A Tale of Two Festivals – Part Three: Cazorla Blues Festival continued….

“..It fell down…so I built another!”

The festival not yet upon us, we continued to explore the town of Cazorla and surrounding areas, discovering the amazing story of the ‘open air’ church that would form the back drop for one of the blues stages. The history of the creation of this building reads like a Monty Python sketch, the architect designing and building it adjacent to the mountain, and on top of a river. The mountain promptly collapsed upon it, the church in turn collapsed into the river, then the rains came, the river had nowhere to go because of the rocks and church debris blocking its course, so it promptly rose up and washed everything about twenty kilometers away. This sort of thing happened often. Personally I think God was trying to tell them something, but well, the Catholics were clearly a stubborn bunch. It stands today as I believe, the only church with a river actually running underneath it!

The River even God couldn’t stop…

It was fascinating to walk beneath the town square and the church, and wonder at the sheer bloody-mindedness that religious zealotry can provoke. There was supposed to be a statue of the virgin Mary in the alcove on the outer wall, but she didn’t make it. Probably too busy manifesting herself at the chapel high up on the ridge in order to put another collection-gathering scheme in operation. Pity, as I would have loved to see her presiding over the blues gig wearing a set of ray-bans and cradling a resonator guitar….

Finally make it to the outskirts of La Iruela-but a long way to go yet!

We finally made it to the Chapel high on the ridge via a punishing and circuitous route that also took in La Iruela and the amazing Castle there. Yes, they’ve got castles and watchtowers coming out of their ears round here, it’s almost reminiscent of that beacon-lighting scene in Lord of the Rings.

The Magnificent Castle at La Iruela

After finding the Castle, we trekked ever higher, and began to double back along the high ridge towards the chapel that we had seen from Cazorla. It turned out, like so many places around here, to have a) a wonderful supply of natural springwater and b) an unlikely legend. call me a cynic, but I’m constantly amazed at the amount of places that magically seem to be the site of some kind of ‘vision’, which then gives rise to some celebration, money, etc, etc…SO lucky, don’t you think?  Judging by the amount of places I’ve visited where Mary’s supposed have rocked up, she was certainly a busy woman, probably on a European tour. Apparently, in this instance, a bolt of lighting struck a rock, cracked it in two, and a shepherd fell down and whacked his head on it. When he came to, the Virgin was looking down on him…mmm…that’s not a miracle mate, that’s concussion.

View from the Chapel on the ridge.

Anyway, we made our way downhill, unconverted, in readiness for the following day, when Walking Stick Man would be the first act to take the stage at one in the afternoon. Unless we had a visit from the Virgin Mary of course.

Watching Walking Stick Man

Chilling in the Old Square

there was a fabulous atmosphere in the square that first afternoon as the sun beat down, the beer and tinto flowed, and everybody immersed themselves in the acts performing. Later that evening, the action transferred to two other stages, including the old bullring where Brazilian blues harp player and singer Flavio Guimaeres and his band with an English Guitarist really impressed.

Plaza del Toros

The old bull rings of Spain make superb concert venues, turning ‘Death in the Afternoon’ into ‘Music in the Evening’, and cultural differences aside, it’s a fair exchange.

The People gather…..

The shows are relentless at these Spanish festivals, particularly this one, acts begin on the first of three stages at on in the afternoon, and wind up finishing in the Bull Ring around five in the morning! The first day was amazing, and there was so much more to see….but that’s in Part 4!

Kev Moore