Corpus Christi, (the Body of Christ), celebrates the Eucharist and the fundamental belief held by Catholics (and some other Christian faiths) that during the Mass the host (bread) is transformed into the Body of Christ.  Always falling on a Thursday, the feast is now celebrated mostly on the following Sunday when more of the faithful can participate.

We set off at 7.30am from our house in Nueva Andalucia, on a beautiful early Summer’s morning, heading towards Ronda and the mountains beyond.  The road to Ronda is quite spectacular.  After a short while we had passed the industrial estates of San Pedro and the numerous urbanisation that straddle the road.  There are normally several opportunities to glimpse the breathtaking views towards Gibraltar, the coast of Morocco and the Rift Mountains.  Unfortunately today, sea mists caused by the recent hot spell have reduced visibility considerably.  The road to Ronda is a fine engineering achievement that has brought greater prosperity and tourists to Ronda and the mountain villages.  Hanging to the side of the mountains most of the way, the metal barriers providing considerable comfort, it’s bend after bend with few opportunities to pass. There are several opportunities to stop however, to admire the views of the wooded mountains interlaced with ancient goat tracks and several white villages builts centuries ago by the invading Moors – but we keep going.  It’s a quiet morning on the road and we soon reach the summit and it’s momentary moonscape appearance before dropping down towards Ronda. Taking the new bypass we are soon past the town and climbing into the mountains.  We turn off the Jerez road towards Grazalama (the wettest place in Spain) and Zahara is soon visible on a hill in the distance, unmistakable with the Nasrid’s castle perched above it.  Our only distraction was a large snake on the road that I needed to avoid.  We arrive, park and make our way uphill – and what a hill, to the village center whilst listening to the brass band limbering up in the distance.

It was much like any other pueblo blanco until we turned a corner and walked through a stone archway into the main square.  It seemed that the whole village was out preparing for the event later in the morning.  Unlike anywhere else where Corpus Christi is celebrated, the walls of all the houses on the procession route are covered with branches, reeds and flowers with only the front doors visible at ground floor level and cobble streets are covered with coarse grass.  As the vegetation is being arranged in the streets, outside some houses, families are busy preparing little altars with candlesticks and religious pieces, the reason for which becomes apparent later.  From windows and balconies women are hanging lace and embroidered cloths and tapestries under the artistic direction of a husband in the street below.  Time now for a cafe con leche and the servicios.  The first bar was packed but we find some space at our next attempt.  It’s not 9.30am and already the party has commenced as coffee, beers and extremely large measures of brandy and anisette are taken to the tables.

Never believe the time you are told events start in Spain.  Yesterday I telephoned the owner of a small hotel in the main square, 50 meters from the church.  What time does the procession start manyana I enquired – in my perfectly bad Spanish.  10am he replied, without even having to think about it.  Today, as we were walking from our car to the square I asked two ladies sitting outside their front doors the same question, 11am or 11.30am they said.  Mass started at 12 noon and the procession an hour or so later.  Such is Spain.

The 18c baroque church of  Santa Maria de Mesa was much smaller than it appeared from outside, which goes some way to explain why the locals guarded their positions beside the door until the given moment and they were allowed in.  We managed to get two of the last seats available.  It is a pretty church, the main and two side altars all have beautiful gilded carved wooden screens, it is spotlessly clean and bedecked with flowers for the occasion.  Mass passed by with no surprises, there was no organ or piano but the congregation of mostly women sang beautifully throughout.   When mass was over the large Host was placed inside the silver monstrance, the flower girls in their immaculate first communion dresses rush into position and the procession moves out of the church to the awaiting canopy, brass band, quite a large crowd and by now a very hot day.

The procession moved slowly along it’s route, stopping at those small altars that we saw being prepared earlier in the day.  To the obvious delight of the families concerned the priest stops at each one, places the monstrance on the table, incenses it and appears to bless the house and the occupants as rose petals rain down on him from windows and balconies above.  This was repeated numerous times until the circular route returned them to the church where it all started.  The procession ended with Benediction back at the church.  We decided to miss this and head back home to the coast, stopping for a snack on route.

If you decide to visit Zahara some time in the future bear in mind that there are two Zaharas in the province of Cadiz.  You want Zahara de la Sierra (mountains) not Zahara de los Atunes (tuna). The latter is a small fishing community from where the tuna fleet sail into the atlantic. You will however find there some of the best unspoiled beaches on the Costa de la Luz.

