Every year, the villagers in the remote mountain town of Navalosa in the province of Ávila dress as cucurrumachos for Carnival. They don loud cowbells and wooden masks with curved bull horns that sprout from the temples. A fun game. Cucurrumachos don't really exist, after all. Dani is lonely. Like a quicksand sinkhole in his gut, his loneliness consumes him from the inside out. When Dani puts one of these bull horn masks on, it takes him back to 12th-century Spain. He meets the maker of the mask, a man from northern Spain who immigrated to Navalosa to repopulate the region after King Alphonse defeated the Moors. This man shows Dani that cucurrumachos are real. He teaches Dani how to cure his loneliness. A terrible, terrible cure. Because once you call the cucurrumacho...it never leaves. --- 1- See the location of Navalosa here. 2- Check out the Máscaravila webpage, the association that promotes this cultural tradition in many different villages all around the Gredos mountains in Ávila. If you're in the area during Carnival, right before Lent, you can see it in person. 3- I took some crazy video and photos of the festival while researching and recording for this episode. Still haunts my dreams. You can see it on Spanish Sundown’s webpage, or on Facebook or Instagram, where you can also join our online community. --- © 2025 Samuel Mattern. All rights reserved.

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