I spotted Romanesque architecture. “Stop.” “Bathroom?” “Church.” Kepa looks at me as if to say: ‘Spain is full of churches.’ My eyes reply: ‘Humor me.’ He slaps the turn signal, and we descend the off-ramp.
La Mancha is austere; the grays, browns, and blacks of Goya are plain; humorless. The men in their white shirts buttoned to the top, framed by dusty black suits, peer starkly. Their faces say: You are foreign to us.
We enter the church where women are saying a novena. Their cyclic prayers are rising, echoing in and out of phase, like incense.
We are awed.