The landscape photograph of the village is not mine as I forgot to take one, I pinched it from the internet.  We will be near Zahara later this week and I will take a photo and replace it.

This pilgrimage starts at the Casa Hermandad Romeros de San Bernabe, the (House of the Brotherhood of Pilgrims of Saint Barnabas).  How you become a brother goodness only knows but if you are one you get a matching white polo shirt and a medallian to wear around your neck, with a different colour cord to signify your seniority.  I’ve come across lots of brotherhoods in Spain but no “sisterhoods”  that’s how it is here.

It all starts about 8.30am with thick hot chocolate and churros for everyone, complements of the Feria Committee.  Churros are a type of doughnut mixture queezed out a tube and into hot oil where it sets in a coil.  Smothered in sugar it is cut into lengths with a big scissors and handed out to everyone not on a diet!

About 9.30am a pair of reluctant oxen are joined to a two wheel cart bedecked with flowers, their horns lashed to the yoke.  The brothers sing a song , their banner is placed in the cart and off they go to the village of Nagueles a couple of hours away.  Holy Mass follows and an afternoon of fun.  The day ends with a Gran Novillada in the Plaza de Toros, a bullfight to you and me, when “four brave young bulls” are sacrificed.  What a great shame that four beautiful animals have to suffer and die for fun – and on a day of pilgrimage too!

Not a good day or location for photographs.  By 9am the sun was high, the temperature was in the high 20s and the crowds made it quite difficult – but I did find a pretty girl!

I was there for a week and each day I walked to the river and the ghats (steps into the water) where bathing and rituals take place.  The streets, many no wider than alleyways, were packed with thousands making the same journey at all times of the day and night.  The alleyways were lined with food stalls with pans of smoking oil for frying within touching distance, the more popular ones creating road blocks that were often difficult to pass.  Family and village groups would be seen clinging on to each other so not to be separated.  Despite the crowds, the intense heat and the weight of the belongings that most carried with them, they quietly and resolutely made their way to “Mother Ganga” without a murmur of complaint. With a little help it was possible to identify people from the four corners of India by their dress and headwear.  There was a very intense police presence, the majority of whom just blew on their whistles and pointed and pushed the pilgrims in their preferred direction.  With a pass that allowed me through several road blocks I often failed to understand just why the pilgrim’s journeys were made longer and more difficult than need be?  Once at the water’s edge the mood changed, one could sense the joy and excitement of having at last arrived.

The Ganga Aarti is performed every evening at sunset at the Ha-Ki Pauri Ghat.  It is quite a spectacle to see the priests perform their rituals with their flaming bowls as the crowd chant the holy Aarti mantras.  At the waters edge little clay containers, called diyas, with lighted cotton wicks and flowers are floated away on the river with the pilgrim’s hopes and wishes.  I have included 2 photographs in my Kumbh Mela collection.

The Naga Babas (naked Sadhus) are revered, respected and cared for by the Hindu people.  Many are only ever seen at the Kumbh Mela, spending their time in the mountains and forests meditating and practicing yoga, whilst others will be active in the community where they live.  They really are a sight to behold, their dreadlocks piled onto the top of their heads and their bodies covered with ash from the fire, oblivious of their nakedness.  Their big day is Shahi Shan, the Sadhus Royal bath day.  I witnessed the last at this year’s Kumbh Mela.  In groups determined  (I believe?) by superiority they process from their camps to the Ha-Ki-Pauri Ghat that had been cleared of pilgrims and washed clean before their arrival.  They gathered patiently at the waters edge, most naked, many wearing bead necklaces and some with swords and tridents.  A signal is given and they jump into the river, happy and laughing and many frolicking like children.  Their only audience are the media and the police lined up on the opposite bank and those who will witness it on television throughout India and around the world.  After an allocated time they move off, another group arrives and the process is repeated. This carries on for hours.  It’s not just for the Naga Babas,  swamis and yogis and all manner of holy men participate, many in their saffron robes and under an ornate parasole surrounded by their acolytes and devotees.  Quite a spectacle.

