«¡Vaya usted con Dio-o-o-o!» Mediadores de hospitalidad y asimetrías en el viaje ecuestre de Penelope Chetwode, Andalucía, 1961

In 1961, British aristocrat Penelope Chetwode explores Andalusia on horseback. Through her narrative, Two Middle-Aged Ladies in Andalusia (1963), she discovers the hospitality of Spanish villages, facilitated by her status as a woman, her Catholic faith, and her connection to her horse. Aware of the social asymmetry, she attempts to mitigate this imbalance through humor and self-deprecation, though her efforts sometimes fall short of achieving genuine equality in these exchanges. Her idealized view of rural Spain, tinged with nostalgia for a pre-modern era, exemplifies a ‘retrotouristic’ vision in which the country’s authenticity is frozen in the past.