I did not fully grasp the meaning of the title of Jose Saramago’s novel, The Stone Raft, until my first visit to the Iberian Peninsula in 2008. In that fabulous fable, the Nobel laureate Portuguese author depicts an Iberian Peninsula that breaks loose and goes off into the North Atlantic. While the authorities in both Spain and Portugal panic and the tourists and investors flee, five Iberian natives begin a nomad-like peregrination to make sense of the Peninsula’s fractious behavior.
During my own sporadic peregrinations since my first visit, I have been both fascinated and intrigued by the attitude, or the way of being, of the inhabitants of each region or the city: on the one hand warm, welcoming and receptive, and, on the other, distant, self-absorbed and wary of outsiders.
Ultimately, what I found most appealing is the vitality, or the zest for life, they all do manifest without exception.