She might strike you as a “mala mujer” or even a “bruja” (witch): Andalusia will ignite your fantasies, painting them in the fiery hues of those wild, blood-boiling impulses. Too hot to handle in summer, this diva region of Southern Spain is simply smoking hot all year round.
Andalusia isn’t a place you visit with a purpose or a strict time frame. Don’t even try to judge her: she’s as intense as the rhythms of her flamenco and as savage as her corridas. At times, she’s mute and arid, but then, so are you. This is a world of simple, raw power, with a gravitational pull so immense it can dismiss the rest of the universe with a single, resounding “¡Ole!”
The Road Less Traveled: Into the Arid Heart
Many journeys to Southern Spain begin and end at a beach hotel or a golf resort. And yes, if you can overlook the occasional overbuilt resort, the seaside is wonderful. But underestimating the inland? That’s a crime. There’s a splendid, almost cleansing quality to Andalusia’s “carreteras” (highways), preparing you for the profound experience of the towns within. Distances here are long, and the transition can be stark.
I remember my first time driving to Seville from the coast. I started, like any tourist, soaked in holiday excitement – music blaring, loud singing, just another car among thousands leaving Marbella. But after sixty kilometers, boredom set in. Slowly but surely, everything shifted. Cars became fewer. The asphalt became a perfect line slicing through vastness. The fields turned white, uninterrupted, a landscape utterly foreign to rain or human taming. The road began to strip away the world of taverns, motorboats, and flashing commercials.
I frantically searched for things of interest along the road. From time to time, perched on distant elevations, the silhouette of a black bull would appear – those colossal iron bull-shaped markers pointing towards ancient haciendas (ranches). This was the true country of “toros bravos,” the magnificent fighting bulls, growing strong in their ancestral lands.
Life is lived like a flamenco
Seville was home to the legendary “Don Juan” and also to Prosper Mérimée, who worked in the town’s old tobacco factory before creating “Carmen.” Love in these places is intense, the kind you could die for. Yet, if you survive, a wise philosophy teaches Andalusians to eventually take life easy and enjoy it fully. And so they do. Every small Andalusian town exudes peace of mind and heart, often with a touch of Catholic bliss, while the great cities disarm you with their self-sufficiency. In Cordoba, just as in Granada, you’ll feel like an outsider, trying to peek through the door left ajar.
Andalusia is all about drama and thus the heartland of flamenco. Recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, this passionate art form is a powerful fusion of: Toque (flamenco guitar), Cante (singing) and Baile (dance).
Seville, Cordoba, Granada are good spots to catch authentic flamenco, but Jerez de la Frontera is even better, feeling less touristy. Jerez is a gem of Andalusian traditions: it is the birthplace of Sherry wine, it boasts a professional flamenco dance academy and a renowned equestrian school. Tradition has no age here: evenings buzz with traditional music and dance in tiny bars, and you simply must linger in the “Bodegas” to truly understand their wines, and in tablaos to see real flamenco. The Andalusian horses of Jerez are unmatched in dressage competitions and performing the dramatic “passo doble” at corridas.
The Corrida – the story behind the ‘barbarity’
Bullfighting is nowadays frowned upon and corridas (where the bull is killed) is banished in many areas of Spain, but ‘the barbarity’ conceals a lot of poetry and incredible craft. Suit of Lights is the name given to the clothing the Matadors and Banderilleros wear. The design has not changed since the mid 18th Century.
- The Montera is the hat worn by the Matador
- The Zapitillas are the flat soled leather slippers.
- The Capote or Capa means The large Cape.
- The Muleta the small red cape used in the final act.
- The Estoque the curved sword the Matador uses in the final act.
You will say, of course, that bullfighting is barbaric: the joy of seeing a cow get killed!? First, this is no ordinary cow; these are Toros Bravos, special bulls bred in Spain and only for the purpose of fighting in the bullring (or corrida). You should go to the corrida and leave the animal rights issues rest for a night, I say. This is art indeed what they’re doing out there—they have hundreds of years of cultivated history and all noble families in the region are somehow involved in either bull farms or bullfighting. But the extraordinary and truly irresistible part is the raw vibration of the crowd in the arena.
