'Do you know where that is?' I ask.
'Hold on let me ask,' he states and steps out of his car to make an enquiry with the next cab waiting in line. Jim, Sheilds, and I glance at each other and Jim nods towards the door. We get out of the cab as the driver desperately attempts to hold on to his fare by trying to hold the door closed. 'No, no,' he pleads.
'Mate, let us out,' I furiously demand, and he relents. The three of us approach the next taxi in the queue. 'Do you know Carcavelos?' I ask. This time we are greeted with the same ear to ear smile and vigorous head nod accompanied by a pair of vacant eyes. 'Next,' I yell. The performance of the cabbies of this city is one bankable reason I am not expecting Portugal to jump back into the ranks of world super power anytime soon. We work our way down the cars until we find a driver who describes the directions given to us over the phone, follow the harbourside road. Fantastic! Portugal has been given hope of rising again.
We arrive at the apartment building we had been directed to and pay the driver. I am still uncertain as to whether Sheilds is not pulling one over on me and the person we are staying with is a teaching buddy of hers from London.
'I still am drawing a blank on all this,' I confess to the other two.
Riding up the elevator to the top floor no one says anything. We all feel as comfortable as three people would normally be about to house crash on a person that the only one who has a connection to them has no recollection how. The apartment door opens and a flood of relief washes over me. I am certain I have never seen this person before in my life.
'Hi Simon,' greets the girl.
'G'day,' I nervously reply. It is not often that I am left dumbfounded at my own ridiculousness, but this is certainly one such occasion. Sheilds catches the flabbergasted expression on my face and shakes her head in disbelief.
The girl grabs one of our backpacks. 'Come on in. Place isn't very big, but we will find space for all of you.' Her apartment is tiny, but I remind myself gleefully it is free. We drop onto the sofa and take a moment to unwind.
The mystery girl makes her way to the kitchen, opens the fridge and a few cabinets. 'How bout some tucker? I'll just need to run down to the store and get a few things.'
Sheilds gets to her feet. 'I'll come with you and help.'
Jim and I reach for our wallets and hand them to Sheilds, 'don't make her pay,' we instruct her.
'That's very nice of you,' says the girl, 'I thought I would do up a big batch of spaghetti.
Jim and I share a look.
'Please don't let Sheilds choose the tomatoes,' says Jim.
The girls make their way out the front door. 'And for god's sake, don't forget lots of wine,' I yell after them.
Hard yakka
If there are any animal rights activists reading this book they might want to skip this chapter. Any associates of the PETA organization or if you subscribe to the lifestyle of being a vegetarian or vegan I recommend you do too. People with weak stomachs, someone unable to stand the sight of someone writing about blood, or if you are from India and consider bovines as sacred animals then do yourself a favor and quickly move on. Any man married to a woman affiliated with any of the previous groups, best that you sit this one out as well. I just want to save you the hassle. Any reader from the subcontinent who has had a family member maliciously trampled by a cow while on their way to the minimart should get a kick out of it though.
I am trying to get to Paris from Lisbon. As there are no such things as direct rail lines from Portugal to anywhere else in Europe every train traveler looking to escape the limited delights of Portugal must go through Madrid. I visited this capital less than two weeks ago. Apart from the night my companions and I stay awake till 6am to get back into our hotel after we were locked out after missing curfew, there is no sight in the city so incredibly memorable that I want to experience it again.
When last in Madrid myself and my two traveling companions had gone to Puerto del Sol to see the spot that marks kilometer zero in Spain. Sheilds has an odd tendency to walk around cities with her face glued to her Frommer's travel guidebook. She reads about the geography, history, and culture of a town that she isn't witnessing with her own eyes. She is so bad that when we found the marker on the pavement outside the post office that represents the symbolic center of the Iberian Peninsula, Sheilds preferred to look at the picture of it in her book rather than the actual panel on the ground.
My arrival at Madrid's Atocha Central Station is midmorning and I do not get out of Dodge, on the sleeper to St. Moritz, till late evening. What is one to do in this fine city once the overpowering lure of staring at a decorated stone on the sidewalk has evaporated?
