El Rocio

For the past two days we have been staying at El Rocio, a small town on the western edge of the Donana National Park. We've had a burst of Summer weather.

Out came the awning. The next morning, however, we woke to thick fog, reminding us that though afternoon temperatures can soar into the high 20s, the starry clear nights are cold, plummeting into single figures. The area, like the Carmargue, is one big swamp, so it's not a surprise that fogs form around dawn. It soon burns off though.

El Rocio is a unique place for a number reasons. Primarily it is the site of Andalucia's biggest romeria when, at Pentecost over a million pilgrims descend on the place. The core of the event is a struggle between the menfolk of various confraternities to gain the honour of carrying the statue of the Virgin in what seems to be like something similar to the kind of mock battle you get at a Shrovetide football match in England. The religious celebrations are preceded by the pilgrimage, when groups of the confraternities, some several thousand strong, travel by foot, horse or gaily painted covered waggons across marshland tracks, dressed in traditional Andalucian costume, partying as they go.

Posh frocks for the pilgrimage

The town itself is built around a huge, ugly pilgrimage church constructed in a kitch neo-fascist style in the early 1960s.

Wedding cake architecture

The rest of the town is built on a grid plan around this, each of the confraternities owning stabling and accommodation which resembles a movie set for a spaghetti western. All roads in the town are covered in soft sand and each pristine white house has a wooden fence in front of it to tie-up the horses.

The whole place looks like a film set

The names of the 100+ confraterities that gather here for the Romerio are placed above their 'houses'

The bikes ground to a halt in the soft sand, the 1km excursion to the local supermarket was hard going

It is a bizarre sight, and impossible to struggle down the soft sandy streets without being assailed by head music composed by Ennio Morrecone, and be overcome by a strong desire to narrow your eyes and take up wearing a poncho. The Lonely Planet guide describes the place as a centre of Andalucian horse culture, whatever that might be. At the weekends apparently members of the confraternities come here to practise partying and have a bit of a canter about in costume. It being Thursday the place was deserted, apart from a senorita riding her beautiful white horse Spanish style - upright in the saddle, with the horse high-stepping along, head-down, as if in a dressage competition.

In the central square there were a couple of guys with open-topped mule wagons hoping to sell rides to the odd one or two tourists wandering about. There were no takers, so they passed the time practising  particularly complex 'palmas' rhythms, and bursting into soulful snatches of solea from time to time.

Under the bright sun reflecting off the sandy streets and pure white buildings, the deserted town echoing to their mournful song did have a haunting quality. In fact the entire place spooked me somewhat, it did not seem real, it felt like being trapped in a vaguely sinister dream.