The lovely, Extremeña Laura. Here we are in her land, our first stop on the way to a tiny mountain town called Guijo de Santa Barbara, in La Vera, an absolutely stunning region of Extremadura. We listened to Vivaldi's Four Seasons the whole way up, because the antenna was broken and it was one of five cassettes we had with us in the car. It was perfect.
Kodak, or Lucas' fancy camera, moments...
Then we went to this tiny town to meet up with a friend of mine for a beer. This town is called "El Gordo" and is known in the area for its many storks. They actually have to put up spikes to stop the storks from building their gigantic nests on crumbling buildings.
Trujillo, a town in the province of Cáceres....
...had one of the most impressive plaza mayors (main squares) I have ever seen. That statue in the background is of the conquistador Francisco Pizarro, who was born in Trujillo. Supposedly this statue was originally a gift to Mexico from United States of another conquerer--Hernán Cortés. Considering the fact that Hernán Cortés nearly destroyed the Aztec Empire, Mexico clearly did not want the statue, and it was instead recycled as a gift to Spain.
The fickle spring weather was scary, but luckily it only rained on us when we were in the car. Here, for the descent into hell, we listened to the Smashing Pumpkins cassette.
Then we stopped in the Wolf Vostell Museum, curiously placed in a natural park in the middle of nowhere about 30 minutes outside Cáceres. Vostell (1932-1998) was a German artist who was friends with Dalí, and you can see why....
His sculptures or installations or whatever you want to call them were focused mainly on human fetishes of the times--lots of cars, televisions and cassettes. Also note that the storks have made this giant sculpture their home...
And this is in the actual city of Cáceres, I wish I had better photos, but I don't. In any case, here are people waiting to see the Holy Week processions, also known to foreigners as KKK gatherings.
We experienced Extremadura in all its glorious history. Here, in Valencia de Alcántara, some prehistoric dolmens.
PORTUGAL
...amazingly, the first time I crossed the border...
I loved the streets of Portugal...sure in Spain they are narrow and winding and charming, but what are these black and white swirlies?!?!
Our turning point in the route (because we did a sort of oval route) was in a city called Évora, a world heritage site in Portugal. This place was so beautiful and charming! And here are the ruins of a Roman temple that lie there.
We had these two very quirky (and old) waiters at this very cool restaurant cave bar where we had dinner. They told us about this "club" so we went, and it was this squat-type apartment with live music, an awesome scene, and 2.50 gin tonics. And that right there in the middle of the picture is our South Korean friend that we met in the hostel. Let's just say she did not last long with the cheap drinks...
Portugese the Strokes. So cool.
The next morning we roamed around with our hangovers and found a flea market, where we bought 10 new cassette tapes!!!!!!
The main plaza of Évora :)
Just lovely...
Our final stop was Mérida, a city famous for it's incredible Roman ruins which were found only in 1912!
The theatre was stunning...
And I'm out of time, just as the camera was out of battery with this last shot. Sorry for the lack in detail, gotta run!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment