Yesterday was easily one of the coolest days of my life. Why you ask? Let me explain. It started off with a trip to Las Minas del Rio Tinto. Basically it was this place in the state of Huelva where they used to do a lot of strip mining. They don’t anymore, but there were a ton of really cool views, especially one that looked out onto this huge cliff with a lake at the bottom. The different minerals from the rocks have mixed with the water and turned it red. You can’t drink it, but looks pretty cool. Probably not what you would think of when you say “coolest day of my life,” but it gets better.
After that we got back on the bus and headed to Aracena. This is a small town about 2 hours from Sevilla known for it’s ham and sweets. More specifically, the ham is called jimón serrano and it is basically the leg of a wild pig (or boar?) that they don’t cook, but do something to it and then let it age for like 2 years. It’s a little pricey but pretty good. They even have a museum for it. We eat it fairly often in Sevilla, but I guess it’s supposed to be better in Aracena. Just between us I didn’t notice much of a difference.
After the meat museum, the 2nd biggest draw to Aracena (and reason for our visit there) was its cave. This place was incredible. They don’t let you take pictures inside, so put on your imagination cap and picture and enormous cave with lakes all over the place, awesome stalactites and stalagmites and a ton of incredible views. It looked like something out of the “Caves” edition of Planet Earth. Pretty unreal.
Once we were done there, we high-tailed it back to Sevilla because everyone was going to Cádiz for Carnival. Cadiz is on the southern coast of Spain and has one of the biggest Carnivals/Mardi Gras in the world. We got back at 6:15, sprinted home and ate, and then booked it to the train station to head south. A lot of companies organize trips done there, which most of the people ended up doing, but my buddy Jack and I were feeling dangerous so we decided to follow the locals and take the train. Time of departures for our train = 8:05. Time of our arrival at the station = 8:15. Oops, missed it. No biggie though ‘cause it’s ¡Carnival! Just get on the next one. We also had a backpack jammed with beer we were planning on drinking, but the police there thought otherwise and made us throw it all away. We were there pretty early, but there was already a mountain of beer the police had taken from people and I guarantee they are drinking it all today. Hope you can feel my bitterness.
We got on the train though, and two hours later arrived to what was hands down the most incredible party I have ever been to. Everyone there is dressed up and you couldn’t even walk through the streets. I didn’t take my camera, so hopefully you didn’t take your imagination cap off, but every plaza in this town was packed with people shoulder to shoulder drinking any sort of alchohol they could find. I’m not really that good at estimating crowd numbers, but lets say there were around 6 million people there. There were people from every part of Spain (and lots of Europe) that had come down for this and man was it worth it. Bands were playing all over the place, there was a stage set up with people performing on it, and most importantly, lots and lots of beer. I was dressed up as a Sudoku (fun to say and fun to do) and Jack was a crossword puzzle. Conversations started pretty easy for us most the night. I met a lot of really cool people and had an incredible time. I made it back to Sevilla at about 7:30 in the morning, slept till 2, and then spent most of the day trying not to look too hung over in front of Concha. Long day, but definitely worth it.
*If you want to see some pics of the cave or the number of people at Carnival, google "Aracena caves" or "Cadiz Carnival". Also i should probably mention that we accidentaly ended up at a gay bar one night. Pretty funny. Didnt say too long
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