SIDESTEPPING REAL: Travel Near the Netherworld

My partner and I used to joke about our uncanny ability to summon the rain. Every time we planned a trip, or just an outing, it stormed. Our movements in packing must generate the surface winds necessary for hurricanes and tornadoes.

When we first met we took a week to drive to the Grand Canyon and back. Shrouded in grey and white the whole trip. And on the way, somewhere in west Texas early in the night, lights moving and hovering in the grey had us considering the possibility sentient beings emerging from a collision in the time-space continuum.

Or oil rigs moving like drinking birds in a wad of cotton.

We set out on Bright Angel Trail despite the drizzle and the claustrophobic air, slipping in the mud and holding tightly to the path. The back and forth down the steep canyon side with the warning signs about food and water. The drizzle turned to rain and we decided to stop at a shelter to eat our sandwiches. There were about eight of us in the little wooden hut. Smiles and chatter with our hiking partners meant to be overheard as tacit invitations for conversation. We read the names carved into the thick railing. And we heard what sounded like a gunshot. We all agreed it must have been thunder.

The rain didn’t give and the thunder continued, so my partner and I decided to climb back up to the rim and try again the next day. But as we trudged up, one after the other, three rangers passed by in a rush. I thought it odd that they didn’t smile or even acknowledge us. So I began spouting my theories as I always do (much to my partner’s distress). Basing my primary theory on the fact that park rangers are friendly. Not that I’d met a park ranger before, I was posturing my authority in that area based on my acquaintance with Ranger Rick of the Yogi Bear cartoons.

Then we passed the first pile of rocks. A little rock slide. Then after the hairpin turn and the next ascending trail, we passed the second pile of rocks. More rocks. Another ranger. A big rock slide. We didn’t even need to comment aloud on our decision to stop and eat our sandwiches when and where we did. One more hairpin turn, one more stage in the climb and we were stopped by two rangers. One with a crackling radio. The crackling stopped.

As I remember it, the ranger's shoulders dropped then.

The shot was the crack of lighting hitting a boulder leaning over the trail. We were told to wait and keep moving to avoid hypothermia. We were told to stay on the path so as to minimize the chances of a new slide. We were told that the helicopter coming in to take out the family of the deceased may cause a new slide. I think I kicked my partner for taking pictures of the helicopter.

When the rangers finally felt it was safe for us to continue up toward the rim, we had to step around a blanket thrown over a corpse.

There was nothing in the papers the next day.

I’ve already written about our cross-country trip in the US and the rodeo cowboy kicked by a bull. There was nothing in the papers the next day then either.

This is making a very short story long. We now worry that when we travel we may bring with us a different kind of storm.

In the past we have always managed to miss the local festivals by a day or two. In one case only a few hours. While in Pollenca this month we hit the town on the last day of the annual festival: Fiestas of the Patron Saint of Pollenca.

The festival itself is a week-long celebration to commemorate the victory of the Christians over the Moors in 1550. The last day is a mock battle which begins in the town’s narrow streets and culminates on the football field in the evening.

We arrived early in the day in time to see a small procession and a dance. The men danced beautifully to what appeared to be bagpipe accompaniment (If anyone can explain the connection between bagpipes and Catalan, I’d love to know!). And later I was amazed to find that these falling-down-drunk men had accomplished it so well.

One woman explained to me that the bars close their doors to guests the night before. They set up folding tables as make-shift bars. To protect the interiors. We ate lunch outside one of these barricades. Out of ham. Out of cheese. What do you have? They had beer.

Then the canons sounded and the battle began. The narrow streets telescoped the waving sticks and swords. The crowd surged and abated with screams and once I grabbed my youngest and threw him into a doorway out of fear we’d both be trampled. Men in white were covered with beer stains and some with blood. One man, holding his hand over his heart, was carried away by two paramedics.

The woman had also explained to me that the townspeople get a chance to settle grudges every August 2nd.

I thought of Pamplona, the thrill and the danger. What we so often emulate with roller-coaster rides and trips to the lion’s cage at the zoo. There was an energy that I have so rarely felt. Not like a parade or a football game, but something that smells like sweat. Like sex and childbirth and rot. Where extremes of emotion are present in the same space.

For a second time, on the football field, I feared being trampled. By that, I mean I understood it. How it happens, how it ends. My partner grabbed the oldest and pushed him over a concrete divider (into the crumbling stands), then lifted the younger and they both went over in almost one move.

I’m fine, thank you.

The football field has one entrance/exit. And hundreds of Christians were waiting on the dirt playing field. The Moors, in their bright costumes, were rattling at the gate. The entrance/exit gate. I remember looking around and noticing there was no way out. And hoping I wouldn’t need to pee before the battle was over.

The gate was iron and bolted into two concrete pillars. Each pillar must have been 9 feet tall, 3 feet thick. I was on tip-toe trying to see the Moors. My partner reached up with the camera and snapped what we couldn’t see.

The little screen captured the top of the gates. The tops of the heads of the crowd. A man sitting on the top of one of the concrete pillars.

Thousands of people pressed into an arena. The mock swords swinging, the Moors breaking through the gate. And one of the concrete pillars fell.

9 feet tall, 3 feet thick. And the ambulance’s lights snapped on, but the ambulance didn’t move.

My partner said flatly that no one could have lived if they’d been too close to the pillar. On the pillar?

“Someone would have screamed,” I said.
“Everyone has been screaming,” he said.
“Are they going on with it?” he said.
“They went on with the rodeo,” I said.

The Moors poured onto the pitch and the final battle began.

When the battle was over the men and women again rushed through the tiny streets, this time into the church. It was a bit like watching clowns squeezing into a VW bug. It was amazing. Close and hot and sweaty. Determined.

When I got home I looked on the web for some English-language news. I wrote to the author of Alcudiapollnsa to ask if there was news. If everything was fine. He’d not heard that there had been a serious accident this year.

And either way, we go on. It did rain the following day in Mallorca, so we are ready for booking in the Sahara.