Wednesday May 30th - The Caves

The Evening star is so bright here. It practically competes with the moon. Maybe its always been this bright and its taken Sevilla for me to notice. At night instead of talking to myself, I tried talking to her. Maybe I’m going crazy, it just gets so completely lonely in my tiny dingy of a room.
Ship. I’ve decided my little room on the roof is a tiny sailboat, floating above the city. I can here the ebb and flow of the city below – church bells crashing, the drinking of tinto de verano, and the roaming of wild dogs. All the noise of the city is below me, distant; and I alone sailing above. Very Ameliesque in a way (how many people are having organisms right now?). I guess I could I could not have asked for a better homestay.
Wednesday was a somewhat frustrating day. The program hosted a trip to the mines and caves surrounding Huelva – a city about an hour and a half away. We began the day early, completely weary and anxious and ended it in much the same manner. Our first stop was las minas de rió tinto – The mines of Wine River. The mines were… much as mines should be – long dark and cavern like. The one astonishing thing about them was a lake formed by miners pumping water out. As the guide blabbered about compositions of rocks and the mine’s 5,000 year history, all I could do was stand transfixed at the incredible color of the water. The edges were a yellow slowly bleeding into a crimson red giving the illusion of fire due to the high mineral content and acidity of the water. The body of water itself was huge and found deep within a huge desolate valley in the rock- dotted with the stray shrub or fig tree. The overall effect was startling and from our photo vista, difficult to capture with the camera. However, the guide portrayed the place perfectly by conveying the colloquial name of the place: the wounds of the earth (El dolor de la tierra), a place where Gaia herself would bleed red with blood.
Next, we left the mines to go to a tiny village of 4,000 inhabitants secluded deep in the mountains. Linares de la Sierra, the town was called, had approximately one laundry “facility”, two bars, and thousands of cats. Our new, much more enjoyable, very handsome twenty-something year old guía referred to it as something of an anachronism – revealing a Spain of years past. The town DID have one public font that everyone got water from, and ONE outdoor laundry area where people used washing boards to clean there clothes, as they had told us about before. However, what was most memorable about the town was the plethora of cats. It seemed as if cats outnumbered residence. Likewise, accompanying this army of felines where their familiars – ancient old ladies. Indeed at least one of these centenarians was blind, and clearly many more mumbled under their breath. I have suspicions this was the town where old cat ladies came to die. I became completely enchanted with this one stray – a midnight black cat with lime green eyes. I was petting the poor thing – half feverishly with love, half worried about fleas – and it followed me throughout the town. I suppose there were just so many cats and so few people, a few cats fell through the holes of proper welfare. In the end, we (halfheartedly) left. The too-short stay in the eerily empty town was suplanted by a trip to go to see the Grutas de Las Maravillas.
I’m not going to write much about this cave. To me, a cave is a cave is a cave. Stalagmites and underwater lakes and cavern-guides who are hunched over with crossed eyes seem to be universals across the world. In fact, by the time I walked in the cave, I was ready to walk back out and head to Sevilla. After a much to long subterranean hike, we entered our bus and I took an hour and a half nap home. Then continued my dreaming for another two hours on my own bed.
That’s all for now my friends. I hope to talk to each of you soon. I’ll post some pictures of the mine and village soon… I let someone borrow my camera cord.