Like a virgin

Extremadura is brown and green and relatively flat. Not breathtaking or anything, but I kinda like it. The sun is always shining and the sky is a pretty shade of blue and it all looks like a nice simple landscape painting. Heading east towards Guadalupe it gets hillier (the Sierra de Guadalupe mountains are over here--you're never too far from mountains in Spain) and there are these funny tall skinny leafless trees. Imagine the landscape painting (now with mountains) and then add some rows of black vertical lines, little kid-style. It kinda looks like that.

I came to Guadalupe to see the Monastery of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Back in the fourteenth century a shepherd had a vision or found an icon or something (sorry, details) and so they built the monastery here. Way back when, the virgin of Guadalupe was made the patron saint of all the Spanish colonies in the Americas, which is why there are a lot of Guadalupes from Texas south. Guadalupe, Spain, is a big pilgrimmage site, and really touristy. The monastery itself is incredible: huge, 14th-16th century gothic with Mudéjar tiling on the turrets. I got a little pouty because to go inside you have to take a guided tour. Which would be fine, except it's a group tour and the group is a bunch of other tourists. I hate tourists. They're loud and they bring their kids and they get in my way. It wasn't so bad: The guide spoke loudly and clearly so I could mostly understand, even with the dull roar of the group on the background. The monastery has some really nice art (Goya, el Greco), jewelry, chandaliers, woodwork. After taking us through the non-virgin parts of the monastery, the tour guide left us with some sort of priesty-type person (monk, friar, I dunno). I couldn understand him very well, but I did get that he really wanted us to be quiet (¡Silencio!). After that, whenever I couldn't understand him I just pretended that he was telling the people who were still talking that they were going to hell. He herded us into this little room and before I knew what hit me, there was the virgin and there I was, kissing part of her. I'm not religious, but I usually dont fuck around with religion, either. If I don't believe in the virgin, what business do I have kissing her? But once I finally realized that that's what I was about to do, it would have been obvious and awkward and weird to just leave the line. So I kissed her. What could happen, really? f there's a hell I'm already going there, independent of this one minor act of heresy. And who knows? Maybe I've been blessed or had my sins forgiven or something. It's kind of a weird setup with the virgin (who's really just a very dressed-up doll), and not just because they treat you like a farm animal before you get to see her. She's normally facing the congregation (or whatever you call it--facing so that the people attending the church service can see her). But the tour takes you back behind the alter (or whatever you call it) where they spin her around on this microwave-style turny thing. Remember in Inspector Gadget there was the boss (or maybe he was the bad guy or something, I forget) who would spin around in his big chair, say a few words, and then spin away? It was kinda like that.

I forget why I decided to stay three days in Guadalupe. There's not much to see besides the monastery, and the forced guided tour ensures that seeing it only takes an hour or so. But changing my itinerary once I got here would have meant negotiations and phone conversations that I just don't feel like dealing with so I've had a lot of free time here. In addition to reeeaaallly long lunches, I've been doing a lot of walking. You can see Guadalupe itself in about ten minutes, but if you keep going pretty soon you're out in the Extremaduran countryside. It's pretty hilly, and it doesn't take long before you're looking down on Guadalupe in its entirety: the stone monastery in the middle surrounded by white houses with their orange Spanish rooves, with mountains and nothingness all around. I was coming back from wandering a while in some direction the other day when I started hearing voices. Really. But wouldn't god know better than to talk to me in muffled Spanish? Turns out the monastery loudly broadcasts some sort of message every day at noon. No religious experience for me.

On the bus ride here I met this Chilean man named Valter (not sure how you spell it, but he was very clear that he's not Walter or Wally). Valter came to Spain to visit his son who lives in Madrid, but the son was busy working all the time so Valter hit the road. Isn´t that sad? But good for him that he's not just moping around Madrid. He had been in Trujillo, home of Francisco Pizarro, and after Guadalupe was going to Medellín, home of Hernán Cortés, and then to some other Extremaduran town, home of some other conquistador. I asked what he thought about the Spanish taking over (most of) South America and he said that European dominance was inevitable, he was just glad it was the Spanish who came first and not the Dutch or the English. I've got no problems with the Dutch or the English, but Spain does have better food.