Once Upon a Time in the Desert

We had passed one of the largest solar power stations in Europe on our way to the Tabernas Desert. A huge billboard from the highway along the desert highway, N-340, proclaimed the Oasys Theme Park. It was the object of our venture into Europes only desert and was one of the places on my "must see" list for Spain. This theme park was built on the original movie sets of the great Sergio Leone westerns. The ones they called spaghetti westerns starring a little know American actor named Clint Eastwood. I remembered the films well. They were some of the first "realistic" westerns. The cowboys weren't all clean shaven and well dressed.  They were rough and crude and smoked cheroots. Yeah, I liked 'em all and now I was going to see where the films were made.

We parked our rented Opal, bought our ticket, and entered the turnstiles to another world. We had visited Old Tucson in Arizona, where a lot of American westerns were made, and naturally tended to campare the two. The teepee on our right looked kind of cheesy, but we continued walking a bit further and wound up on the town square. It looked like a typical western town with a few European architectural details. The sheriff's office and jail with a nearby gallows was on our left, the town square with the bank, saloon, and other businesses on the right.   In the jail  Claudette snapped a picture of me behind bars. I'm not sure of my motivation, but I have pictures of me in jails in Yuma, AZ, Edinburgh, Scotland,  Virginia City, NV, and other cities around the world, but I have never been incarcerated.

For about an hour or so we wandered around the town. People in western garb, some on horseback, wandered around with the visitors. We checked out the livery stable, which had a collection of rolling stock, and the cemetery.  Boot Hill was at the edge of town with the mountains rising behind it. A split rail fence, cacti, and low growing shrubs surrounded it. We laughed about the inscription on one of the tombstones.  George Lucas was the name on the headstone.  A little Spanish joke?

As we continued our way back to the center of town a cowboy on a horse passed us under the brilliant blue Spanish sky. I believe that clouds are illegal in this part of southern Spain.  And the sun...well the rays you feel piercing your skin like thousands of needles of fire.   The sun-bloc was in the rental car. We ducked into the bank building and absorbed its cool darkness. Of course once our eyes adjusted it wasn't really dark at all. It was a museum for movie memorabilia of Italian western films made in Spain. There were dozens of old movie posters and old motion picture projectors.  Claudette translated for me.  As we exited there were two dance hall girls  at the door. I pointed at my camera and said to one, "Photo?" She was tall and slim with blonde tresses under her cowboy hat. With a shy smile she softly said, "Si." Had I not understood the Spanish word I would have still understood her meaning. I've got this thing about having my picture taken with pretty girls...I guess it's some kind of "dirty old man" obsession.

The sound of a piano waifed into the street from the Yellow Rose Saloon, and it beckoned. Behind swinging doors it was semi-dark, with a mirrored bar down the left hand side and a stage at the far end.  We looked around a bit and had an adult beverage with foam on top. It was welcome after our time in the desert heat. While there we noticed that everyone seemed to move for the door en masse.  We were standing on the boardwalk in front of the saloon when a cowboy was knocked off the boardwalk into the dirt of the street. He was followed by another in a yellow duster who jumped astride him and began to pummel him with both fists.  There was a sound of horses approaching as a wagon with a coffin sped by dangerously close to the men on the ground. The horses bared their teeth as the driver pulled back on the reins, stopping the wagon. The driver leaped to the ground clad in top  hat and long black coat.  He was met by two men on horseback who dismounted quickly and ran to the wagon. Opening the coffin they retrieved rifles and walked menacingly toward the bank at our right.  Gunfire erupted, and the men ran from the bank carrying a strongbox.They loaded it onto the wagon which had the coffin, and the undertaker drove away. From the sheriff's office at the other end of the street the men of the law appeared. They were tall men in black suits, white shirts, and string ties. Their six-shooters cracked in the Spanish sun as the bandits made their getaway. Two of the lawmen mounted their horses and chased the robbers, guns blazing.

The town square was empty for a few minutes except for the lonely watering trough in the center. Across the way we saw a mounted rider.  It was one of the lawmen, and he was dragging something behind him, raising a cloud of dust. It was one of the bandits.  What followed was a true horse opera. The villain was jailed, but his companions broke him out of jail, and a gunfight ensued culminating in a hanging of one of the bandits. Others escaped the noose only to be gunned down by the sheriff and his deputies.  All of this with dirty filthy cowboys cursing each other in Spanish. (I really don't know if they were cursing, but they were very angry.)  The background music, reminding me of A Few Dollars More, blasted in the background. At the end of the show a dying villain arrogantly gave the one-fingered salute to his executioner.

It was fantastic!

We went back into the Yellow Rose for an adult libation. (Watching gunfights is thirst provoking) It was crowded, and a band was beginning to play.  Actually, it was just a guy playing an old upright piano and a girl playing a banjo.  They were pretty good.  The girl singer did a stirring rendition of Nancy Sinatra's Boots.  I guess that was kind of appropriate. After the band stopped playing the crowd was getting a bit noisy when the piano player walked into the center of the saloon, pulled out his revolver and fired a shot into the air.  It was deafening.  Things quieted down a bit for the dancing girls to hit the stage.  It was a can-can style show, and we really enjoyed it.  We decided we had had about as much of the old west as we could stand, so it was time to head back to Seville.

By the way, the show in the Tabernas desert far outshines the Arizona desert version even though I couldn't understand what they were saying.