Traveling the Backroads of Spain
by: Michael Modzelewski

Spain may be in Europe, but is seems like an independent continent. It has culture and refinement, but for me, the soul of Spain was not found in its cities. I explored Madrid, impressed at how well-mannered a city can be. In the Prado Museum, the Goyas and El Grecos were awesome but fixed reflections. I wanted to see moving pictures - current yet ancient essences - with my own eyes.

I discovered the spirit of Spain in the wonderful people aboard a countryside train, a vision on the plain, a horse that turned into a centaur and merged with Espana itself.

On the slow train from Barcelona to Madrid, with stops in the many villages between ... the cars packed with both short hoppers and those Spaniards going the full distance, I was a novelty - an Americano sitting next to a window at the end of a row of padded seats full of natives. To communicate, we mixed pantomime and a few words of one another's language. Hands and eyes, feelings more than facts came through. After questions and answers, I couldn't decide if the people around me were related by family or village - their surnames seemed to combine both.

An older gentleman came aboard, sitting down across from me. He wore a black baret, dark suit, pencil-thin silver moustache, and kept glancing at the open book in my lap, trying to read the title.

"Don Quixote," I said. He smiled and turned his palm outward, indicating open plains. "Where many of his adventures took place," he said in firm English.

The group was reaching down in to baskets and bags under their seats for food - each person offering something to everyone else. The patriarch of the clan stood up, pulled down three large suitcases from the luggage rack, and stacked them in the middle of the aisle. The makeshift table was quickly buried under loaves of coarse bread, manchego cheese, baked quail, churros - Spanish fritters, and a jug of Graciano wind - a dry red.

I put out a mesh sack full of melons I had bought in Barcelona and Senor Garcia pulled out a bottle from his satchel that raised eyebrows all around. He poured Andalusian sherry. From my backpack I quickly got out my Sierra Club camping cup, catching the liquid gold - unbelievably smooth and ever so delicate.

As the train rolled along we became one big, happy family - eating, talking, drinking, singing. They saluted Dallas, New York, California - the places they knew of (via TV) in America. I raised my cup to Seville, Toledo, and Torremolinos, then picked up my book - to La Mancha! For dessert, our resident gormand, Senor Garcia, sliced the melons in half, scooped away the seeds, then took out another bottle and poured into each melon cup a dab of Anis del Mono - one of the finest anisettes in the world. The soft sweetness of the melon mingling with the sharp aroma of anise was ambrosia to the senses.

All the talk and musical verses dies out as the Spaniards settled into their habitual afternoon siesta. The dignified Senor Garcia has his head back, snoring.

As I sipped the sherry, the train clacked past the sun-drenched plains, past yet another ancient village, past a windmill and a young woman standing barefoot in a white dress that streamed with each blast of wind stirred by the rotating vanes. She was a tawny statue; a living mirage - Don Quixote's Dulcinea.

Basking in the sun on a straw mat on the beach at Malaga, the center of the Costa del Sol, I dug my heels into the sand and looked at the mountains looming high above the Mediterranean Sea. Then, seeing a man on horseback trotting three other saddled horses along a dirt road, I jumped up and jogged over to the rider, who reined in his horses, removed his black, round brim hat, and beat it free of dust against his leg.

I inquired if he rented out the horses. Yes. We arranged to meet in an hour under a big shade tree down the road. Returning to my room, I showered, put on blue jeans and a denim shirt, which chafed my sunburned skin, and I unbuttoned the shirt as I walked down the dusty road.

The caballero was sitting under the tree smoking a cigarette. Two horses were tethered to a low branch. He stood up, put on his hat, tightened up his bolo tie.
"My name is Paco," he said, extending his hand.
"Me llamo es Miquel"
"Habla espanol?"
"Un poco."

Paco untied the horses and handed me the reins to the roan. We mounted, rode past some large haciendas; and turned onto a trail that ran behind a wooden fence then doglegged up a hillside.

The roan fell into step behind the bay's whisking tail. I looked over the angular white houses - Picasso's cubism - to a shimmering, turquoise sea. The horses topped the hill and trotted across a wide mesa. Ahead was a mountain that started straight up, then rolled back into the sky. The trail upward was a narrow ribbon of switchbacks.

As we ascended, I loosened the reins to give the horse its head and felt his back legs swing under, hooves dig in, the push of thick muscles. Loose rocks rained down....

The mountain continued up in a series of bluffs and mesas - a crude stairway that climbed high into the sky. A few twisted trees clung to rocky faces and withered leaves of chaparral were caked with dust. Buzzards circled.

"Stop for water up above," Paco said. The horses charged up the buff catching the scent of water. When we reached level ground, Paco began to curse: a hundred yards away a band of gypsies were cavorting in a large trough of water.

"Stay close," Paco murmured. We swung in a wide arc around the group.

Fully clothed women and children were flinging themselves into the wooden trough; their clothes were odd combinations of bright colors and the agitated water was both washing machine and bath tub. Their shrill cries ceased when they saw us. Flying out of the water, they stood statue-still, the children hiding behind their mothers' skirts. The gypsy women had thick black manes of hair and round black eyes that glowered out of thin faces.

They looked dirt-poor but their poverty wasn't the standard by which to judge them. This was humanity pared to the essence of pride and fierce freedom. No place was home and they roamed the countryside making up their own rules as they went along. One woman suckled a baby lamb.

