THE FERIA:
Overwhelming. A swirling mass of multicolored ruffled dresses, carriages of all sizes and shapes pulled by teams of decorated prancing horses. Cabelleros and cabelleras, young and old, most in a variety of traditional Spanish cowboy formal dress, steer their mounts through the crowds, sharp hooves crackling on the stone street. All while clutching their cell phones to their ears beneath their flat brimmed hats, yelling, “Donde, donde?” “Where are you, where are you?” Traditional Spanish music blares from each colorful tent we pass. Just overwhelming.
Rhona said, “This is a drycleaner’s dream.” Women and girls wearing floor length gypsy flamenco dresses walk unconcerned through the dirt – horse manure scattered everywhere. We are surprised to see the variety of dress. A cluster of young girls, three or four in the traditional costume, hair combs, elaborate earrings, with two or three friends in their normal teenager Brittany lookalike outfits, bellybutton rings and all. Rhona noticed the hidden cell phone pocket beneath the top row of ruffles. Men and boys in black suits and ties walk along with friends in t shirts and jeans.
The Casetas are tall flat walled tents, a peaked roof running front to back. The smallest size was perhaps twelve feet wide, maybe twenty-five feet deep, divided by some kind of partition in the center to provide a more private rear room. But many were multiples of that basic size, some, belonging to large corporations or civic groups were very large, like banquet rooms. The Feria began as a spring livestock fair. I believe the ranchers from the outlying areas would bring their stock to Seville to sell, and set up camp on the edge of town. At some point the campsites were organized into the small city of tents that exists today. The open space with its grid of streets sits just on the edge of Triana, the area of Seville opposite the river from the main city. It seems a massive use of resources for only one week a year… but the money brought to the area by the fair must be amazing. The tourist office says over one million visitors will come to Seville this week. The population of Seville is 700,000, to say nothing of the small towns surrounding. The clothing stores, hat shops, and as Rhona says, the dry cleaners, must do huge business.
At the far end of the village of tents is the Carnival. Actually, it must be every carnival in Spain, gathered together for one weeklong orgy of hurling bodies through space, twisting, spinning, flipping. There is a definite Spanish flavor to the rides. Steel cages seem to be popular. Safety doesn’t seem to be a real big concern.
But to our eyes and ears, it’s the crush of people, the horses, the music blaring from each Caseta, that just numbs the brain. We walk past row after row of the little canvas houses, through the crowds sipping sherry, smoking cigarettes and cigars, talking with friends… either actually present, or on cell phones in some other part of the grounds. And the dancing…. It’s called Sevillianas… a version of Flamenco danced by ordinary people. Its basically flirting while stamping your feet, turning gracefully with your hands spiraling over your head, and then at a key moment in the music, striking a pose. The music continues, the dancers stand for a few moments, then the dance begins again. Mostly it’s women who dance, but it doesn’t seem to matter who the partners are… young children, teenagers, men and women of all ages participate. The lyrics seem to be folksongs that the audiences know well. The rhythm of stamping feet, clapping hands, and castanets, is really all that’s required, but we heard the music played by a variety combinations of musicians. Guitars and keyboards were common; there were bands with horns. Percussion was usually a guy sitting on a box drumming between his legs. Nonstop prerecorded music was everywhere.
Most of the casetas are private, but we did find that some of the perhaps less wealthy groups had cash bars. We asked at the door and were allowed to enter and buy drinks. There was a sign on the wall (in Spanish of course) saying that the chairs and tables were reserved for the society members. We found two public casetas… one sponsored by a municipal group that was just too crowded to enter. The other was a large banquet room sized tent, La Esmeralda. The namesake, Esmeralda herself, or himself, stood at the rear of the room, the hostess in drag. We found an empty table, sat and watched children dancing on the large stage. A waiter came by; using one of our favorite techniques we ordered what the people behind us were having. Soon we had a huge platter of fried fish and a half bottle of sherry in front of us. After a while, Esmeralda and her “girl” friends took the stage. There was a certain edge of humor, but they were quite serious about the dance. When it was time to move on we were a bit shocked by the bill, 56 euros for two half bottles of Sherry and the fish platter, but the opportunity to sit and rest and watch the dancing was worth it. We wandered through the crowds, standing occasionally at open windows to watch the entertainment. We did feel a bit like outsiders, but everyone was very friendly. It wasn’t long before it was time to get back to the bus stop to catch the 1:15 bus back to the campground. Minor panic when it didn’t show up. We thought perhaps they had changed the bus stop as they had done one night during Holy Week. But no… just no bus. The next bus was scheduled at 2 am, we very relieved when it rolled up on time.
