The tour I've done 1000 times: Vejer de la Frontera

So it's no surprise the dad is a little hungover today. Last night took it's toll on him in a good way and I'm feeling good as I've had time to get used to the sweet honey rum nectar he got wrapped up in. Again, I had to work all morning but didn't have to ride, so I got up early, sent of the ride, cleaned the rooms and went for wake up calls just after noon. Plenty of time, for my early rising parents...

Click to read more ...

Jesus, a Marching Band and the KKK

by JuanedcSemana Santa. Holy week. When I think of the places I want to spend Holy Week in, I would automatically think that Italy would be the best place to do so. However, having spent a disappointing Ash Wednesday at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, I decided to give Spain a fair chance. After all, I do live here now, right?

Semana Santa, as it’s called here, blew the Pope’s socks off – and I generally like the Pope’s socks. I headed to Vejer de la Fronterra for one of the nights of Semana Santa where they were actively participating in the procession. You see, each village in Spain with a main cathedral has processions. During the month and a half of Lent, each church puts together a giant statue, or paso of one of the stations of the cross, or of a saint or something else significant to the particular church. These pasos are put on giant pedistals for the Lenten season on display inside the church.

by Fernand0During Semana Santa, each of the pasos are laden with fresh flowers. Women come in and spend days decorating them with roses, carnations, wildflowers. They each end up looking a bit like a float off the rose parade. Then one at a time, each church marches their paso up to the main cathedral in town. Traditionally, the pasos are carried by men who have penance that needs to be served, called costaleros. They are covered by a drape that drags to the ground on all four sides of the paso and the men must carry it on their shoulders in bare feet usually for a couple miles. Sometimes, the men even wear shackles if they've been particularly bad.

by JuanedcThose men who did not behave as badly during lent (or whatever you had to do to deserve 6 hours of holding a 3 ton statue on your shoulders) wear large robes called capirote which are the robes that inspired the traditional garb of the KKK. You know, the ones with the pointy hats. Each of the robes is a different color depending on what church you come from and the men march alongside the statues with large grim reaper type canes and torches of fire. If you had told me we had been transported back in time to some sort of Neo Nazi ritual, I honestly wouldn’t have been too surprised. In addition, each church has its own marching band that walks in front or behind the statue beating out the slow rhythm to which the statue sways down the city streets.

by ~ZitaNow, if these streets were wide, I’m not sure there would be too much fuss. Walk a statue, for example, from St. Monica’s in Los Angeles up Wilshire and you’re not going to have too much trouble navigating. Traffic would likely not even stop. However, the statues themselves, being at least 8 feet wide, on cobble city streets that are barely 12 feet wide and navigating hairpin corners ON A 12% INCLINE, is not an easy feat. Add three rows of people on either side of the sidewalk whose feet you’re trying to not step on and I’m not sure what kind of forgiveness would be enough to volunteer me for that job.  

by CrucconeOn the final day of Semana Santa, all of the pasos are marched out from the main cathedral. Each church is represented and depending on how many churches or groups you have in a given town, the procession can last 7 or 8 hours beginning at 10 PM (Spanish time, which really just means that it will happen sometime after 10 – in this case, it started at 11:30). We stayed in our spots for about 2 hours and only saw 2 statues march past. There were at least 8 in the church before the procession began.

Needless to say, the only way this whole experience can really be shared is in video, which you can thank your lucky stars, I happen to have. So here is the not-so-short video I took of one of the statues passing by at the Semana Santa procession in Vejer de la Fronterra, Spain on April 1, 2010. Make sure and look for the KKK, they’re there, I promise, but they’re difficult to find (as the KKK should be – can’t be flaunting all that white power around these days). Also notice the 1534 point turn it takes for the statue just to turn down a relatively obtuse angled street.

Also, if you want to read more, the procession I saw was very similar to the ones that take place in Sevilla. You can read more on the wiki article here.

