A day out with Spainards!

I finally got some time to go out and explore the towns outside of Huelva, in the province.  Some of these towns aren’t too easy to get to without a car because the bus schedule is terrible, with having only one bus out in the morning, or having a few buses but with times tables that only give you about 2-3 hours in the town.  While granted, you don’t really need that much time in the small towns, it’s still nice to have a little bit more time to explore and not having to rush right now.  So, I was blessed with the invitation from my coordinator Belén, to come out with her one Saturday and go explore some stuff with her and her friend Rafa.  So, a couple Saturday’s ago me and my friend Camille got ready to head out “early” at 11 to go see some cool local things with Belen and Rafa.  Yea…leaving to go out for the day at 11 is apparently early for Spainards.  When we were leaving the Dolmen de Soto I commented about how many people were there now, at around 1:30 and Belen goes “yea, well Spainards don’t like to get up early, we left early”.  hahahaha okay, if you say so. 

So what did I do with my day!?  First, we went to the Dolmen de Soto which is in a little town called Triago (I think?).  Apparently there are 200 Dolmen’s in the province of Huelva. And they are essentially underground burial chambers that have been found.  They are under a little hump of ground, kind of looks like a small hill, but it’s circular and clearly very calculated.  Usually when they find the, they find bodies, and drawings all over the stones to depict what’s inside of them.  It was really cool, and in this one, they found a woman and 2 children’s bodies, and the drawings on the rocks depicted women, and stars and other cool stuff. They are pretty small, and not very deep, but there’s rocks that form the chamber, so it’s really interesting to think about how they got these really big rocks standing up and how they form a ceiling and everything.  It’s kind of like Stonehenge, but not really, and it’s underground.  The big rocks are arranged in a way that it forms a small hallway that leads to a “large” (relative to the rest of the space) area where the bodies were found curled up in the fetal position. 

So the first picture is the entrance, the second is the “hallway” sort of thing that we walked through, the third is the large main chamber area and the last picture is of one of the drawings that was on the rocks.  I think it’s supposed to be the symbol for a woman, but I’m not quite sure.

Oh, also, when we went to this tour of the Dolmen de Soto (which was free and amazing) we saw our dear friend who gave us the haunted tour!  It was really funny, because Camille and I were just standing around waiting for the tour to start, and all of a sudden some guy walked up really close to Camille and said “do you remember me?!”  It took both of us a minute to process what he said, becuase of course it was in pretty fast Spanish, then we stared at him and went “OOOOOOHHHH” to which he laughed and said “yea, I don’t have face paint on so I look different”.  Then he proceeded to explain to the group of people who were now staring at us why how he knew us and laughed about how he saw us the other night as well.  It was really a fun experience and we realized that he works for this company that held the two events we went to.  We wanted to get a picture with our new friend after the tour, but he was in middle of his own tour when we finished, so we couldn’t get a picture.  Hopefully next time we go to an event sponsored by this company we’ll see him again and become excellent friends! haha

Next stop, El Rocio!  Now, this city is gorgeous and very different from any other place I’ve been to in Spain.  El Rocio is actually very famous in Huelva Province, and pretty famous in all of Andalucia because of the uniquness of their town and the feria that they have on Pentecost Sunday.  El Rocio is a very small town with very few residents and a lot of visitors.  They are mostly famous for the wild horses that they have, because there are very big wet lands.  When we went we could actually see the horses, which is rare because if there’s not a lot of water they are out further.  But it’s been a pretty wet fall so there was enough water to see the horses from a far.  It was really cool!  El Rocio is also famous for the feria they have on Pentecost Sunday, when they carry La Virgin del Rocio through the streets.  The Cathedral there is absolutely gorgeous, and when we went inside La Virgin del Rocio also happened to be there!  Apparently she doesn’t live in Rocio, she lives in Almonte, so she’s not always in El Rocio.  That explains why there were so many people visiting the Cathedral that day, and why it’s such a big deal.  Let me tell you, it is a gorgeous statue!  It’s pure white, and there’s not words to express how pretty it is.  The figures around the statue are obviously part of the church itself and the statue is on a platform that sticks out.  Also, apparently it’s really well guarded because one day someone stole it to start the procession early or something like that.  I was explained all of this in Spanish so I might have misunderstood some things, but I’m also positive that she’s well guarded for that reason.  It wasn’t a malicious robbery, just something that shouldn’t have happened. 

Oh yea, and did I mention that Pope John Paul II celebrated mass here one time! Yup, JPII celebrated a mass, and seeing as I love JPII, I was psyched when I found out.  They have a plaque on the inside of the church that explains when he came to El Rocio, in 1993, and they also have a plaque on the outside of the church, that depicts him kneeling in prayer, on the balcony where he celebrated mass.  It was so cool!  They also have a bust of his head on the boardwalk type area where you can see the wild horses.  Basically I was really excited.  The church was gorgeous and La Imagen de Nuestra Señora del Rocío is so beautiful that I could have spent so much more time in that church than I did.  I’ll put pictures in a photo album so you can see more of them.  There’s too many photos I want to share of this adorable pueblo than I can fit on here. 

Oh yea, and did I mention that the whole town is covered in sand….yup.  All the streets are made up of sand, and they have posts outside of houses and stores to tie up your horse.  And during the Feria you’re not allowed to have a car, only horses and carriages are allowed on the street.  If you live in Rocio you have to have a special permit to park somewhere else during the week of Feria, and in general families are only allowed one car in the town.  Yea, it’s pretty awesome, but it makes for messy shoes when you leave, shoes full of sand. 

So our last stop was in Niebla, after having eaten the most delicious spinach croquetas ever in Almonte.  Belen and Rafa took us to Niebla for the Medieval fair that they were having, which was like 10x better than the little fair that was in Huelva.  While I wish I could have been at the fair all day rather than just a few hours, it was still so much fun.  Niebla has an actual castle that you can go and visit.  And while it’s mostly ruins, it was still really cool to see.  They had events going on inside the castle, so we paid for the entrance and walked around and on the walls of a super old castle where battles were probably fought and where noble people walked.  It was awesome.  Then, outside of the castle there were little vendors selling chachki’s and sweets and crepes and all the things I wish I could buy.  Also, there was a cute old church that was pretty much destroyed by the great Lisbon earthquake that pretty much destroyed everything in it’s vacinity.  A lot of Portugal and a lot of the region in Andalucia where I live had really big damage done to it.  So when Belen and Rafa took Camille and I to see the old church it was missing….pretty much everything, haha.  There were no walls, no ceiling, just a remnant of what once a doorway, and then the space where the alter should have been, where there was a cross and some pieces of the building left.  It was actually really cool the way they preserved it.  Niebla doesn’t have too much to offer other than the castle and the old church, but it was a cute town and I had a lot of fun.  Camille is a great photographer so we spent a lot of time just taking pictures and taking in the scenery. 

 

Overall, the day was really great, it I was so tired by the end.  I’m so happy I was able to spend some time away from Huelva and also spend some time with my coordinator.  She was so nice to offer me and Camille to go with her, and I need to find a way to repay her some day for her kindness.  Till my next post, on Granada!  Much love. <3 Besos

 

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