The next day we had a wonderful day in the campground… For the first time we had English speaking fellow campers. Jeff and Sue from Bristol, UK, pulled their travel trailer into the spot next to us, and the conversations began. They had just driven from Portugal, our next destination, so we got a full report on the campgrounds waiting for us. Later Jeff told us there was another California couple in the campground, driving a 1972 Oldsmobile… . Greg and Sue from Huntington Beach, yep, California…. The seemed to be in their late 60s or early 70s, told us this is the eighth trip over, third one with the Olds! On one of their early trips they bought a used trailer over here and shipped it home, sold it in California for a profit. This time they’ve bought a new one, which they plan to ship back. The secret is cargo containers… shipped from Long Beach. They said there are a variety of companies that handle all the arrangements, they find the best price, and ship their car off to Germany. It takes a couple months to arrive… so they wait until a couple days before it’s due to arrive and fly off to meet it. Greg said it cost him $900 to ship the Olds this time… heck, I could have brought the Toyota! Well, maybe next time. Would not have wanted to miss the Dormobile experience, that’s for sure.
Anyway, we had a great time talking to both couples. Greg and Barb had been spending a couple months in Fuenguirola… knew all the details about traveling in Morocco. Turns out their third child was born just down the road in Malaga… and Kris was conceived in Fuenguirola… practically makes us relatives. We got a lot of good info from both about Portugal, Morocco and the Spanish coast north. The big thing is that a lot of the negative things we’ve heard about all those areas just doesn’t seem to be true. Yes, some of the “quaint” has been lost forever… but there is a lot that is still there to be found. Barb remembered the English used paperback bookshop I have such fond memories of… it’s still there! Bigger and better.
One thing on our list of things to do before leaving Seville has been to go to the bull fights. Greg and Barb are passionate fans, had all kinds of information. Sue, on the other hand, was just as passionately outraged by them. Luckily the subject didn’t come up with all six of us present. Could have been very interesting. Yesterday, we took the bus to town to see if we could get tickets. On our first trip to the ticket window we found that there were some sunny side tickets available, but no plastic, they wanted cash. So we ran off in search of an ATM. We came back to the same window fifteen minutes later to find that the party just in front of us hadn’t bought two of the more expensive shady side tickets they had reserved. I grabbed them, figuring that even if Rhona was disgusted by the fights, at least she would be comfortably cool. It was one of the hottest days we’ve had so far.. in the low eighties, with a very bright sun. The only downside to the tickets was that they were in the very top row, and we had to peek through the arched openings of the ceiling… but that wasn’t a big deal. The “seats” are just concentric rings of concrete steps. Your feet are on the same level as the people in front of you and there is very little room to spare. It was nice that we didn’t have people behind us, we could lean back against the rear wall. It seemed that most of the action happened pretty much right in front of us. Rhona’s reaction was the she wasn’t really disgusted by the killing… she didn’t like the Picadors… but nobody does. It seemed to me that some of the bulls just weren’t very aggressive, and they weakened them too much in the early stages. It’s all about the spectacle, the costumes, the music, the ritual. Rhona thought that the guys weren’t all that macho… ballerina boys she called them. They were top matadors though, and put on a pretty good show. One of the last bulls for some reason was rejected… I really have no idea what the deal was… but after the picador had done his thing, they let a small herd of cows into the area and tried to get the bull to leave with them… he wasn’t going for it. For about a half an hour they tried everything they could think of to get him out of the arena… they would get him back in the tunnel, close the door behind him, then suddenly the door would fly open and out he would come again. Very bizarre. They finally got him cornered and stabbed him with the killing knife and that was the end of that… have no idea what was going on. Rhona and I agree that it was interesting, that we really don’t agree with Barb or Sue on the issue… but having gone once, that’s probably enough.
We had dinner in one of my favorite Seville establishments, the Irish Pub just behind the Cathedral. Convenience for the Irish Catholics in town, I guess. I had a plate of fish and chips and a pint of Guinness and toasted the aulde sod.
Well, we are just about done with Seville. Want to take a little drive into the country this afternoon and find an out of the way place to change the oil. I’ve fixed the heater hose situation, found a beautiful brass shutoff valve I installed in a new hose, very proud of it I am. I really want to put some STP in the transmission, but it’s got this socket head plug I’m going to need a special wrench to get loose. Doesn’t look like an Allen, the book says it’s an 3/8 A/F whatever that means… kind of a star shaped socket. Time to email the Dormobile owner’s group and find out what they know. I guess I could stop in at a few garages and ask, but that would take all the fun out of it. We’ll see.
5:09:26 PM 
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