Life in Cartagena

I've thought of a wizard wheeze to keep the number of posts up. It was Cruces de mayo over the weekend. May Crosses - shrines I suppose dominated by a cross and with an Andalucian theme. Obviously this is blog material even down to the brightly coloured photos . The trouble is I've done it before. We also went to a sort of Mediaeval re-enactment up in the Castillo de la Concepción but that smacks a bit too much of the "dear diary" sort of blog. One problem for your average ethno-sociological commentator is the unflinching cyclicity of Spanish life.The same things keep coming around. I've complained before about the posters for circuses and other shows which say "in the usual place" The fact is that, as a circus operator, you can save a bundle of advertising costs by printing just the one size fits all poster. The circus will be in the same place as it was last year and the year before that and so on. It's only the occasional outsider who wil...

Lots of Spanish men have grey hair and quite a few are as tall as I am. My clothes come from Spanish shops and I have my hair cut here. Nonetheless people recognise me as a foreigner long before I speak. I too play the game of recognising Brits in the street. I'm often right though I'm far from infallible - sometimes they're Dutch, German or Belgians but mostly, when I get it wrong, they are Spaniards. Last night we went out to get a couple of drinks and eat something at one of the Cruces de Mayo bars. As is so often the case at fiesta type events we had to buy tickets first and then hand the tickets over at the bar in return for the food and drink. I suppose it centralises the cash handling, increases security and also leads to a slight over-expenditure on the part of the customers - just to be sure. We joined the scrum at the bar. For once I wasn't too worried about shouting my order through the din. At the bar, there were price lists everywhere...

Cruces de Mayo, May Crosses, is really an Andalusian custom. Murcia, the community, not Murcia City which all we Cartageneros learn to snigger about, shares a border with Andalusia. There are other strong links between Cartagena and Andalusia through the port. On top of that there is a lot of Andalusian blood flowing through Cartagenero veins for the Andaluzes who came to work in the mines out at La Unión. For this, the first weekend in May, Andalusia is everywhere in Cartagena. Local groups tied in with the church, generally through the Easter parades, put up flower crosses as part of a tableau of Andaluz life. Alongside are the temporary bars selling local and Andalusian food. This year there are also lots of bars that have their own crosses possibly better reflecting the priorities of most people out on the streets. Food and drink first, religion after. It's as easy to get a glass of chilled fino or manzanilla as it is to get a beer. Women wearing the flouncy skirt...

About 1250, the year, not the hour, the Christian defenders of Caravaca de la Cruz were thirsty. They'd run out of water and it looked as though the Moorish troops, besieging the castle, were going to capture it at last. But neither side had reckoned on a group of Knights Templar who loaded up some horses with wineskins (I suppose they knew what fish do in water) and ran the blockade. Situation saved. So, nowadays, for a few days at the beginning of May, Caravaca has horses all over the place to remember and commemorate that event. The recreation of the running up the hill to the Castle/Church happens on May 2nd when horses and men run full pelt right through the centre of the milling crowds. For us though our day off was May Day so May 2nd wasn't an option. For my Castillian speaking readers does this sound like a race to you? Concentración del Bando de los Caballos del Vino en la Plaza Elíptica iniciando el recorrido hacia la Plaza de los Caballos del Vino para el Concu...

Those men and women who forged the Empire - the Sutherland Highlanders at Balaclava or those gin and tonic drinking rubber planters in Burma (for the malaria don't you know?) - would be ashamed of us. We got in the car and came home. Over in Murcia they have a week of festivities, the Spring Festival, as soon as Easter is over. The Murcianos think that Carnival is all well and good but, what with the 40 days of Lent and then the soul wrenching that is Easter, they reckon it's all a bit depressing. So why not let your hair down as soon as you can afterwards? We hadn't been able to get over to Murcia, what with having to earn a crust and all, but today we were free to go and have a look see. We were there in time to watch a few musical bands parade through the streets giving away small toys, we got to the firework display and we wandered the city full of life, drink, music and noise. With the exception of a Mexican band who were drilled to perfection it was all a bit sl...

It's Carnival time in Cartagena. Think Rio; think semi naked women with lots of feathers. But that's tomorrow. Today it's chirigotas. Scurrilous songs sung by ad hoc choirs about people, places and things in the news. You know the sort of thing - brave captains who refuse to leave their sinking ships or down on their luck bankers. Chirigotas are typical of Cadiz but we have them here in Cartagena too Now imagine us amongst the audience in the local theatre. A performance that depends on recognisable songs, double entendres, a grasp of slang. We are soon lost. Wallowing. At least we find the inability of the audience to behave properly amusing. Charming maybe. After an hour I haven't recognised anything longer than two short sentences. We sidle away as the scenery is changed. One more cultural experience.

As I came home at lunchtime the streets in the centre of town were heaving with shoppers. In the little square by the Icue statue there was a long queue of youngsters waiting to have their picture taken with whichever one of the Three Kings was on duty. I know it wasn't the African one, Baltasar, and I don't think it was Melchor because, if memory serves me right, he has a big white beard to prove he's European so it was probably Gaspar the darker skinned Asian representative. I could be wrong of course because I wasn't brought up with the iconography of the Three Kings. Strictly Santa Claus in Yorkshire. At work this evening one of my students seemed most put out that I'd never heard of Swarovski jewellery or more particularly their glassware. He'd bought his girlfriend something from their range for Christmas. Just to make sure that the message was rammed well and truly home my last student of the evening asked if I was ready for Christmas. She confessed t...

Cartagena has been celebrating its annual Carthaginians and Romans festival over the past week. There have been various re-enactments of key events in the story including weddings, seaborne landings, a pitch battle and lots of  parades.   Yesterday evening we saw the parade of thousands of people from the various troops dressed in their outfits and we also went on to the big camp where each of the groups sets up a bar cum restaurant to raise money for the next year's event. It's all pretty impressive but, at the same time, it's also old hat; we've seen it before. Alongside the camp there is a market. The traders who spend most of the year selling their overpriced sweets, jewellery and cakes dressed in medieval costume, at medieval markets, don togas for this one. We wandered around, we drank spiced "Roman wine" we ate garum but the stall that impressed me most was one selling a microbrewery beer called Icue.  There's a little statue...

Since the last entry about this huge festival in the town we've seen a Roman Circus with gladiators and beheadings and dancing girls and chariot races, a procession of all the Roman and Carthaginian troops and a battle between the two armies for the city. It's been OK but it hasn't really caught my imagination in the way that Moors and Christians did the first time I saw them. We have just been down to the camp where there are fifty eateries and bars based on each of the different groups. We hoped for a Bacchanalian or at least Epicurean orgy but all we managed were overpriced drinks in a sea of special deals!

We were in Culebrón for the weekend so we missed the start of the Carthaginians and Romans Fesival here in town. This evening it was the wedding of Hannibal and Himilce and we went to see if there was any cake going. We were too far from the stage to enjoy the spectacle so we didn't stay long. Neither did we go on to see the wedding celebrations at the encampment - too old, what with being up at 5.30 this morning and with Maggie wanting to get up early tomorrow morning to prepare some school stuff  - but just being in town surrounded by people wearing togas, leather breastplates, those little metal skirts and carrying spears was pretty good fun. More to come I'm sure.