Cadiz and beyond...........

Last night we passed through the Straits of Gibraltar at 12.30 am. We woke up and looked out the window to see the lights ashore; the outlines of hills; a lighthouse. Back to sleep – I wish. Now I’m grumpy – finally got to sleep on deck when someone dropped a lounger beside me. Now I’m grumpier so why not go to my cabin, put on the Bee Gees and rave – online!! The sea has been inky calm – long may it continue.

Today we bye passed Seville and went on the motorway to Arcos de la Frontera, perched high on the Cadiz Sierras and one of the  historic Pueblos Blancos. It’s a very old town with the usual narrow streets but paved with granite squares and river rocks set on edge in a triangular pattern. There are two churches, several convents, a hospital and heaps of history of course. One of the convents cooks natural food products into sweets and pastries. You go in and put your money on a turntable and it is turned and your choice of pastry or sweet is returned to you. You don’t see the nuns on the other side. There cloister overlooks the street with grills so they can see us but we can’t see them – very mysterious. What was once a mosque has been dismantled and the materials recycled to make a Christian church beside it – only the area of the baptismal font remains but levelled. The synagogue, too, has an alternative use since the Jews were driven out because they were too hard to convert to Christianity. Rumour has it that the descendants still have the keys to the houses they abandoned and could possibly come back at any time to take over again from the present inhabitants. That was only 300 years ago of course. The views are spectacular, being built on top of a hill, as with the medieval towns. Even the two churches had a fight between themselves. They are only 500 metres apart. They fought over which church was the principal church of the area. An envoy was sent, by donkey, to Rome. There to await the decision of the Pope. After three years the envoy returned with the decision, and the losing Church was given the skeletons (relics) of two Saints to compensate for being only the second most important church in the village. We went into that church – how beautiful – and no one posing in front of the many carved, gilded ornate altars. It did cost us the huge sum of one Euro each to enter -… worth every penny.  Hop had left his money on the bus. It’s a conspiracy!! We managed to borrow some earlier, from one of our fellow travellers. There were the saints’ remains in glass caskets; also a carving of Jesus lying in a casket – life sized – beautiful and only carved in 1967. Good to know that beauty’s still being created and the story continues. There was a night watchman who wandered the village at night with a great bunch of keys in case you locked yourself out or similar. He only died in the 1950s and some in the village still remember him. He was given a little donkey. It was kept in the bell tower. It was fed there and there it died. In the meantime it had got so fat that they couldn’t get it down the narrow spiral staircase so they ate it!! Eventually, when the night watchman died, he, too, was too fat to get the body down the staircase!!!. No, they lowered him down the outside of the church from the bell tower. Back to the money though. There were some huge owls and falcons along with some very cute baby raccoons on one of the terraces overlooking the cliffs and view. Hoppy (Dr Doolittle!) was right in there getting his photo taken with them. Then I realised it wasn’t free – of course not, and we had no money. That’s when I borrowed some. We had quite a time to look around before going to a Hotel for a glass of local wine and some tapas. The wine was good but the tapas – kettle fries, some frittata and olives. Not quite what I expected but…….Back to Cadiz. Back home. Ran out of energy to walk around this city although it’s very small and I should have. Ten kms of beautiful white sandy beaches here too. Another “next time”. They have walking trails around the town, of various colours and you just follow whichever trail. Great idea.

Via con Dios my darlings.