#atocha

Approaching Atocha Station by bus

IRYO: “Estoy invadiendo el carril contrario, necesito que paréis la circulación”

Atocha: “Tranquilo, no hay ningún tren llegando”

1622 Atocha Grade 1 Cob, 8 Reale with Tag and COA. Potosi Bolivia. Shipwreck silver pieces of 8

Photography by the-way-we-were (2016):

A Rare Spanish Colonial Silver-Gilt Two-Handled Cup from the Atocha Shipwreck Bogotá, Colombia, circa 1620

Nuestra Señora de Atocha was a Spanish treasure galleon and the most widely known vessel of a fleet of ships that sank in a hurricane off the Florida Keys in 1622. At the time of her sinking, Nuestra Señora de Atocha was heavily laden with copper, silver, gold, tobacco, gems, and indigo from Spanish ports at Cartagena and Porto Bello in New Granada (present-day Colombia and Panama, respectively) and Havana, bound for Spain. The Nuestra Señora de Atocha was named for the Basilica of Nuestra Señora de Atocha in Madrid, Spain. It was a heavily armed Spanish galleon that served as the almirante (rear guard) for the Spanish fleet. It would trail behind the other ships in the flota to prevent an attack from the rear.

That moment - to this ... may be years in the way they measure, but it's only one sentence back in my mind - there are so many days when living stops and pulls up and sits and waits like a train on the rails. I pass the hotel at 8 and at 5; there are cats in the alleys and bottles and bums, and I look up at the window and think, I no longer know where you are, and I walk on and wonder where the living goes when it stops.

-- Charles Bukowski