Swim Team in Banos

In Banos del Inca, they have a swim team. I entered. Can you imagine -- swim team in a pool that's heated by a volcano! Since I did swim team at home, I wanted to keep it up while I could. Swim team's on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday but I go Tues. and Thurs.

This is my swim team on a Thursday night when they empty the pool to clean it. By now all the little ones have gone.

These are my friends, the twins. Their dad's the coach.  I have no idea what their names are. Something like Nadielle? You can not keep track of names when they belong to twins and you can't hear them because the coach is going like SO-AND-SO! SWIM LIKE THIS!

After swim team I always get a papita from this person in our church. Papa means potato, and if you add "it" at the end of a word it means a little  _______. Papitas are baked potatoes mashed and made into a potato shape again. They're stuffed, and they're just a potato messed with.  You can put sauces (ketchup, mustard, ocopa [green sauce, oh-coh-pah]) or salad on them. Mmmm!

 This is in the plaza we walk through to get between house and swim team. It's a fountain (empty right now), which they have in every city's plaza. That's Atahualpa on top. It was fun to climb on the statue!

A few weeks ago now, (I am so behind!) there was a national swim meet at our pool! People came from Chiclayo, Trujillo, Lima, etc. and maybe Cuzco. Don't remember.... Our team was called SAETA. We had really uncomfortable shirts, but keep it for my T-shirt quilt! The girls' SAETA team won 1st place, and the boys' team got 2nd! This is our combined team.

 ME!!! I bought a cap, used it for a day, and got too claustrophobic. My coach gave me this stretchier cloth one that even looks better! My goggles leaked, so I used my sister's which are a bit better. And they match my suit better!

 There were these girls from Chiclayo that like other people tried to talk to me in English (still think that should be spelled Ingles like in Spanish!). They were saying "My name is" over and over again. I liked them. They were 9-12, now I'm 9, aged nicely. I told them "My name is" means "Mi nombre es" but "Cómo te llamas" was "What is your name" (more precisely translated "what do you call yourself"). They were like "Oh!" and were impressed that I knew a bit of Spanish. 

 This is the advertisement/picture they had up of the swim meet. Kai (biggest bro) got 3 gold medals and 1 silver! Renen got a silver (next bro down) but somehow I didn't get one. I was a bit jealous, I have to admit. The bottom right corner symbol is the SAETA symbol we have on our shirts. I was still not as worn out as when I finished my first I.M. (CO swim team)!

Swim team was sometimes not that fun, but, I guess you can find pros and cons to everything.