On a couple of afternoons, after several hours by the river, I ventured to Haridwar Railway Station, what a sight that was too.  The large open space in front of the station building was packed with people, most in groups, eating and sleeping and waiting for their train home.  Inside the station there were thousands more.  Every available space was taken as the police with sticks pushed the people back to make space for others to get to and from the trains.  As trains arrived the passengers disgorged with their belongings as others attempted to squeeze past to secure a seat.  With just a couple of (blocked) toilets for thousands of people many had to resort to squatting on the lines in full view of all.  Children would urinate at the platform edge facing the waiting carriage protected by an adult.  What option did they have?  How they coped in the packed trains beggars belief.  No sooner did a train arrive than people clambered onto the ledges around the engine, tying and hooking their bags on anything available, others sat on the carriage roofs.  Most people preferred to cross from platform to platform across the lines, rather than the footbridges.  Arriving and departing trains travelled very slowly proceeded by a railway employee waving a flag and shouting through a portable loudspeaker to clear the lines.

I will never forget my time at Haridwar, an extremely moving experience in every respect.

Click HERE to see all images.

We left our warm hotel in Krakow after breakfast and shared a taxi with an American high school English teacher from Chicago.  The journey of 31 miles was uneventful.  The first surprise was the town of Oswiecim, normal in every respect except that it is located right next to the camp.  I just couldn’t imaging living that close to something that evil!

We entered Auschwitz 1 under the infamous arch and were greeted with the words “ARBEIT MACHT FREI”,  (work sets you free).  As I write this I am reminded that just a week ago the sign was stolen during the night, fortunately the thieves were apprehended before it could be sold.  It had been cut into 3 pieces.  A replica has been erected pending the repair of the original.

As foreboding as Auschwitz 1 is with it’s fences and barbed wire, sentry towers and blocks of brick built prison buildings it did not prepare me for my visit to Auschwitz 2 – Birkenau.

Birkenau occupies a huge open space filled with row after row of mainly wooden cell blocks.  In the centre is the marshaling yard where trains from throughout Nazi occupied Europe deposited their human cargo.  On the tracks visitors had left bouquets of flowers, some fresh that day, some frozen and others dying.  The main building, with the tower through which the trains passed, is now an observation room for visitors, a warm sanctuary.   In my portfolio of images I have included some original photographs to help illustrate how it was at the time.  There is not much of the gas chambers or cremation buildings to see – which rather surprised me.  In one of the original cell blocks are chilling reminders of the past, items removed from the dead; human hair, spectacles, hair brushes, suitcases, prosthetic limbs – and alongside, a pile of empty Zyklon B gas cannisters.

At the Nuremberg Trials, held after World War 2 Rudolf Hoss, the first commander of Auschwitz, stated (perhaps proudly?) that 3 million Jews had been exterminated.  Sometime later this number was revised to 1.1 million, which presumably excluded the Gypsies, political prisoners and others who did not “sign up” to Hitlers new world order.

Much is made by the Jews of their barbaric treatment at Auschwitz and other camps – and rightly so, but it saddens me that the extermination of the Gypsy (Roma) people is hardly ever mentioned.  Records show that Roma men were imprisoned at Auschwitz a year or two prior to the arrival of the Jews.  At the same time Nazis doctors were sterilising their women whom they considered “unworthy of human reproduction”.  It would appear that anything up to 500,000 Roma died at Auchwitz and other camps and thousands more were displaced into Poland.   The Nazi supporting Vichy Government of France deported 30,000 Roma to Nazi concentration camps for extermination.

I know this was all a long time ago and it couldn’t happen again – could it?  Well, it has – in Cambodia (2.5 million), Bosnia (110,000),  Rwanda (1 million) and Darfur (600,000), to name those that come quickly to mind.  In Darfur it is still happening!

You can see all my Black and White Auschwitz images by clicking here. The portfolio will open in a new browser window, close the window to return here.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”

George Santana, Philosopher 1863 – 1952

The fair is held in one very large, hilly field.  Around the one side is a “street” of stalls selling all kinds of clothing, fancy goods, horse paraphernalia, gypsy goods, Crown Derby china, baby prams etc – and lots of fast food trailers selling just about everything you can hold in your hand – and chips with everything.  The centre of the field  is where the mostly cob horses (small breeds sized between a pony and a horse) are displayed and sold.  Compared to the  Appleby Horse Fair (see my slide show here) it was a pretty tame event, but interesting nevertheless.  I met some very interesting folk and learnt a bit more about Gypsy culture and traditions.  It was a good day.

