Ruta de Peregrino

Con pan y vino se anda el camino.1

Every year, in July, the town hall of Colindres sponsors the "Ruta de Peregrino" ("Route of the Pilgrim"). It works like this: You go into any bar on Saturday, and they give you a little card with the names of 32 bars in town (that's not all of them). After you order in each bar, you give them your card and they put a little sticker in the square corresponding to their bar. At 8 PM on Sunday evening, you walk through a little doorway that they construct called the "gate of pardon" and turn in your completed card to be entered in a raffle. The grand prize is a trip to somewhere. One bartender told us that normally over 200 people turn in completed cards. What a great idea! With one stone, you're creating a festive atmosphere and giving business to the local merchants! Unfortunately, we were unable to make a serious attempt this year, because Marga's parents came to visit right before lunch on Saturday, and we had to be waiting and preparing for their arrival. We got our card on Saturday night and ended up getting 7 of the 32 squares stamped. Marga's folks are staying until Wednesday because they have the time off work, and we have some activities planned for Monday and Tuesday that you'll have to wait to read about here.

On Sunday, we went to a market in the nearby tiny, but exceedingly quaint, town of Escalante. Marga's father, Juan, was polite enough to highlight for us the problem with buying clothes in a street market.

Escalante's quaintness gimmick is the dark wood railings on the balconies of all the old houses.

The town hall. The flags from left to right are: Europe, Spain, Cantabria, and presumably the town flag.

In street markets, there are no changing rooms. This "personal curtain" was provided in order to minimize public embarassment!

Of course I couldn't let him get away without taking a picture or two. Personally, I think I'd rather be in the street in my undies.

I told him that now we had to buy some shoes and earrings to go with his new dress.

This was taken at 9:16 PM. The sun was a perfect yellow orb above the horizon.

1With bread and wine one walks the path.