Before we left Granada we took a tour of the big cathedral there. We had planned to go to Almeria, where Bob’s grandfather was from, but it was several hours out of the way and we wanted to spend the afternoon and evening visiting Martti for a second time. He was thinking of coming to Sevilla with us, but decided not to come, so this was our last chance to see him.

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Woke up this morning to rain. We had planned to go to Cadiz on the Atlantic with Martti, but he didn’t feel like going in the rain, so Martti decided to go home. Our friend Vernon for Boston had suggested that we go to the artist colony of Genalguacil, which when we looked it up on the map, was between us and Ronda. Vernon said he knew the Mayor, Miguel Guitierrez, and said we should look him up if we went there.

On the way our GPS kept telling us to go a very long way around. At home we knew we could go in this direction, so we turned off the GPS and saw a road that went from the town Benarrabá. We could see our location on the map, but nothing warned us about what followed.

As we drove through town on the way to road to Genaguacil we saw many people walking down the very narrow streets, hardly wider than the car, dressed in Sunday finest and the women and girls in flamenco style dresses. They were all walking in our direction and as we continued there were more and more people. At the same time the road kept turning and getting narrower, until we arrived at what seemed the end of the road, at the Church, with what seemed the whole town at a festival. No one said anything about us being there, but it was not too difficult to know it was wrong. Finally we got out of the car and tried to speak with people about where to go. It was an experience. There seemed to be some dissagreement about what we should do. Should we turn back, or go back up a different direction where the turn was very tight for the car. Finally most agreed and I trusted the guy that said to go up the hill. Dennis did a great job keeping his cool and after a few tight turns we were back out. Earlier Bob asked the best way to go to Genaguacil and it was a road from the next town.

We were a little afraid to drive through Genaguacil so when the parking lot in the beginning of the town was full we drove back a bit and parked on the side of the road. Later we found out there was a big lot on the far side of town. The town is really nice with examples of art all over to see. Every two years there is an art festival where artists from all over the world submit art to be presented.

We saw a restaurant open for lunch and went in. After ordering Bob said to the girl helping us that a friend of ours had told us to look up someone he knew named Miguel Ángel Herrera Gutierrez. Vernon said he was the Mayor of the town. Not only did she know him, he was her cousin, he owned the building of the restaurant. Bob didn’t understand everything she said but it sounded like he was at his country house. A little later she said he would call him, and we thought maybe we would talk to him on the phone. She said it would take about 30 minutes and we thought he must be busy, so we waited. But then after awhile when we decided to pay the bill we realized that we weren’t waiting to talk with him on the phone, but that he was driving 40 minutes from his farm outside of town to meet with us.

Once he got there, Miguel, who is bilingual, showed us generous hospitality and showed us many things about the town. He also showed us his plans for the Museum and told us a little about his hopes for the town. He said he wasn’t political but we did ask him many questions about being the Mayor and what he thought about local and world politics. It was good to hear his view of things. We wish more politicians could be so honest and make sense. After a coffee in the restaurant he kindly walked us back to our car. What a nice adventure.

Thank you Vernon for the push to adventure.

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