Once past the gypsies, Paco puffed his cheeks and then blew out the air.

"Why didn't we stop?" I asked.
"They would steal the horses and eat them right there. Polecats those women are!"

"What about the water?"

He pointed up the mountain. The horses worked hard to gain altitude and amidst their labored breathing, I heard faint bleatings. The rise topped into a flock of sheep - the woollies parted like cumulous clouds in the wind and the horses lowered their heads to navigate. The shepherd raised his staff. Paco tipped his hat.

Clear of the pudgy sheep, the horses tossed heads high, snorted and pranced, reaffirming their nobility. Paco looked over his shoulder and nodded as we cantered across the wide plateau. I reined out of his dust, swinging off to the left. Seeing each other, both horses bolted - galloping flat-out - and the land suddenly dropped away; the horses sailed over an arroyo, then settled down into an easy lope up a well-worn trail.

We came to a house/cantina that served as a way station for travelers on the mountain path. A boy poked his head out from behind a burlap blind, climbed out the window, and ran to us as we dismounted and Paco handed him the reins.

"Agua, Peppito," Paco said, patting the boy's head.

A heavy-set woman came out of the house wiping her hands on a white apron. She and Paco spoke rapidly as she led us out to the open veranda. After disappearing into the house, she returned with a platter of fresh corn bread, a bowl of salsa, and a swollen bota of wine.

Corn bread dipped in that fiery sauce and washed down with wine packed a wallop. As Paco and the Woman made quiet conversation, I leaned on the wooden rail overlooking a dazzling expanse of sea and lost myself in the big sun, which was hovering above a flat shadow; Africa was on the horizon. Again feeling the bota against my shoulder, I reached around and swung it up to squirt a steady stream against the back of my throat.

It was one of life's exquisite moments: high on a mountain in Spain, watching an orange sun plunge into blue sea, horses at the ready, and streaming wine - a red that measured up to the bold surroundings.

I felt a hand on my back. "We must go."

Peppito brought the horses and we swung up into the saddles as the indigo sky darkened. The horns of a new moon appeared and a cool breeze blew against our backs, as the horses picked their way down the bluffs and over the mesas.

"You ride well, amigo."

I told him about the horse I grew up with. He told me of how he rode before he walked, and now how many mouths he had to feed with the little money he made from renting horses.

We rode on without words. Stars glistened. The air smelled of salt and settled dust. My ears caught the muffled roar of surf as the horses swung past the glowing haciendas to the tree where we had started. I dismounted and put money into Paco's hand.

"Tomorrow we ride again - half price. They need to run and they need the sea on their legs," he said.

"Que hora?"
"Before the sun comes over the mountain."

I got up in the middle of the night, lit a candle, and stepped over cool tiles to a small desk where I picked up a pen and continued writing in my journal. A few hours later a horse whinnied so I dropped the pen and opened the window. There was Paco sitting bareback on the bay.

"Buenas dias," he said, raising the reins of the roan.

I put on the denims that smelled of horse and hopped out the window. Paco handed me the reins and I swung up onto the broad back. The horses' hooves clacked over the cobblestones and the sound echoed off the rows of white plaster buildings. Cats padded out of alleys; gulls flapped off a low roof.

As we crossed the dirt road and moved onto the beach, shafts of brilliant light fanned over the blue mountains and the sea curled in sparkling tubes that broke on the sand. I steered the roan through the rectangles left by yesterday's sunbathers as we passed a long row of hotel towers. I looked across at Paco; it was impossible to tell where horse ended and man began.

We moved onto flat sand that the sea lapped with foaming tongues. Paco puled back on the reins and I did the same. With robust energy abruptly contained, the horses bowed their necks and pranced high in place. Paco flashed a smile. HEEE-AHHHHH! The horses bolted. My calves clutched the sides of my mount; I felt him flatten as he surged into full stride, paired hooves striking the sand. His muscles surged in waves and I rode the crests.

The horses ran neck and neck. One nosed ahead and then the other pulled even. I glanced over at Paco - his eyes were full of pride. "Let him go. Let him learn his limit."

The reins jerked through my fingers as the horse sprinted out to top speed. The horse ran and ran on the tips of his hooves. Loose sand didn't slow him - he produced more power. He ran with his nose cleaving the air, sucking that wind into himself, feeding flaming muscles. He would run until his heart burst.

"Woa boy, slooooow boy," I said with my lips in his ear, and gentle, even pressure on the bit. He slowed - rocking half-circles in the air - kicking up a shower of water, "Whoa, runner...." He strutted with his head up, eyes continuing down sea-washed sand.

Pressing my right thigh against his withers, I pushed wet hair out of my eyes and slapped soaked pants in joy, jubilation. We joined Paco and walked back toward the towers as hotel beaches were filling with people.

In front of my small cottage, I slid off the roan and flipped Paco the reins. I told him to wait, and went in to bring out my own bota full of Rioja. We passed it back and forth. Never before did wine taste so good or mean so much to me. It was through the wine- squeezing the skin dry - that we finished our time together. We then wrapped hands and nodded to what we saw in the other's eyes.

The next day I was back on the train, pushing my Eurail Pass through Luxembourg, Germany, Sweden, Norway. After returning from my European sojourn, I find that Spain stays with me. Hardy people, masterful art, lively wine and food, rugged land, and thundering horses are the elements that make Espana glow bright to a traveler seeking a sign, a stirring.