man shuffled over to the counter to take our order. He looked like an Argentinian Albert Einstein, with disheveled white hair and a well worn face. He heard me speaking to Ana in a foreign language and asked Ana in Spanish if what he just heard was English. When he learned it was, his face lit up and with Ana as a translator, asked where I was from. I said California, and at that the old man's eyes grew big. He shuffled a bit closer, leaned up further against the counter and paused. In an exciting whisper he rambled to Ana what looked like a burning question that had been bottled up for years. Ana turned to me with the elderly Argentine gentleman behind her, watching with great anticipation. "He...wants to know if there are a lot of horses in California."

Road trip to the farm

My final days in Argentina coincided with the Columbus Day holiday, and Fernanda's brother Dario invited me to join him and his cousins and their childhood friends for a long weekend trip to the farm. Three cars and a motorcycle caravanned fourteen twenty-something year old male cousins, their buddies, and a visiting American stranger straight west on a two lane highway, four and a half hours from Rosario into rural farm country. 

Grilling was the activity of choice. Everyone had a skill- the butcher and the sous chef, the salad guys and the grill master, the marinade man and the clean up crew. No one asked what to do, where to go. An orchestra in harmony. It all just happened. It was beautiful. 

It took a full day to get used to doing nothing- to give up checking for service on my phone, to pick back up my book after two months off, to sit at the fire and take in the darkness surrounded by guys who grew up with this group and to this scene. To them it was a nondescript weekend at the farm. Boxes of Malbec wine, homemade sangria served straight from a massive mixing pitcher, blood sausages and chorizo and burger patties and sirloins from the grill. Soccer in the field, salsa blaring from the stereo. I've been to my share of male bonding retreats and barbeques. This was something.

The best act was saved for my last night. One of the friends, Damian, was tapped for duty given his certain speciality for ribs on the grill. It was like Mariano Rivera being called from the bullpen to close out another win for the Yankees. Damian spent the night before by the fire carefully concocting his marinade in an empty wine bottle- garlic, lemon, oil, spices. By noon the next day, an 18 pound slab of ribs was slow roasting on a spear by the fire, and five hours after that, Mariano had completed his masterpiece.

Eighteen pound slab of ribs and a dash of red wine = just another Saturday afternoon in La Granja

Start to finish was a matter of minutes. Meat falling of the bone, crispy skin plucked off the cutting board, no forks or napkins, no slowing down. Hands tearing up baguettes in seconds, sangria sloshing in the big pitcher next to a pile of freshly diced tomatoes and lettuce flying out of a communal bowl in the middle. Organized chaos. Before you could sit down, a dozen Argentines and their American transplant went through a dozen and a half pounds of meat, engineered to perfection by the Mariano Rivera of barbequed ribs. 

An instant later, everyone had disappeared. Someone had found out a way to get the TV to show the Argentine pro soccer match on that night. I squeezed in near the couch with the cousins and their buddies in La Granja, Argentina, the colors of the TV screen and Spanish shrieks from the commentators giving life to the otherwise still darkness in the late hours of an early spring evening. Just another Sunday night on the farm in Argentina, bringing a close to my long awaited visit Fernanda's family and the rest of my monthlong stay in South America. Most exciting.                  

Peace love and squash in Rosario

Friendly face (and couch) in Buenos Aires: Misha Gordon-Rowe, my little brother in Alpha Delta fraternity during college

A vintage ride in rural farm country 

Dario and Ana: the best friends you can have in Rosario 

Brazil

A few weeks before leaving Australia for South America, a friend request appeared on my phone from Franco Otàvio Tobias Martins. I didn't think I had any friends named Franco, Tobias, Otàvio, Tobias, or Martins, so I clicked his profile to see more. As I began to scroll, I stopped: plastered on Franco's profile and across my entire screen was a massive poster of......me.

I laughed out loud at the bus stop in Bondi Beach as I stared at me staring back at me while draped in flames and an American flag from a strangers' profile over eight thousand miles away. Turns out Franco was the organizer of my next tournament in Brazil, and the poster was part of the PR buildup in his small town of Poços de Caldas leading up to the event. I sat laughing in the rain at the bus stop, having not a clue what other surprises awaited me in Brazil. 

From Chile, I landed first in the city of Ribeirao Preto, Brazil to stay and train with Manoel Pereira, a friend I met during the New Zealand tournament circuit in June. I don't know if Manoel entirely knew what he was saying in English or if he actually thought I would take him up on his offer when he invited me to stay with him back in June, but either way he picked me up at the airport in his town a couple hours west of Sao Paolo with a big smile, and we headed straight for bowls of the Brazilian fruit, açai. 