Losing my virginity to a Spanish stallion

When I first arrived in Spain, I was surprised to learn that since my last visit here back in 2008, Rachel and Andrew had conjured up a new type of riding holiday geered towards those who were more serious about improving their riding ability. Coming to the rescue is Antonio Corrales, friend, co-worker and… Oh ya! World Renowned classical and cowboy dressage horse trainer/whisperer extraordinaire (woah – spell check just let me know I had absolutely NO idea how to spell extraordinaire). Antonio was schooled at the Royal School of Equestrian Art in Jerez and has trained horses that have competed literally up to the Olympic level. Unlike many horse enthusiasts in the area, Antonio makes his living off of riding and training horses and a fine living, he does make.

One of these such “Train and Ride” weeks came up quickly once I moved here and I was immediately thrown headfirst into the world of classical dressage. My riding background consists 90% of show jumping with a small amount of clinic dressage and leisure cross-country thrown in there. For those of you non-riders, this would be like if someone saw you playing football well and then assumed since you know what a “ball” is and know how to “handle” it (he… hehe) that you automatically are just as good at basketball or rugby. Not the case, my friends, not the case. But being that I was an employee, especially, I was expected to, more or less, instantly know everything about the dressage he was teaching. And not only that, but to understand it in Spanish and in English (as Antonio speaks absolutely no English – or as he puts it, “I do know English; I know how to say, ‘No’” which for those of you who are not retarded, is the same in Spanish and English).

To say the learning curve was steep would be a gross understatement, but rather than whine about it, I took this as an opportunity to not only drastically improve my Spanish skills, but my dressage as well. On a Train and Ride holiday, the guests are given hour long lessons on Monday, Wednesday and Friday with afternoon hacks back at Los Alamos and whole day hacks on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. It’s a full week of riding and quite an intense holiday. However, the experience you gain is invaluable as you learn everything from basic circles, shoulder in and half-pass to traverse, Spanish walk, piaff and cantering turn on the haunches.

On top of learning how to do cool shit, the horses you get to ride are really where the amazing part of Antonio’s yard come into play. My first experience with such a horse came within my first couple of weeks working here. Rachel had introduced me to Antonio, but that was the extent. He had never seen me ride, never watched me hack out. We went to his yard one afternoon with our riding clothes in the car “just in case.” Upon showing up at the barn, Antonio proclaimed that we were going out for a hack, to get changed and he’d get the horses ready. As he walked out of the barn with the most stunning horse I had ever seen in my life, I assumed it was for him. I had never seen an animal so beautiful. He was a charcoal grey, large fleabitten blaze about 15.2. He was a stallion with the large crested neck that only comes with the amount of testosterone flowing through the blood of a horse with his balls intact.

Dormilon.Antonio motioned me over and I did the comical look over my shoulder to see if anyone was behind me. There’s no way he’s calling to me. But he was. “This is your horse, Dormilon. He is only three so you will need to ride him carefully.” Um. What? So you don’t want to see me ride first to, oh, I don’t know, SEE IF I CAN RIDE? Apparently, Rachel’s word was enough. She said I could ride anything, so Antonio had brought me, well, anything. I took Dormilon into the arena and played around a bit. The horse did anything and everything I asked him. I could lightly shift my weight to the right and he would immediately turn. When trotting, shifting my weight a tiny bit to the back resulted in an instant hault. It was incredible. I had never ridden something so well trained, and I have ridden some incredible horses.

Antonio never second guessed me, never doubted my ability. He corrected me once and other than that let me get on my own way. He told me at the end of the ride I could ride anything he owned. “My horses are your horses,” he said. And horses, he has plenty. The main barn itself, houses only stallions, of which there are about 20. He has two other barns separate which each hold another 20 or so. He has a few geldings and mares which are mostly horses that have been sent to him to be trained.  Most of his horses though, his babies, are stallions. Expensive, hot-blooded, gorgeous stallions.

Expensive, hot-blooded, gorgeous stallions that are now at my disposal. Sorry mom, it doesn’t look like I’ll be coming home for a while.