Thinking of you, Cáceres

Once in a while I remember you, Cáceres, and the memory is so vivid it transports me back decades. I'm in a time warp, flying magically over thousands of miles of scenery long forgotten. Presto. I'm back on Paseo de Cánovas sipping watermelon sangría as the afternoon sun peaks its head over San Jorge cathedral.
What usually brings me back to you is the pungent smell of diesel fuel spewing from an old bus and blending ever gently with a distant scent of garlic and olive oil. Add the tune of some old bolero, and that's the recipe. I'm back on my journey on that Enatcar long haul carrier, destination Cáceres.

It was 1991; I was still wet behind the ears, both exhilarated and apprehensive as we rode deeper and deeper into the mysterious heart of Spain. The flat barren countryside went on for hours, dotted periodically with a sudden cluster of houses, a castle, a casino or two. The bus started and stopped with thuds as Spaniards in red jeans and black leather jackets hopped on and off at villages with grandiose baroque sounding names... Talavera de la Reina, Quintanar de la Vega, Arroyo de la Luz. On the radio, Cadena Dial played long bittersweet ballads of love forlorn. They came in and out with static as we grew ever farther from that fading signal in Madrid. "Me dijiiiste que me queríias... ......pero todo fue mentiiiiira. (You said you loved me.... but all that was a lie). Then a flood of guitar music and repeat, repeat, repeat ad infinitum... Finally, after we struggled to climb up a rugged hilltop, I could see the medieval city of white washed houses and red tiled roofs stretched out before us in the valley. Next stop, Cáceres! Just let it happen.
María Dolores met me as I got off the bus with a "Wow, Vikings do exist, don't they?" and promptly rechristened me as Roncho, short for Roncho el Grande, my Spanish alter ego... well, some remote play on words between my name and a Visigoth king who resembled me. It stuck. That was the only time I remember being greeted with such gusto from a stranger and actually seeing one of those arrival "welcome signs" with my name scratched on it in huge letters. Ok, so it WAS misspelled with several strange H's placed at random, but I could clearly recognize it. My head still spinning from the journey, I felt lost as anyone could be in the world. We watched the 1950 Pullman take off toward Seville, and we both burst out laughing. Diesel was now garlic.

Cáceres is a blur of souvenirs with no beginning nor end, where evening started at noon or rather nights lingered on well into the afternoon. The Spanish literature prof spoke of the Libro de Buen Amor for months on end, the geography prof insisted on the olive grove giving birth to Iberian civilization. The frequent breaks at the bar may have been longer than class time. The morning pick me up was a small insanely strong espresso diluted into a tall glass of rum. The waiter played "Camino" over and over. That was the only place I ever did a back flip or even attempted to. Cáceres gave courage to a push ones limit. The student strike was a welcome festive atmosphere. We marched round and round the city with banners reading "No Spanish blood for oil"! Didn't matter no one knew what the march was about. Did we need an excuse to be rowdy? In the meantime, we partook of tapa after tapa, lots of exotic fish, omelettes, spicy peppers and sharp sheep cheese washed down with gallons of sweet Spanish wine so thick it was like syrup. Of course, every day we had madalenas galore, not to mention the ever-present Galletas Fontaneda. Those crackers tended to show up everywhere. There were the nights the Canary Island girls danced on the bar of Montana with their own cosmic fandango choreography to the B52's "Lov Sack". There were the gypsies sitting on the steps to the old town strumming their guitars "Si tú me dices ven, lo dejo todo" (Just say the word and I'll leave it all for you). I see myself dressed as Pancho Villa for carnival, jumping on human chairs and chanting "un, dos, tres". In a dive decked out all in red, known to locals as the Leaning Tower of Babel, I translated Montse's favorite song for her "If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me?" to which she surprisingly retorted, "I've been waiting for you to say that all night. Now what?" So was that her I accompanied back to the convent for her 6am curfew or was it Inés, the blonde who asked me for every possible way in English to translate the maneuvers she liked do with her long mane of hair? Braid it, pull it back, curl it, tease it, tweeze it, gel it. Haze. I then see myself with a group of people on a farm applauding a gory pig slaughter, and watching them pour the blood into vats of steaming potatoes. What a local delicacy indeed!
I met wannabe bullfighters at a novillada in Cabeza del Buey and poets who weren't aware the golden age had ever come to an end. Amazingly every town, every street, every house seemed to be famous or infamous for some reason or another. They would say... "that's where Ana Pérez's brother's sister-in-law was murdered. She still roams around there on some evenings crying revenge." Yeah, uncanny, but in Extremadura I do have to believe everything. At some point in time, I went to a parent teacher's conference for the six-year-old in the house, played bocce on a rooftop, had party after party, woke up in strange apartments, and went to a wedding of a couple I didn't even know existed. Time rolled by in Cáceres like in a David Lynch film. Before you knew it you were appearing in Chinese restaurants, at the bullring for a quick faena, at a poetry reading, on the balcony of some loft, or chilling and watching Pretty Woman dubbed into Spanish. "Guay, guay" said Julia Roberts. It's either quite magical or a sign of distress when Friday becomes Tuesday and Monday morning is always the beginning of something extra special. In Cáceres, someone's always ready to meet you at the clock tower for a whirl around town. The anecdotes come back when I least expect it like a tap on my shoulder. "Whatever happens, just remember, man. Nothing better in life than pissing a good ale".

Cáceres is like a slideshow image of old pictures projecting onto the wall in any old order without rhyme nor reason. My stay came to an abrupt end the following June. Though the departure day had actually been planned long before I even arrived, I found myself throwing my clothes frantically into my suitcase an hour before the bus was to leave. Why was I at Sala Capitol till the last minute? I definitely wasn't ready to leave, yet I had used up six of my lives there. I didn't even bother to say good-bye to anyone. I wasn't sure at that point if tomorrow wouldn't be just another stroll from the Uni to the Plaza Mayor up the street and to that new home of mine I seldom stayed in for more than a few hours at a time. Lola drove me to the bus station, kissed me affectionately on both cheeks and pronounced the famous farewell saying of spaniards. "A ver si nos vemos, Roncho". (I guess I'll be seeing you sometime). Thus, I got on that rickety old bus. The same old driver took a victory lap around town and then I was gone. My carnavalesque experience was over and I never went back.