Cro-Magnon

Northern Spain's latitude is comparable with Seattle's. Although parts of southern Spain look a bit like Arizona, its Castille (Castle) District is lush and lovely. Roads tend to follow “topo” contours. One doesn’t drive past it; one drives in it. That makes travel in the north of Spain leisurely and enchanting. One is tempted to go back and do it again.

On this day I had reluctantly left Portugal for Compostela in Northern Spain. I knew I had plenty of time to reach Gijon before evening. I would have time to thoroughly examine the countryside that had been brought to my attention when I had been a teenager.

Back then, two friends at the Y.M.C.A. had been studying Spanish intensively. When the Spanish Civil War erupted, they had managed to arrange spending a year in northern Spain, because that was where “it was happening.”

Two letters came describing where they had been. But People with Guns in a war don't ask for passports, so I knew they were at serious risk. When no third letter ever arrived, I assumed the worst. 

I've read several volumes on that sad, quirky, and confused struggle. As I piloted through the gently undulating wooded fields, I began to see ghosts. Were my high school friends there somewhere?

Eventually, looking down a side road to what appeared to be a bakery, I decided that it was waiting for me with food. I eased up the side slope. The baker was surprised and pleased that a "Yankee" had ventured so far into the back country. He came around from behind his display and shook my hand vigorously.

We got into a general conversation. When he learned that I was a classroom teacher, he pointed to a large jar in which were coins and paper notes. A sign pasted around the jar read "para los ninos" (for the children). I offered to put some money into the jar. He shrugged.

Some minutes later, he said if I was in no hurry, he could show me “something special.” He led me away from his shop across a field. We crossed a rivulet to a sharp incline opposite his bakery. There he paused, taking a flashlight from his pocket. Carefully pushing through some heavy brush, he revealed a hole in the hillside. At the entrance to what I could now see was a cave, he bent and stepped in, holding the flashlight so I could follow.

The cave was about twelve feet in diameter. It had a dome shape. I could not quite stand erect. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I made out along the few surfaces what I recognized at once as Cro-Magnon murals. This rural baker had led  me back in time 25,000 years!

Some miles to the east, I knew, are world-famous, well-advertised, and government protected caves covered with these wonders of art. This one was small, isolated, and, from the minimal tracks across the field and at the entrance, rarely ever visited, even by locals.

If these were fakes, they were fabulous fakes, and no one was making any money off them.

The baker was in no hurry to get back to his shop. He never knew how much, if anything, I might put in the “ninos” jar. The only thing he asked of me was to drink a cup of his coffee back at the bakery. (It was awful.) Oh, and to tell him more about my own school room experiences.

What an interesting tradeoff. Even up: I tell him about my classroom, and he takes me to Cro-Magnon originals!