Part of the reason why I’m doing this trip is to find out what Latin America really inherited from Spain, apart from language, guitars and our surnames. The idea that because Latin colonial cities are all designed to a perfect grid, Spanish cities must be the same gets completely thrown out the window in Sevilla. It doesn’t seem sevillanos know what a straight road is - the centre of town is another maze of laneways that you must follow to certain combinations in order to reach a particular destination. If you get lost, there’s rarely any way of going to parallel/perpendicular roads to rejoin your original path.
The city has an incredible buzz about it. It’s hot, crowded, full of little tapas joints and flamenco tablaos. On weekends the city’s inhabitants come out in waves: old timers during the afternoon, young families with kids go out for dinner around eight or nine, and after eleven, the place becomes hostage to thousands of young people filling up tiny squares, as if there was a festival or public concert on, their chatter audible blocks and blocks away as others fill the streets on cars blaring out a mixture of flamenco and pop.
We meet up with Michaela and Jay (Amelia’s cousin and her partner) at a bar around one such youth-filled plaza to work out a plan of attack for the following days. Around 2.00 am we walk out to find the square still pumping, and a police van crawling slowly down a lane way. Three cops come out and start walking towards the crowd. As if by force of some repellent scent, they make the kids disperse leaving an empty square but for a carpet of empty bottles, plastic bags and take away food containers that make the aftermath of a Big Day Out look civilised.
The following morning we meet to explore the city that at one time was repository of the loot brought back from the Americas and is now home to the third largest cathedral in the world, the bones of Christopher Columbus, the Royal Residence, the Sevilla Football Club, bullfighting and flamenco.
In search for something that will feed my curiosity and maybe understand what bullfighting is about, we go to the Plaza de Toros museum, where we get the lowdown on who sits where depending on social status, how the game has evolved since the 17th century and what you’d expect to see every Sunday at the bullring. Basically six bulls are killed by alternating teams, one every 20 minutes, and the winner is decided by a guy who follows certain unclear rules of what good matadoring style should be. Sounds to me as boring and incomprehensible as cricket, except the main instrument of the game ends up as ox tail stew (hey, at least they eat it).
The city has an incredible buzz about it. It’s hot, crowded, full of little tapas joints and flamenco tablaos. On weekends the city’s inhabitants come out in waves: old timers during the afternoon, young families with kids go out for dinner around eight or nine, and after eleven, the place becomes hostage to thousands of young people filling up tiny squares, as if there was a festival or public concert on, their chatter audible blocks and blocks away as others fill the streets on cars blaring out a mixture of flamenco and pop.
We meet up with Michaela and Jay (Amelia’s cousin and her partner) at a bar around one such youth-filled plaza to work out a plan of attack for the following days. Around 2.00 am we walk out to find the square still pumping, and a police van crawling slowly down a lane way. Three cops come out and start walking towards the crowd. As if by force of some repellent scent, they make the kids disperse leaving an empty square but for a carpet of empty bottles, plastic bags and take away food containers that make the aftermath of a Big Day Out look civilised.
The following morning we meet to explore the city that at one time was repository of the loot brought back from the Americas and is now home to the third largest cathedral in the world, the bones of Christopher Columbus, the Royal Residence, the Sevilla Football Club, bullfighting and flamenco.
In search for something that will feed my curiosity and maybe understand what bullfighting is about, we go to the Plaza de Toros museum, where we get the lowdown on who sits where depending on social status, how the game has evolved since the 17th century and what you’d expect to see every Sunday at the bullring. Basically six bulls are killed by alternating teams, one every 20 minutes, and the winner is decided by a guy who follows certain unclear rules of what good matadoring style should be. Sounds to me as boring and incomprehensible as cricket, except the main instrument of the game ends up as ox tail stew (hey, at least they eat it).
We cross the river Guadalquivir to wander up the suburb of Triana, named after Rodrigo de Triana, the guy who happened to be at the Crow’s Nest of a Spanish ship called Santa Maria that fateful morning of 12 October 1492 and became the first westerner to see what we now know as the West Indies.
That night, after a tip off from Michie and Jay’s hotelier, we head over to see some flamenco at the Carboneria, the premier and most authentic tablao perhaps in all of the country, and the most raw of them all. Out the back, in a garage like addition to the bar, are three musicians with no sound equipment whatsoever, playing to a crowd of about 200 people if not more, their music blending with the fans whirring overhead and the sounds of people getting beers at the bar.
What we see is mind blowing: Rocio de Carmen “La Turronera”, dancing and palms, Jordy Flores on guitar and Jose Moreno “El Cano” singing. No fancy dresses, fans, castanets or choreography (the guitarist for example wore a t-shirt, jeans and sneakers). Just the pure emotions of the performers poured out on stage, songs of forbidden loves, life with the gypsies and breakups.
If anything, this is what we learnt from the Spanish – this pure emotion put into music that now has resonances in everything from rancheras to boleros and tangos.
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