Pinchos of conviviality
Abandoned ghosty villages. Lands for wolfs and sheeps . The voice of who remains resonates louder and louder – the central power is far and the state is blamed. Bars, hot chocolate and some flutes, enough to stay together.
Thanks to:
Trinidad, Truli and his girlfriend, Perriles, Thomas and the singing women of Tola
Recorded in Hotel Perales, San Vitero, Tola, Alcagnises
LONG STORY SHORT
Tonight the temperature has dropped so low as to freeze the glass of our pilgrim vehicle, who for most of the day follows the shells of Santiago, protected by the whitewashed peaks of the Sierra de Cantabria and the Basque mountains to the north and the Sierra Cebollera to the south, names we honestly have never heard before. Before reaching Leon, we reverse course south, aiming not at the pinnacles of Compostela but at white wind turbines on the horizon. We drive for hours through silent sheds and empty fields, two-story houses made of stone and rough plaster, alternating with stables and a few Basque pelota fields. In the still square of San Vitero, the air smells of a fireplace and an old, doorfront stone lion stands guard over a pear tree, the small gray stone church and the only lighted light in the village, the Hotel Perales. To greet us, three watchful elders, a cylindrical cast-iron stove, a restaurant that has been closed for nearly a decade, two bottled of black Estrellas and Trinidad, formidable, unexpected hostess and church janitor, memory of the village, gruff switchboard operator and disconsolate inventor of meetings, impromptu concerts, family reunions, and jamon pinchos. Never would we have expected such a welcome in one of the many spanish pueblitos, where people die or go, leaving the land to wolves and fires, but also to stubborn shepherd women, passionate singers and proud herdsmen. All it took was a few questions, a few bell taps, and perhaps a few fingers of aguardiente, to resonate the square and wake up that lion.