At El Rocío, no faces were closed to outsiders. We were invited into caravans; told to sit and eat stew and sliced watermelon; dragged into flamenco dances; and instructed to take a siesta after lunch in the grass — otherwise we’d “never survive until Sunday,” one participant told us. Everyone seemed to accept that El Rocío is a spectacle. (El Rocío is televised like a sporting event throughout Spain.) By Friday night, the first of the hermandades arrived in El Rocío, a tiny town that reminded me of Western movie sets I’ve seen in California and Arizona.

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