EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALMay 21, 1999
Calle Conde de Barajas, Seville
Mas Canadians
These girls are sportsy. Sportsy’s the word non-sportsy people use
to describe super-athletes. Lindsay and I reminisce about the time my father took his
pedometre over to her tri-athlete father’s house. Bob wanted to show Gil how he could
clock 2 kms a day just by walking from the easel to the kitchen to retrieve a yogurt.
Jane’s fresh from running the Vancouver Marathon. Lindsay’s
got a few triathlons under her belt. This morning they get up and run 15 kilometres –
from the Conservatory along Seville’s riverfront towards the Cathedral and the
Alcazar. Then they grab an orange and head off into the midmorning heat to explore the
city.
Alfi sputters and belches and coughs. We’re still trying to
determine which fuel she prefers. At the moment we’re fixed on leaded 97 octane, but
with the subtle complaint perhaps we’ll try something new next fill-up. At kilometre
75 – three quarters of the way to Santa Maria – the muffler drops and we’re
dragging it along the highway. Now we’re dislodging it altogether and storing it in
the trunk. Lindsay takes a photograph: This is Mosey!
Booming through Aracena. The ladies look like old school mistresses, in
fact, rural Spanish grandmothers, in knee-length skirts and black lace-up shoes. They hold
onto each other when they walk together along the cobbled roads. They’re always in
twos. Alfi roars and echoes off the stone walls. Pedestrians, the ladies, stop talking for
a moment and follow us with their heads.
Javier welcomes us and "Mas Canadians!"…it seems
eventually all of Canada may visit us here, and we’ll bring every one of them to the
Sierra de Aracena to experience Santa Maria. We walk along the surrounding donkey tracks,
meeting up with man and his beast, carrying rusty farming equipment and bundles of
kindling. No tooth, no stirrups, just a woolen cardigan and a long, long conversation with
Javier about a farm, a river, a garden of potatoes. We walk along the river valley, and
through the pueblo Galaroza. We stop for drinks in the village, and Jane and Lindsay catch
more of Andalusia: Fountains and taps in the village gush with icy spring water –
high in magnesium – good for drinking. Men gossip with cold beer, one of them kisses
his son and includes him at the table, and the bartender refuses payment for our drinks,
"Javier never pays, especially when he brings such beautiful women for us to look
at." Then one of the other men gestures towards us, "I have a house on
the hill, too…why don’t you come and stay with me?"
Javier’s friends think he’s hit the jackpot, and it’s a little unfair
– after all, they’re all farmers, too.
It’s the adjustment to the midday meal that’s got the sportsy
girls passed out on the grass in front of Santa Maria. Too much digestion. No matter, they
simply love the heat, and doze contentedly as Javier goes about his business with the
watering of the cacti.