Coming near the end of three months traversing across Europe I am completely exhausted with museums, queues, and paintings of unknown, dead, foreign people staring back at me. Probably was fed up two and a half months ago. Just a week or so ago the signs of severe palace fatigue manifested itself when I opted out of a tour of the Royal Madrid Palace with Jim and Sheilds, in preference to sitting on the sidewalk greeting passersby in French. 'Bonjour,' I would say just to see what their reaction would be. I know Mexicans use the word 'gachupin' as a derogatory slur for the Spanish, but if you really want to insult them then pretend they are French. This was excellent practice preparing myself to deal with the famed conceit of Parisians during the impending conclusion to my European trip.
Immediately after my train pulls up to the platform I beeline it to the tourist information center. I anxiously wait till I am served. When exploring Europe for the first time even the most exhausted traveler doesn't want to waste precious minutes not extracting every possible drop of experience from the cultural sponge of the continent. The smartly dressed lady behind the counter greets me with a wide smile.
'Bonjour, I am here for the day. What can I do?' I ask.
'Bonjour? You are not in France,' she courteously replies.
'Thank god for that, eh? That means you would be French. Your husband would most likely be French and your children would be French as well. I don't know how someone would cope with being around all that Frenchness all the time, do you? But don't worry, I know where I am. I just say bonjour to annoy people. I'm in training to spend some days in Paris without attempting to speak their language. Just sharpening my instincts. But that is neither here nor there. Can you recommend to me something to do today?'
'Certainly sir, how about a tour of the Royal Madrid Palace?'
'Do you have any ideas that don't involve a Palace?' I ask.
'You could go to the Puerto del Sol?' She offers.
'Yes, I've seen it. My mate Sheilds didn't, but I at least looked at it. Lovely piece of stone I must say.'
'How long are you here?' She enquires.
'My train to France leaves at 9.30 tonight.'
'That is a long time to wait.'
'Sure is. It would be a long time even in a city that doesn’t have a piece of sidewalk as a major tourist attraction. What can I do with all this time to kill?' I lament.
My vocabulary must have set off the lightbulb in her head. 'Would you like to see a Bullfight?'
'A Bullfight? On a Sunday? Isn't that considered an immoral event on religious grounds for the Sabbath?' I question.
'Not at all. The only problem is that it doesn't start until 7 tonight. You still need something to do for the rest of the day.'
I am now too giddy to care. This news excites me. I will be able to write this experience down on my bucket list just so I can tick it off. 'No worries. Just point me in the direction of a café and I'll work on practicing my interactions with the French for the day.
Bullfights would be considered a late evening event for the rest of the world but for the Spanish it is a predinner occurrence. The inner time clocks for these lovely people somehow got screwed up during the geological separation of this part of the world from Pangea and so they all experience an acute bout of jet lag at about one in the afternoon. So, they all go home to bed for a siesta a
nd then resume normal activity at about six. Or what they consider lunchtime. Dinner is eaten sometime around 11pm and everyone retires for the night at about one in the morning. A bullfight at seven is no different than a Sunday NFL game at one in the afternoon.
I am informed that tonight is a second-tier event so that I shouldn't expect to see any of the big names of the sport. This didn't worry me as I know the names of zero matadors and even the best performing bull gets slaughtered at the end of their debut. What do they do if they bring back a bull for an encore performance? Load the carcass into a wheelbarrow and have some poor bugger push it around the ring chasing the matador? Despite the late start of this event it does allow me just enough time to savor the carnivorous ambience and catch an animal carnage or two, while still making my train departure on time. Perfect.
After a day pounding café lattes and having my heart rate reach the low 200's while sitting down, I make my way on the Metro to Las Ventas station. This is the stepping off point for access to the impressively named La Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas del Espiritu Santo. In English this directly translates to Bullring, minus a few unnecessary descriptive adjectives of the deeply religious association of the Catholic church with live meat butchery. If you find the non-separation of Church and bloodshed odd, then don't. Remember this is in a country where for over 300 years people were censored, tortured, and burned alive, all under orders of the Church during the Spanish Inquisition. I put this discrepancy down to the fact that the Spanish branch of the Catholic Church has an unbelievable marketing team.
