We are still at the Costa del Sol staying with my friend Michael.
We have never come near this part of Spain before not being the sun sea etc holidaymakers and, at first sight, the place does seem to be everything one would expect and dread.
There are mile after mile of appartments and house owned by second homers and the planning officer for the area does seem to have spent a lot of time dozing. (quite a lot of them are now dozing at the expense of His Majesty Juan Carlos having been found with Sterling, Kroner and yes, Punts in their home safes.)

The second home belt however is but a thin band and go a couple of miles back into the hinterland and the real Spain is very much alive and well.
On Saturday night we made such an excursion inland up to the hilltop Pueblo Blanco of Gaucín.

A Pueblo Blanco is a white village usually perched on hill tops like the French Bastides but all painted white for maximum protection from the sun and clustered together intersected by narrow shady lanes. They are quite enchanting and I can’t understand why the Spanish tourist office doesn’t use then endlessly on its tourism literature.
I had never heard of them before.

Gaucín is reached by a switchback road full of hairpins with unexpected drops of hundereds of feet.
I was delighted Michael was driving and kept my eyes firmly closed.

Once we got there we parked the car and then we got to know the village quite well.
We got totally lost as we crossed and recrossed the labyrinthine lanes and paths trying to find the Fiesta Flamenco.
Eventually a small boy took pity on us and led us to the barn where the fiesta was taking place.
We wern’t long seated before we realised that we were at a serious recital of male flamenco singers.
Any ideas we had had of ladies in colourful dresses stamping clapping and castinetting were soon dissipated, this was the real thing.
We were treated to a series of performances by just two men, the singer and his guitarist.
I was totally captivated.
When we arrived Rubito Hijo was singing.
He was a young man, perhaps early thirties, and accompanied by a similarly aged guitarist.
The true performance of a flamenco song is highly formal and mannered, seems to follow certain rigid traditional rules but is also open to enormous variation of interpretation and hugely emotional.

Rubito Hijo was a good introduction, being quite young and cool but well capable of turning the emotion when called for.
The second singer was quite different.
El Pele, as witness his reception, had obviously been a huge star but was now of an age with me.
He gave what I suspect was a more old fashioned performance.
His emotional outbursts were very strong, perhaps a little OTT but still extraordinarily engaging.
The best wine was certainly keprt until the last.
There was no doubting why Arcangel was so called.
Small dark slim and bearded and very hansome he could have stepped from any old master’s religious painting.
He sang like an angel too.
Accompanied by an incredibly accomplished guitarist – I kept checking to see was there a second man in the wings playing some of his notes(there wasn’t)-Arcangel was a total contrast to El Pele.
He started off gently and utterly sincerely, I was with him from the begining, but he was well capable of lashing out emotion as demanded.
I almost began to think that I could understand some of the songs as he sang them so expressively. (I speak practically no Spanish)

The crowd loved him too, shouting Ole! after a particularly heartfelt passage and frequently breaking out in spontanious applause if they were particularly carried away with the singing.
I was with them all the way.
As soon as he finished I was gently edged towards the door by the others.
There were some more singers yet to perform but it was now 2.00 am and we had a long and hairy drive down the mountain to do to get back to Michael’s house.

I dreamed Flamenco all night.
If you google in the nicknames you will find all these men on the internet.
As I said they were serious artists.