Camino I

We did a bit of the Camino de Santiago the other weekend, which was a lot of fun. One of the great things about living in Pamplona is that it doesn't take long for you to get out of the city - start in the centre of town, pick a direction and walk. Within forty-five minutes you'll be more or less in the country, or at least in one of Pamplona's small satelite towns, most of which are very pretty.

As we were walking through the town of Villava, they were having a fiesta. Again, we're not really sure what it was all about as the only signs we could see were in Basque, but it centred mainly on traditional dancing, and music and what I assume was the preparation for ritual sacrifice of the Prancing Twit, who you can see below in his final glorious moments. It's like pagan cultures in which one man was chosen every year to be king, then sacrificed at midwinter in order to guarantee the arrival of spring.

I like that people here are so proud of their heritage. We see things like this practically every weekend, and the striking thing about the various parades and dances is how many young people are involved, both as performers, and as spectators. They're not hanging about looking bored or making fun of proceedings, but neither are they standing about, hands on hearts, tears welling in their eyes from the sheer passion of nationalism. Rather, they seem confident in their culture, and quietly proud. It makes a nice change from  those loveable larrikin bogans with their southern cross tattoos and folksy racsim that we have so often at home, though people do tend to wear flags here as well;

It seems like I should mention ETA here. We were talking to a couple of Spanish girls about out age the other day, and they said that most young people here think that ETA are sort of an embarrassment, and that though lots of people identify strongly as Basque first and Spanish second, ETA are kind of off the radar for the majority of people. Which means that this is the image of Basque nationalism I'll take away with me, rather than as something scary;