Why Spain is different Chapter 2: From booze tourism to cultural tourism

Previously, on Spain…

Says Isa Ahmad Al-Razi that in the times of Anbasa ben Suhaim Al-Qalbi, rose in the land of Galicia a wild ass named Pelayo.
Chronicle of Al Maqqar

Pelayo, which can be considered the first Spanish boss, decided to start a business: reconquer the Iberian peninsula at that time dominated by the Andalusian Muslim Infidels, expression that varied with time, as Caesar Augusta and Emerita Augusta became Zaragoza or Merida respectively, into “fucking moorish bastards”.
But apart from boss, Pelayo was a traitor, because history suggests that the original Asturs, somewhat naughty, already showed their dissatisfaction with previous invasions, whether being them the Romans (there are traces of anti Roman motto’s) or by King Bamba’s Visigoth brewers.
Anyway. After getting a bunch of traitors and illiterate villagers to defeat a bunch of scouts, in a way so mysterious and incomprehensible, and in “great victory in front of them infidels thanks to the help of God”, Pelayo was back home and was asked

What about you, man?

And, as a great Spanish chieftain, he replied

Not much mate, we come from killing a bunch of fuckingmoorishbastards.

Everyone was laughing at the joke and the guy, who was just a bit smarter than everybody else, had a glimpse from a new business model, so cunning and really different from the scam of selling watery beer to tourists: to let others do so, while him, well seated in his new palace, was getting a good bit of the grand total.
And so, employing the new necrophilic cosmogony, he took out two inventions from his helmet: the Kingdom of Asturias, born thanks to divine providence, and the precursor to the Income Tax on Societies.
The Kingdom of Asturias Unipersonal State Society (aka Pelayo & sons) began its internationalization. First towards the west, until they reached a wild place, full of mountains and hills where there is always raining and mud and the Earth ends.
Muslims who lived in Galicia gave thanks to Allah for bringing lots of those smelly bearded people, and turned south, to more prosperous lands, with more sun and where the production of horchata was easier.
Meanwhile, on the Mediterranean coast, some chap called Charlemagne took what was the remains of the Roman Empire, convinced the new leader of the necrophilic sect of the lynched palestinian, more popular than ever, to crown him as Emperor and rename the hut into Holy Roman Empire.
Charlemagne made several trips south of the Pyrenees, following the footsteps of his ancestors, and he was able to conquer a part of the andalusis’ territory, and because of them coming from the desert, the business of snow and cold did not fitted very much.
So after a little discussion, someone organized a branding meeting to agree that the smelly lousy bearded europeans would be the owners north of the Llobregat river, creating the first Hispanic March.
The Kingdom of Asturias already controlled the north of the peninsula, and the cheap-beer trade with Visigoth migrants who came from the south. So, someone went making partnerships with the rest of the known world, and used them against Muslim infidels and their fucking sweet white drink.

“I have a friend who …” in a storytelling session, told another friend who had heard a story …

It turns out that another chap called Paio (!!!!!) or Pelayo, a hermit of that rugged area where it always rained and some species of mushrooms were abundant, saw ‘lights on a star forest’ for a few nights. The guy, deeply troubled by those hallucinations, went to his bishop who, when told about the story, answered

The concept is thus the concept. And as I say something, I say something else. You better shut up, I’m in charge of it.

And so he designed a viral ad.
The rumor said that in that area which the sun was never seen, and always was rain, and nobody knew where to go, or if you went up or down… some guy had found the tomb of someone called “Santi”, who escaped the famous lynched impostor 800 years ago, and reached the region … circumnavigating the entire known earth … from the eastern half … in a stone boat.
Most of Europe, despite having evolved by the fact of being connected to the rest of the world, they still remembered the stories of their grand-grand-grandparents, who spoke about a site south-west, where the beer was cheap, the sun was shining, it could be party all day and the girls were spicy.
Besides remembering stories of ancestors, they also kept some traditions, such as not washing, foster self cultivation fleas or getting drown by large amounts of beer. So the virus worked perfectly.

The ‘large amounts of beer’ factor could have been decisive in the fact that nobody stopped to calculate the reality index of the fact that a guy who had escaped a public lynching 800 years ago, could cross all over the world floating on a piece of rock. Either way, everyone ran to see how insane the new discovery was, creating a flow of tourists seeking a place where it was said that a little silver box was found, and if you looked at it with staring eyes slightly crossed, you could see some little 3D figurines. These new tourists were arriving by legions and leaving piles of money in different things, more merrily than before did those who just drank and little more.
From here, marketing experts started creating new products for The Way of St. James, as unleavened cakes or the symbol of this new tourist destination market: a marine mollusk shell that had been transported inland an average of 60 kms from the beach. A sample of efficiency.

Apart from the physical products taking advantage from the cultorum necrofilicum prevailing in Europe, came a whole host of varied legends, thanks to which the magnates of the Kingdom of Asturias started packing with that new business of organized family tourism.

Next chapter…