This is where the Nazis got it so wrong. If they had given their concentration camps names like Auschwitz of the Sacred Heart they would have been in the clear. Any atrocity done in the name of God gets an automatic free pass. Give a religious tone to something and people can get away with any depravity. The holy gas chambers would be treated as blessed sites. There would be hordes of religious devotees making pilgrimages to them to lay flowers and sprinkle water on themselves.
While I have no specific psychopathic tendencies, at least that I am aware of, I am a great enjoyer of traditions. Bullfighting is one such activity that even if I don't understand the underlying point of it all, much like the game of cricket, I still want to at least see it once. Unlike my mate Sheilds who was offended looking at a picture of a bullfight in her Frommer's guide book. Some people are too sensitive. I find a seat and eagerly survey the stadium. Let the games begin!
A small Spaniard dressed in a snugly fitting tuxedo enters the ring. A reverent hush descends on the crowd. Then a filthy, black beast bursts into the cauldron. The bull stops and stares at the small Spaniard. The small Spaniard stares back. Then nothing happens for a long minute. I am utterly perplexed by what is transpiring in front of me despite the fact there is not an ounce of action. It feels so much like cricket.
Expecting to be shocked at the hostility of spectators towards the poor bull, I sit alone. However, my keen sense of awareness is still trained on the crowd. How contemptable are the Spanish I want to know? Do they really hunger to see a sword wielding head waiter kill a defenseless animal? Imagine my surprise when I realize that even the most ardent supporters of bullfighting sit at the edge of their seat breathlessly waiting instead for one monumental fuck up by the matador. The moment that sees him helplessly impaled on the bull's horns. The diehard fans are not here to witness a predictable victory, they are present to see the hero get wiped out. This sport is a lot like NASCAR stock car racing in that respect.
The small Spaniard twirls his red cape, or 'muleta' as it is properly called, and the bull charges. The moment that happens the small Spaniard soils his pants, so all his mates show up to stick spears into the bull and kill it. Hardly a bead of sweat on the matador, hard yakka for the bull. The small Spaniard bows to the disillusioned crowd then leaves to change his underwear.
That is a description of the presented action part of the performance. What makes bullfighting so enjoyable is the crowd. They really get into it; the Spanish Inquisition wasn't popular here for 300 years without good reason. Spaniards love seeing things innocently put to death. There are hecklers just like any sporting event except that these ones are firmly on the side of the animal. The testosterone percolating beside me in the stands makes this no different than watching a cock fighting match in Bangkok, a human death cage fight in Mad Max 3 Beyond Thunderdome, or a club soccer match in Buenos Aires.
My Spanish is suspect, but I am sure the translation of some of what I hear screamed out from the stands is, 'give me 100 pesetas on the bull.' This is often followed up by, 'make it a fair fight, make the bull have to smell your pants too,' and my all-time favourite, 'look out you dumb idiot, there is a bull behind you!'
The longer I stay the more I realize that the attraction to bullfighting is indicative of a greater longing within the hearts of those who pay their money to sit in the seats. Killing a powerful bull is a metaphor for having the courage to rise up and defeat the insurmountable challenges in life. Challenges we all face. It symbolizes: weeding out and attacking corruption in politics; of battling crippling personal illness; fighting against poverty and economic depression; standing up to bullies in the playground; surviving watching an entire 5-day cricket test; and dealing with the arrogance of the French. It is more than a sport, it is a road map for life.
This thought reminds me that I have a train to catch. I stand up and bask in the last moments of a young bull's life before he became the main processed ingredient in a McDonalds value meal. I gaze over the stands at my fellow bullfight loving brethren. 'Au revoir, mi compadres.'
Books by this author
Wanderlost
Wanderlost 2
Wanderlost 3
Wanderlost 4
Wanderlost 5
TORN
TORN 2
TORN 3
Wanderlost 2 Page 16