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.