2-5 March 2019

We’ve entered the Extremadura region, a part of Spain that has long been under-appreciated by the rest of the world. Much like the American West, the land is rocky and challenging to farm, yet agriculture is still the foundation of the economy. Rugged hills with scrubby vegetation and stony outcrops reminded us strongly of biking through Wyoming and Montana last year. There are still olive trees and oaks, but they are more sparsely sprinkled across the landscape.

One thing we have enjoyed the past few days is the appearance of a few signs of spring. In particular, fruit trees are starting to flower. Many gardens we pass now contain splashes of pink and white blossoms from cherry, plum and pear trees. There’s also a lot more birdsong in the air than when we began our trip last month. It’s invigorating to feel the earth stirring with life. A celebration seems appropriate. In our case, that’s turned out to be Carnaval.

Ancient Cities at the Edges of Empires (3-4 March 2019, 134 km, 83 mi)

Extremadura is one of the most sparsely settled regions of Spain, with only 30 people per square km. So, although there are a few sizeable cities, many communities are quite small. Yet it seemed as though even villages with just a few thousand residents would have a bullfighting ring - reminiscent of the rodeo arenas that pop up in towns across the Western USA.

For Romans and Arabs, Extremadura marked the edge of civilzation. Its name means “hard edge,” reflecting the fact that many fortresses were built on the outer rim of these empires to protect the people living further south. The bigger cities, like Mérida and Cáceres have ancient city centers that are dominated by hulking stone walls, towers and battlements. And even smaller towns tend to be perched on a hill, with a fortress - in varying states of repair or decay. We even passed a few old castles along the route.

Mérida is particularly noteworthy for its Roman ruins. Our entry into the city involved biking across the pedestrian-only Roman Bridge. This is the longest remaining bridge of Roman origin in the world. At 721 meters in length (0.4 mi), with 60 stone arches, the bridge makes for a grand promenade into the city. For centuries, this has been the place where the Camino de Santiago, the famous pilgrimage route crosses the Guadiana River. The river is now embraced by a lovely, landscaped park along both banks.

As we approached the pilgrims’ hostel, we encountered a cyclist coming the other way. He inquired whether we were on the Camino de Santiago, and told us he was the host for the pilgrims hostel. He was heading out to get lunch, but he offered to go back and help us get settled. We were very grateful. Although Gerardo could not speak a word of English, he was very successful at giving us all the information we needed by pointing out where to find the bathrooms, which beds we should use, and pantoming information about the house rules. The pilgrims’ hostel has a wonderful location, nestled within the riverside park, straddling a small canal. Its name, the Albergue de Peregrinos Molinos de Pancaliente suggests that it was once a water mill.

We spent the rest of the afternoon checking out the city center, and seeing what was going on for Carnaval. Back at the hostel, we spent the night in the common room with two other pilgrims: one from Belgium, and the other from Holland.

We’ve been having fantastic luck with the weather, including sunny skies and light winds for the past week. Monday morning brought a big change. We woke up to a heavy, damp mist hanging over everything. Although the weather apps typically do not recognize these misty clouds as “rain,” you get just as wet when you spend time outside. We donned our rain jackets and headed out for a damp, foggy ride.

The cold mist hung in the air unti around noon. As a result, we moved along quickly on our bikes, both to stay warm and to shorten the amount of time we had to spend in the wet weather. The landscape was much like our previous day’s ride, except that we saw a few more orchards, and even passed a few small castles.

Once we reached Cáceres, we had a hard time locating our desired hotel. On this part of the Camino de Santiago, the foot path and the bike route are not very close to each other, so the albergue (pilgrims’ hostel) was not convenient to our ride. We decided to check into a hotel right along our trail. It was discreetly located on a pedestrian-only alley in the old part of the city, which made it quite difficult to find. After taking a couple of wrong turns, and backtracking a little bit, we finally found our spot for the night.

An afternoon walk around the old town was definitely impressive. The 16th-century walls encircling the heart of the city are still mostly intact, giving it a truly medieval sensibility. Extremadura’s heyday was in the 1500s, when many of its young men left the impoverished region to seek their fortunes as explorers in the New World. Quite a few of them returned as wealthy men. They built grand palaces within the city walls, decorated with family coats of arms. Then time stood still. The city remains a maze of tiny pedestrian streets, with the palaces now housing museums, restaurants and hotels. In fact, our hotel has a distinctly gothic feel. The hallways meander back and forth around blind corners and twisting stone or wooden staircases. And the breakfast room has a vaulted, brick ceiling reminiscent of a medieval hall.

Halloween for Four Days

These four days have been the Saturday-Tuesday before Lent. In Spain, this entire period is devoted to festivals related to Carnaval. Each city we visited had events planned for all four days. The festivals and their specific traditions date back at least 300 years. The cities of Extremadura claim that their Carnaval events have been held almost continuously since medieval times.

In Zafra, we joined the crowds cheering the costumed Comparsas (local clubs) as they paraded slowly along a winding route through the heart of the city. This was not Mardi Gras in Rio or New Orleans, where semi-professional teams dazzle the crowd. It was much more of a home-grown event. All of the costumes were hand-made. We saw astronauts and pirates, honeybees with their bee-keepers, and several teams with environmental themes (like water or forests). The whole parade was very family-oriented. The Comparsas included their children in the parade - pushing strollers and corraling energetic toddlers - in miniature versions of their parent’s costumes. And most of the kids on the sidelines were dressed up as well. We saw lots of pint-sized superheros, animals like tigers and frogs, and princesses.

On Sunday, we were in Mérida, the capital of Extremadura, where the city’s ancient Roman walls and Arabic fortress provide a suitably historic feel to the festivities. In the main plaza, not far from our pilgrim’s hostel, the city was celebrating the Bacanal de la Grasa (“fat party”), a gastronomically oriented event that could easily have been dubbed “Taste of Extremadura.” In booths lining the plaza, vendors were serving local products like cheeses, breads, olive oil, wine and Iberian Ham (of course). The center of the plaza was enclosed within a huge tent, where a flamenco singer was improvising her way through complex songs that sounded a lot like a fusion of modern Spanish jazz and gyspy tunes.  And everywhere there were families with kids, all of whom were dressed up in costumes, like an extended version of Halloween.

The celebrations on Monday in Cáceres were more subdued. For the third day in a row, kids were dressed up in their costumes. In the morning, many of them had probably participated in the Children’s Parade. But we missed that event, arriving on our bikes a bit too late. We still were able to see lots of costumed little-ones strolling the city streets with their parents. The evening’s entertainment in the main plaza came from a very talented youth orchestra, playing classical and traditional Spanish music.

We didn’t have a chance to participate in Tuesday’s ritual Burial of the Sardine, and yes, we are talking about the diminutive fish. This event has deep roots in Extremadura’s Carnaval traditions. The sardine represents Carnaval, and is buried or burned to represent the end of the party, and the beginning of Lent. Crowds of “mourners” dress in black and accompany the sardine on a procession to the burial site. After the sardine has met its end, the “mourners” assuage their grief by eating pastries and drinking punch. Unfortunately, Cáceres does not host its own Burial of the Sardine in the city. According to the clerk at our hotel, that’s to encourage the surrounding, smaller communities to hold their own events. Since it was raining hard enough that only the sardine would have been happy, we decided to not go. I’m sorry we won’t be able to share in the mourning of the end of Carnaval.

The weather forecast for the next couple of days is pretty bleak, including steady rain and high winds. So, we may stay put in Cáceres, and take a little more time to get to know this beautiful, quiet corner of Spain.

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