Into flamenco country

Ships full of silver and gold left the Americas, and docked at Sevilla.  Those were the golden years of the city, so to speak, when all traffic from the Americas stopped though, when the King and Queen used their palance in the city to greet explorers of the New World.  Several centuries later, Spanish, African, even American people all lived together in the crowded streets of Sevilla and other cities in Andlucia.  The New World was no longer providing riches, and all that remained was a legacy of mixed peoples.

 

This mixed peoples created a mixed culture, and music was no exception.  Out of that fusion was born flamenco, a mixture of equal parts singing, guitar, and dance.  I walked through the neighborhood in Sevilla that claims to be the home of flamenco, then 100km south I had some beers at La Taverna Flamenco, where bulería supposedly originated.  Cádiz, where I am today, is not to be left behind, providing a walking tour of the flamenco neighborhood where renown artists were born, raised, where they learned their craft, and where the music and its mesmerizing beat is everywhere.

 

The episode at La Taverna Flamenco is worth telling in detail.  The tourist map actually had a symbol for places of flamenco importance, and I was walking around seeing if any of them had live music.  At one of these places, a guy who readily introduced himself as a traveling salesman told me that the musicians were about to go on stage and that I should stick around.  Waiting for the music to start, he gave me his sales pitch for these gaudy-looking necklaces which he claimed my girlfriend would love.  He pulled out from under his shirt, tucked into his pants, a brown bag with the product, which he laid out before me.  Unable to tell him that I thought they were horrendous, I just smiled and nodded, while he held a dialogue with himself where he lowered the price from 15€ to 5€.  He continued saying they were "precious", obviously unaware of my lack of interest.  Then the music came on.

 

Unable to resist the touristy urge, I pulled out the camera and took some video and photos, all while insisting to the salesman that I was not going to buy any of his necklaces.  I think that this guy was somehow connected to the bartender, and when it became obvious that I would buy nothing, I think the salesman signaled to the bartender that I was not going to consume anything other than beers and flamenco, at which the bartender called me over and pointed to the sign (which I had not seen), that the flamenco show cost 18€ if at the bar, or 30€ if at a table with dinner.  Having already eaten, and with 10€ in my pocket, I explained that no one had informed me of this when I walked in, and that I would just finish my beer and bounce.  On my way out, asking how much the beers were, the bartender said they were on the house, and I just walked out quickly to escape being accosted by the salesman again on the way out.  WIth the kind of smile on your face that you can only have when you realize that you have gotten something for nothing, I walked home to the youth hostel and had a long night´s sleep.