Captain Pinzón: India sighted!

Bayone's history and culture isn't advertised in bright neon lights here. The jumble-sale bookstore, pure chaos, doesn't seem to have any local, regional or national literature in any language on top of the various piles of books. Not much at the Tourist Information either. Just one folder with numbered descriptions of various sights.

But no problem finding Monterreal Fortress, towering on Mt. Boi Peninsula. It guards the western approach to the Bayona harbor. A complete walled grounds, with various turrets and towers. You can walk along the wall. There's a great view of the sea and islands, the city and its beaches. Though the settlement has a 2000 year history, it only received royal privileges 800 years ago. No bloody victories to boast of, it seems, but Columbus' "Pinta" did enter the harbor here, with Captain Pinzón aboard, on the 10th of March, 1493. It was in Bayona that Europeans first learned that "India" had been discovered.

A full-scale "Pinta" reconstruction lies in the harbor and for one euro you can climb onboard. Below deck you can see what it was like to be a cook at sea, and see Indians, encaged, and other souvenirs Columbus and Co. picked up in the Caribbean.

Today in the harbor the entertainment is a little yellow propeller airplane scooping water, then flying over to the dark billowing smoke from over the hillsides. We watch, and film, run after run. It seems to be a sort of drop-in-the-bucket operation. Fighting all that windblown flame. Hope they manage to save somebody's house. By evening huge dark clouds cover Bayona's blue skies, coming against the ground wind. Ashes begin to fall, graying the shiny white yachts on the pontoons.

At 11pm there's a concert in the town Plaza: a dozen or so guitarists playing and singing popular Spanish love-songs. The southern Norwegian-American equivalent would have to be "The Lindesnes Accordion Band". After a "Bolero" we and a pleasant sailing couple from the Netherlands ducked out.

At a cozy sidewalk café we tried out a good Spanish white wine.