Weekend in Andalucia

Monday, May 1, 2006
Sanlucar and El Rocio
On Monday the boat from Cadiz woke me up, as usual, with the nice sound of the horns blowing, and I rushed to get the bus to Sanlucar. This old and beautiful town at the river Guadalquivir is the place where the pilgrims going to the famous "El Rocio" at Whitsuntide are crossing over by boat and then continue along the deserted coast to the celebration. The small town of El Rocio, normally housing around 600 inhabitants, welcomes more than 2 million people to the pilgrimage and of course there is a big festival, as well.
In Sanlucar I walked through the streets with houses of the rich merchants, trading South America in the 16th and 17th century. Sanlucar used to be a very rich town, similiar to El Puerto. It's history whereever you go.
I'll have a last walk around El Puerto now, and after admiring for a last time the castle, I'll have a tapa in the Colombian bar. Tomorrow I'll take the bus to Portugal, and it's gogdbye Andalucia, for another year...

Sunday, April 30, 2006
Toros in El Puerto
Another day without feria - almost, cos everybody keeps talking about it and the women are running around in gitanas.
Beach and bulls it was today. The arena of El Puerto is the third best worldwide, and more than 150 years old, holding 14 000 people.
I paid the amount of 22 € for a seat in the sun (which is a great price, normally for a good game yoy pay five times more), and was lucky (again). I sat opposite the main entrance of the bulls and the matadores, the king's place to my left, where the president of the fights was sitting to decide whether the torero was good or not.
In front of me some women around 60 were sitting, dressed up in their best gowns, their mantillas thrown over the balcony in front of them. They knew what the fights were about, when to cheer and when to just wait for a better chance. Besides me an old man knowing everything about bull fights explainend every detail, as soon as he found out I'm from Germany.
The six bulls were not very good, not running a lot, and not fighting, and the three matadores weren't that great either - twice the president decided not to wave his handkerchief to show the fight was good. The crowd waved with everything white available - from tissue over t-shirts to plastic bags - and cheered to the matadores, who marched around the circus, hats and flowers thrown down onto them.
I liked the horses best, they did some marvellous job, brave animals who knew what they were doing and doing it wonderfully.