Corridas take place all year round but mostly during the warmer months (spring and summer), in all the cities which have Plaza de Toros (singular) — and I’ve seen one even in small villages. You can check the bullfighting calendar here http://www.servitoro.com/en/bullfighting-calendar. At a corrida — especially in smaller towns — only a small part of the audience is formed by tourists. The rest, and the most active spectators, are locals, and the arenas are full. The locals will make you feel an outsider once more, someone looking through circumspect lenses at a world so self-centered that still relies so completely on its history and traditions.
The energy in the arena awakes primal instincts: the heart is jumping at the first ¡Olé! shouted in one voice by hundreds of people; eyebrows are frowning in disbelief at the sight of blood, and then comes the awe when you witness the crowd’s enjoyment at the final stroke. Everything is taking place exactly as it did two hundred years ago: the bullfighters have the same rituals and the crowd responds the same; the same dialogue, the same respect for the faena – the art of maneuvering the bull – and above all, the same thrill, the same primal participation in the show.
The local audience is ferocious: the crowd is very much into the drama and often dictates the course of the corrida: they can dismiss a banderillero if he did not succeed a double, they ask for the killing coup when their patience is over, watch delighted how the bullfighter cuts the dead bull’s first ear and demand “otra” (another one), the other one to be thrown in the public: everybody is anxious to get one.
You have to know that a corrida can also be a corrida flamenca, with no picadors and the bullfighter mounted on superb horses who dance while they chicane the bull. The moves of the bullfighter with his cape are his art; he can chicane a bull up to its exhaustion and he does it with no visible effort. You feel his faena in the reaction of the public. And you have to pay close attention at his decisive blow which has to be rapid, precise and masterly: the bull will remain on its feet and even move to and fro as if the blow had failed. This is the moment when the matador turns his back at it – and starts saluting the public. After a few moments the bull knees and then lies down. The bull does not die instantly. A banderillero comes and sticks a knife in its head. The whole arena shouts in satisfaction.
After a night like this, the rhythm of the passo doble pulses in your veins, passion takes over, you let your hair down and go dancing and you’ll have the torro bravo for dinner in one of the town’s restaurants – if you know where to search for them. Suddenly, your urban limits are challenged and basic instincts reveal what you’re really made of.
The tercios of the corrida
Act 1
At the President’s signal – a trumpet usually accompanied by drums – the bull enters the ring
The Matador’s assistants, the banderilleros – there are three of them or more – come into the ring from behind the special protection paravans (burladero) and start to chicane the bull.
The Matador enters the ring to get to test the bull himself. The artful series of moves and paces in this phase of the Matador’s first encounter with the bull is called the Veronica; he uses the large capa or cape.
Act 2
The President signals for the second act, the trumpeter sounds for the entrance of the Picadors
The Picador appears as a medieval knight, mounted on a beautiful horse; both man and horse are wearing metal for protection, because a lively bull usually attacks a horse without hesitation. The Picador uses a spear to weaken the neck of the bull, giving him two stings.
This is maybe the most breathtaking phase so far: the Banderilleros (there are 2 or three of them) come into the arena and use a pair of Banderillas (Barbed sticks) each to further weaken the bull. The Banderillas are small spears with curved end that, once they’re piercing the bull’s neck, remain stuck under his skin, fluttering small colored flags at the other end. In placing them the Banderillero must get as close as possible of the charging bull while his arms must be lifted high and straight to plant the banderillas over the bull’s horns.
Act 3
The final act is played out by the matador, with the muleta, the heart-shaped cape and the Estoque, the 33-inch sword. It is a masterly, complex dance-fight with the bull up to the bull’s maximum rage and exhaustion and is ended by one decisive blow with the estoque at a lethal spot at the base of the bull’s head.
