In the footsteps of Lorca

It is strange how some places or some people keep popping up unexpectedly. As if someone is trying to tell you something. One of the people that I keep on finding on my path is Federica Garcia Lorca. I accidentally passed through his birthplace and the house where he was born in Fuente Vaqueros. I spent the night in Alfacar near Granada, which is one of the towns were he was allegedly killed and buried (almost eighty years later it is still uncertain). I passed an abandoned cortijo (Cortijo del Fraile, picture above) near los Albaricoques where an infamous double murder was committed in 1928 and which was the basis for Lorca's tragedy Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding). In the city of Lorca I got stranded with blisters filled with blood and couldn't continue for a week. My host Antonio, about whom I have written before here, offered me to stay as long as necessary. Because of this I got to know his band, including Veronica, who lives in Murcia. After my recovery I walked to Murcia and stayed at her place. She is an actress and the second night of my stay in Murcia she performed on stage in a theater in Alcantarilla. The play of course was by Lorca: La Casa de Bernarda Alba.


Veronica Bermudez (far right) in La Casa de Bernarda Alba. 
Foto by Joaquín Clares

Like I say, there are more of these connections that keep popping up and why they should is never unequivocally clear (remember Tours?). But it does leave the impression that there is something more going on here than a bit of walking. Maybe the instances above can easily be explained by the fact that I am walking in the region of Lorca's birth and working life, but there were more and more importantly, it is the feeling I get whenever I come across something yet again. It isn't scary, only interesting, and if Lorca wants to be part of my life, he is welcome to it. Now where is the bookshop around here?