TE19 Iberian Adventure

San, the Book of Miracles

comforting. You could almost believe that the villages, with their limestone houses and slate roofs, were decorated and positioned there just for your pleasure. Especially when, after miles of woods andnarrowvalleys, thebottomsofwhichthesunsraysneverreach, the road ends in the wide and shining valley that San Antolín shares with two other small villages, Carriles and Cobre, although the latter, almost at the peak, like a kite contemplating its hunting grounds, has only three houses, two of which are uninhabited and whose rooves are sunken like a pair of burst cushions. In San Antolín there is a hardware and agricultural equipment store, a supermarket, three cider houses, a cake shop, six souvenir shops, and two rural hotels. It has a town hall; a Civil Guard barracks; a social center with a few tables, decks of cards, and the odd book; and a medical center, where consultations are held on Thursday mornings. At the taxi rank there are two vehicles that, together with a rickety bus that comes from Villar on market days, serve the entire municipality. There used to be a primary school, but for decades there have not been enough children and the few that there are there usually spend the year in a school in Villar; otherwise, the snow would prevent them from attending school during the winter months. It has been eight years since ADSL arrived and ten since mobile phone coverage arrived, although only from one company. The private television stations did not tune in until 2002. When Marcelino was a boy, all the meadows were clean and combed. He remembers the many families that, during those days, labored reaping and gathering the earth’s offerings. The men slashing down the tall grass with their scythes in precise semi-circles. Thewomen and children, behind them, arranging it 203