At the grave of Juan de la Cruz

SEGOVIA, Spain – All the bad news from home might suggest that in the above heading I’m referring to the "death" of Juan de la Cruz, whose name symbolizes the Filipino people, just as Uncle Sam is the bromide for the Americans and John Bull used to be invoked by cartoonists and lampoonists to refer to the Brits.

The fact is that San Juan de la Cruz (St. John of the Cross) is one of the Christendom’s greatest saints – he was the confessor of the revered Santa Teresa de Avila, better known to devotees all over the planet as St. Teresa of Jesus.

We were brought to the mountain city of Avila last Saturday – at 3,710 feet above sea level – the highest provincial capital in Spain by our friend, Ambassador Joseph "Lani" Bernardo and his lovely wife, Conchitina Sevilla of Karilagan fame (remember?).

Our objective was to visit the convento de Santa Teresa, who became a nun at age 19, but later rebelled against the laxity and lack of true piety of the Carmelite nuns of her day, founding her own reformed Order of Discalced Carmelites in 1562, then went around Spain, with her disciple and spiritual guide, San Juan de la Cruz, establishing more convents of the Discalced (barefoot) Carmelites. Thus Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada (1515-82) became renowned as one of the Church’s most devout mystics, who saw visions of the Baby Jesus, and dedicated her entire life to prayer and reform.

Avila, indeed, has its own cachet as Avila de los Caballeros, or Avila of the Knights, whose gallant warriors earned the distinction of having the right to be in the vanguard of every battle against the Moros – yes, it was from Madre España that we derived that term describing our own Muslims, the Moros of Mindanao.

I’ve seen medieval fortresses and walled cities all over Europe, but Avila’s ramparts are the grandest, most marvelous of all. The well-preserved 11th-century walls, encircling the entire city with 2,400 battlements and 88 cylindrical towers, could have been torn from an El Cid Hollywood spectacular, with Charlton Heston galloping out one of those nine portals to engage the enemy – and Sophia Loren waving encouragement from one of the high, crenellated parapets.

As it was, rain was engulfing this storybook town, and the temperature had plunged to just three degrees Centigrade (whoever coined that expression about "sunny Spain"?) yet a Sopa Castellana and a Chulston de Avila, and a postre of Yemas de Sta. Teresa at the Parador de Avila, which is really the refurbished ancient palacio de Benavidez, was enough to revive us.

Alas, Avila is also the hometown of one of the "evil" figures of history, Tomas de Torquemada, head of the dreaded Spanish Inquisition, who lies entombed in the Real Monasterio de Santo Tomas. Oh well, no region is perfect.

* * *

It’s amazing how easily one can travel by car in Spain these days. The highways and tollways are smooth three-lane affairs, and Avila proved less than an hour and a half’s drive from Madrid. This is partly because efficient Spanish engineers had drilled twin five-kilometer tunnels (two lanes in each direction) through the Guadarrama mountains, whose highest peaks by the way are today capped with snow. When hard winter comes, in December and January, everything in the area will be covered with snow, but this early autumn the leaves are turning gold, yellow and crimson, with many of the trees still verdant green.

After Avila and Santa Teresa, what was more logical than to forge on to the historic city of Segovia the following day (Sunday) to pray at the tomb of San Juan de la Cruz, located in the Convent of the Discalced Carmelites?

Don’t get the impression that suddenly this grizzled old Sinner has suddenly turned pious, but my wife, Precious, certainly is – she would have become a St. Scholastica nun had I not rescued her from her monastic bent. Sometimes, I suspect, she’s not really certain she made the right choice in picking me over a life of sanctity and sanity.

This time, our generous hosts (who drove us there through fog and rain) were Don Gines Garrido y Alart and his charming wife, Amparo, who just retired as vice-president of Spain Red Cross (she did a lot of humanitarian work in Africa). Gines is vice president of the renowned poll survey and economic analysis firm, Sigma Dos Internacional, with branches in Latin America (including Cuba) and has just launched a Philippine operation in partnership with Ambassador Benny Tantoco (of Rustan’s), Jorge "Nene" Araneta of the Araneta Coliseum Aranetas (and the beautiful Stella Marquez Araneta) – gee whiz, I’m beginning to sound like Johnny Litton – plus Jose "Pepe" Rodriguez, although the latter is now back with Agencia EFE here in Madrid.

Segovia is one of the most historic and colorful of Spain’s jewels, perched high on a mountain spur (one thousand meters above sea level), and surrounded by two great rivers, the Eresma to the north and the Clamores to the south.

Legend says the city was founded by Hercules Egipcio, a great-grandson of Noah (of the Ark), around 1076 BC. What’s established is that it was settled successively by Iberians, Arevacos, Vaooeos and Celts – later by the Moros – then the Romans came to bring Roman law, Roman military discipline, and build a towering aqueduct that was to last 2,000 years. It was constructed under Emperor Trajan (although some studies claim it was during the reign of Nerva) during the second half of the 1st century AD. The marvelous structure was dry-built from blocks of ashlar, and were ingenuously put together like a giant erector set with the distinction being that they required no mortar or binding element to keep the stones in place, even the 163 arches. One stretch is even double-storied to overcome the steepest portion of a hill within the city center.

The aqueduct runs for seven kilometers, and used to bring water into the town at the rate of 20 liters per se-cond. You can see the aqueduct reach a height of 28.90 meters in the Plaza del Azoguejo, a miracle of engineering. Luckily, there are no earthquakes in this region.