Siguenza, Spain... late 1983

Sometimes we go into that memory bin in the backside of the brain (just north of the cervical, or thereabouts) and open a dusty drawer, sure to find that bit of information we needed in order to start or complete a story. But being our brain such a wonderful instrument and with a mind of its own, so to speak, the drawer it brings forth to be opened definitely has a story, but not necessarily the one we wanted.

And so it was… as I went searching for some more tidbits dealing with my life in Buenos Aires, what came out were some threads of a day which took place earlier, sometime around the fall of 1983. Let’s go to the center of the Castilian Meseta, near Madrid, Spain. At the time I was working with an association of life insurance companies and my job was to go around the world (literally), dealing with the everyday marketing and sales problems of member companies. Sometimes this meant doing some consulting work; most often it involved doing sales and management seminars as well. This short story started with my first trip to Spain, in Siguenza, which is a small, almost still medieval town some 65 miles from Madrid.

After arriving at the Madrid airport late one Saturday afternoon, we (my companion consultant and I) were put into a taxi and bid farewell by our receiving committee of one who, being Saturday afternoon, was probably a low man on a totem pole. He smiled a lot and only told us that it would take about one and a half hour to get to our destiny. The Spanish central meseta (high, flat ground) is very arid and most of what covers it, at least in this area, is a low grass which feeds many sheep, as we found out.  Eventually, as the sun was setting, we wound our way into this small, picturesque little town where all streets were covered in cobblestone. You got the distinct eerie feeling that, at any time, a mounted Caballero would come at you, lance and all. Even the street lights added to the feeling. Although they were electric, they flickered, giving the impression of an old candle, lending to the picture an even stronger feeling of being in another era.

We came to the “Parador” which, as many of these beautiful government sponsored hotels are, is a recovered castle. The original building dates back to the 1200’s; it has been rebuilt twice: once after the Moorish wars (‘round 1400) and last after the civil war (at least the first war was to drive outsiders off…) but always preserving its original flavor. I was given a “royal” corner room, with a four post bed going up to the ceiling and big enough to hold a meeting. I fell on the bed and was out… until cowbells, a lot of “baaaa-ing” and whistles woke me up around 5am. As it turned out, my room was right over the path that the local shepherds used to get their flock(s) out to pasture.  I put my head out the window to see this and was treated to one of the most beautiful, clear sunrises I have seen anywhere. And yes, to a whole bunch of sheep been herded out to pasture, as had been done for hundreds of years.

The rest of that morning we spent inspecting and preparing the room where 25 people would be huddled for the better part of 4 days, receiving words of pure wisdom. How can I describe this room? It was, as we were told, the original banquet room and, by Golly, it could probably hold most of the town in it. The ceilings were high enough to require parachutes for a drop off; we only had a little corner of it, the rest being “partitioned off”.  After getting everything ready, my curiosity got the better of me and I went behind the partitions, to look at the rest of the room. Well, to say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I expected to see a grandiose rest-of-room, but was treated to a darkened multi use warehouse, where everything that could not be put elsewhere in the hotel was stashed away.

I was about to head back, when a ray of sunlight caught my attention. It came from a small door on the far wall to my right and I went to investigate. As I approached, a small cell like room opened before me. Four square walls making a space of about six steps on each side. On the far side, a small barred window opened unto the plains below, and from here came the only sunlight in the room. Off the side walls, there were tile covered stone benches. Immediately, the thought of a jail cell came to mind. Then, I saw the little inscription on the back of the door: “En esta celda, Juana la Loca estuvo presa” it read: “In this cell, Juana la Loca (crazy jane) was held prisoner”. Those of you, who read this and studied Spanish history, will understand when I say that I was in a bit of a story; just as I and most other children had studied it in grammar school in Cuba. Juana la Loca was an important figure of that history; she was held prisoner by her brother in law, who wanted to take over Castile while the real king, his brother, was away in the crusades. She impeded this from happening. This encounter with history would be almost the same as if a modern Frenchman found himself in a room somewhere and read: “here was Marie Antoinette held prisoner…” 

I simply sat by the window and imagined her, hundreds of years ago, sitting and watching, watching and waiting and becoming crazy as time wore on. Afterwards, while in Spain during this and other trips, I was able to visit many other, better known historic places but this first awakening to my history books was quite impressive. Perhaps the unexpected surprise; perhaps the medieval surroundings of the castle and the small town with its cobblestone streets where late at night we walked through empty spaces expecting a charge from Don Quijote or some such; perhaps the people in town, still living much as had been done for the last 2-3 centuries… It all became a surreal story, where I felt transported back in time and into an almost forgotten page in one of my old history books.

Siguenza, Spain late 1983.  A postcard with frayed borders and in sepia, telling of centuries of history.

Be Well, Be Back…