As for the photographs.  Not the most photogenic of events but I am quite pleased with them.  I hope you enjoy them.

Rudyard Kipling wrote after a visit “It is as though we walked down the streets of a small town, so tall are they and  so close do they stand”.

Tropical illnesses and problems at childbirth were the main causes of death and many of the young wives interred were not long off the ships from England, lured no doubt by the promise of a luxurious lifestyle with a gallant and well heeled young officer.  Many tombs are in the shape of massive neo-classical pyramids, pavilions, obelisks and pagodas and one in the shape of a Hindu temple.  The names on the tombs are a veritable “who’s who” of the time.  Included are a descendant of Oliver Cromwell, a great grand-daughter of King Charles II and sons of both Captain Cook and Charles Dickens.  The Hindu temple tomb, now sadly in a state of advanced disrepair, is the resting place of Major General “Hindoo” Stuart (more) who was buried with his idols, I have included a photograph.  A colourful chap it seems who “went native” shortly after arriving in India and was one of the few British officers to embrace Indian Culture.

Unfortunately, much of the cemetery is now a no go area inhabited by drug addicts and thieves who live there in the well built structures.  The caretakers, fearful for their safety, would not accompany me so I only ventured as far as I considered safe. Below is a election of my photographs taken there in 2008, I hope you enjoy them and this little bit of British colonial history.

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Latest News.  I entered the photograph of “Laurel and Hardy” and the red airplane (see it below) into the Evrium Software monthly photograph competition, it was judged runner up.  Thanks Evrium.

On a few hectares of land alongside their finca (house) in the hills between Marbella and Estepona, on Spain’s Costa del Sol, they care for more than twenty donkeys at their breeding sanctuary.  Every day of their lives is devoted to their charges and holidays are a thing of the past.  The temperature during the Summer months regularly exceeds 40 degrees Fahrenheit, but the work still goes on.

Most Saturdays of the year, Marlene can be seen at the Peurto Banus market handing out leaflets and soliciting donations, which is where I first met her.  Without financial support from the public they would be unable to meet the cost of vets, farriers and the food bill.  The sanctuary is open to the public every Sunday and they derive some income from the small number of visitors who leave donations or sponsor a donkey.

In the spare time she doesn’t have, Marlene is President of ANCRA (Asociacion National de Criadores Rasal Asnal Andaluzia) in English,  The National Association of Breeders of the Andaluz Donkey.  For more information click here to go to the ANCRAA website.  The following is her personal description of the Giant Donkeys of Andalucia;

“These are not your average donkeys as fondly remembered from seaside holidays of yesteryear, these beauties are around 1.45m- 1.50m to the wither, which means they are VERY large. Their special gentle character, grey/white colouring and beautiful facial bone structure with their exquisite eyes are their most outstanding features.  As mans’ special workmate, they have carried water, olives, oranges, lemons, farm produce, building materials etc and up in the cork forests they were used for carrying huge loads of cork. In the fields they ploughed and harrowed and sowed in perfect harmony with man.  After work groomed to perfection and dressed in colourful authentic Spanish headgear and backpack etc they carried the romantic young man to the next village to woo his sweetheart! Who could resist man and beast so handsomely presented!! It is only the advent of agricultural machinery, trucks and the motorcar that has made them redundant and therefore expendable, and sadly forgotten.  Suddenly you begin to realize that there are no large donkeys to be seen around and the planet could be losing another member. Please don’t let it happen.”

What I find so strange is that the Andalusians have a great love of horses and like nothing more than parading (read posing) in their national dress astride a beautiful horse, sucking up admiration like a sponge.  Yet these same people have no feelings whatsoever for the “humble” donkey that has served Spain, and their ancesters, so well over the centuries.  Black bulls don’t do to well there either!

In Spain the donkey is considered stubborn and slow.  Second Spanish dictionary descriptions define it as an “idiot”, “oaf” and “stupid”,  so it’s not surprising it’s PR ‘aint too good.  The truth is much different!  They learn quickly, are intellegent and they enjoy the company of humans. Could it be they are only stubborn when human handlers ask too much of them?  I call that clever.

If you are ever on the Costa del Sol, taking a break between golf games or recovering from sunburn, then pop along to the sanctuary and meet Marlene and Steven, you might even get to cuddle a donkey.  You will be made very welcome, as I was.

Details and a map are on the website.