Manoel is one of the gems I've met since going on tour. One of six kids, Manoel grew up washing tennis courts before learning squash and training to become Brazil's national champion and world #140- all while working his way up to manager of his local squash club, with an aim to buy it in the next couple years. Somewhere in all this he learned English through night courses, found a way to employ most of his brothers and sisters, and started to invest in real estate on the side. Over bowls of açai, Manoel asked lots of questions. Where I came from, my ambitions and ideas, who my parents are, what I want out of life. Manoel is planning to retire from the tour in a couple years to focus on life outside of squash. He hung on to every word, asked me to repeat parts. When it was his turn, Manoel told me that growing up, he never thought about things like going to play pro squash and speak English in places like New Zealand. Not because he didn't want to do these things, but because he didn't think these things were possible.

We trained twice or three times a day, on the well worn floors and aged stucco concrete walls of his club's three outdoor courts. I continued my ankle rehab inside a sandbox with a trainer named Percoles at Physio Athletic down the street. I lived like a king in a loft above Manoel's manager office, sharing a wall with one of the courts where the thumping of balls provided the best type of alarm clock each morning. For the first time in four months I unpacked my suitcase. My own shower, a queen mattress, functioning A/C unit and clear internet connection, with a fridge and microwave downstairs and washer outside. It was perfect. All little things- things I usually didn't notice when back home. I wrote them all down, to remember what it takes for me to feel content. I can't remember being so happy.

Living the good life in a loft above Manoel's office at his squash club 

Framed life-size photos of professional squash players draped in flames graced the entrance walls of the Associaton Caldense Club in the mountain town of Poços de Caldas, greeting me to a very different type of tournament. The venue information sent to players beforehand simply read "high altitude" as the ball whizzed through the thin air and sweaty heat of the outdoor courts, with flags from all nations represented hanging from above and a DJ playing music to no one in particular. Amateur players and local spectators swarmed the venue, soaking up the squash with traditional cheese bread and local beers, eager to watch the foreign players they had seen, framed and in flames, on their walk into the club. 

Manoel, Hugo, and me

I roomed with a new friend Hugo, a twenty-two year old former Spanish junior and national team player who gave it all up to move to Brazil last year in search for a better life, with a dream to ultimately move to the States. We reveled in the experience of being strangers turned roommates, travel buddies, opponents, coaches, wingmen. Pro tennis players have coaches, entourages. Hugo and I had each other.

A very cozy carpool to the tournament 

Another pro grew up washing cars and living in the favelas of Rio before a generous stranger decided to give him a racquet. I found a familiar face in a pro from Sao Paolo, who I had last seen as my coach at a summer camp eight years ago in New Hampshire. Portuguese wasn't the preferred language but mostly the only language at the venue, as animated conversations blended together with the occasional blare from advertisements coming from speakers strapped to moving cars on the street outside, where they shared the road with horse drawn carriages. It was a different type of tournament.

I made it through to my first quarterfinals which bumped my world ranking to #237, a best for me so far. One morning during breakfast at the tournament hotel, I was introduced to Andre, an amateur player from Rio who had heard I was hoping to visit there next. Andre spoke English, played squash, had a couch, and lived two blocks from Copacabana Beach. With a mouthful of cheesy bread I accepted his invitation to go stay with him on the spot. 

Andre recently quit his job as a bank manager to get his life back. We spent the four days training together at the Rio Squash Clube and I shared a mattress in his living room with Budha, his shiatsu/pug mix who threatened to pee on my bedding and any other belongings if left at ground level, causing everything to be elevated. He still found ways around that.

Budha: caught in the act. Completely undeterred by the "elevated belongings" strategy 

I spent my final weekend in Brazil in Sao Paolo with Lucas and Daniela, two friends I met three years ago on a hiking trip in Peru. In the back yard of his family's home, Lucas and his childhood buddies threw an all day Brazilian barbeque feast to celebrate the reunion- complete with specialty meats and traditional sides, homemade cocktails and some sort of liquid chocolate dessert that was made as soon as it was discovered the Gringo hadn't yet tried it. 

Three year reunion with the Brazilian hiking friends in São Paulo 

On my last night in the country, I tagged along with Daniela to her friend of a friends' birthday party at a trendy club downtown. I shared birthday cake, sang Portugese birthday songs, danced along with the party to a Brazilian boy bands' rock rendition of "Man! I Feel Like a Woman" (that song is still popular?) and wondered how it all felt so normal. I wanted to pinch myself, take a second to look around at the random, crazy foreign world in Brazil that I had dropped into for a little bit. Then someone asked if I wanted more cake. In my best Portuguese, I said sure. Back to the birthday party.

The first and likely only time I'll be standing in front of a framed sports action photo of myself

Sandbox running never felt so good- ankle rehab with Percoles, owner of Physio Athletic in Ribeirao Preto

Sunset (kindof) at Ipanema Beach, Rio de Janeiro

Reached my first quarterfinals in Poços de Caldas

Sugarloaf Mountain, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil