Andalusia: Road Trip through History

Wow,

What a crazy adventure, where to begin and how?  The last month has been hectic,  March Madness is not just about Basketball,  Mark left Spain and is back in California (visa’s are an unfortunate reality of travel).  With Mark gone, two of my childhood friends, Andy and David came out to visit.  We found a ridiculously cheap camper van rental and headed South, into the heart of Andalusia where Spain’s history is on display and very much in your face.  Semana Santa is a week-long somber ‘celebration’ of Jesus’s story;  it’s where a moribund Catholic Church takes the streets of Spain and reinforces its presence. It’s when the Army, the Church, and the Spanish people get together to celebrate the Reconquista.  All week-long from the biggest cities to the smallest pueblos, Jesus and Mary, cloaked in the silver and gold amassed by Conquistadors so many centuries before, make their way through the winding cobble stone streets of Southern Spain.  The processions often pass the architectural reminders of a time when Spain was an Islamic country.  It’s a fascinating and at times perplexing display of a long, complicated and violent history.

Here is a two-minute taster of what we saw.

Enjoy

Vagabrother Alex