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If I tell you that Galicia is a land of emigrants, I don't discover anything new. If I also add that in Mexico, within the huge colony of Spaniards and their descendants, there is a considerable number of Galicians, they will tell me that they already know that. But if I tell you that the patron saint of Mexican taxi drivers is a neighbor of A Gudiña who is not even a saint and that, in addition, his incorrupt body is in a church in the Mexican city of Puebla, he may have surprised them. Sebastián de Aparicio's story is one of those stories that mixes the magical realism of the other side of the ocean with the more colorful customs of Galician folklore.

Just as in Spain the pattern of motorists is San Cristóbal, on the other side of the puddle, especially in the area of ​​Puebla and surroundings, the protective figure of professional drivers is not this, but Sebastián de Aparicio, the neighbor of A Gudiña That one day he wanted to be rich .

It turns out that Sebastian, born in A Gudiña in 1502, soon felt the call of adventure and shortly after Cortes had defeated the Aztec Empire, he traveled to Mexico to make a fortune. When he arrived there, he discovered something that stunned him: the Aztecs , although they knew the existence of the wheel, did not use it for transport.

Whether for cultural, religious reasons or, you know, the fact is that the indigenous inhabitants of what is today Mexico resorted to carrying heavy bundles behind their backs or subject to their foreheads to carry things from side to side. To this was added that most of the roads that were in the area were not precisely first-class roads, among other reasons because there was no need for wide, firm roads.

Obviously, with the arrival of the Europeans that would change in a very short time and that is where Sebastian's genius comes in . The neighbor of A Gudiña had arrived late to collect the spoils of the battle and the distribution of lands, but he had a very serious commercial sense. Recalling the carts that were used for transportation in his native Galicia, he hired a group of carpenters and began to build them on a large scale in Mexico, while requesting permission to fix and expand some of the busiest roads in the area.

Obviously, it was a huge business risk, but success came almost immediately. In a short time, Sebastián de Aparicio was the owner of a formidable transport fleet that gradually cornered the traditional local porters. Progress had come, as usual in these cases, without asking permission and kicking the door.

Over the years, Sebastian was making a hole in the nascent Mexican community of the time. He married a couple of times, had several children and, of course, earned a lot of money by investing in land and livestock. In short, a full-fledged businessman. But the mentality of the time dictated things different from what we see normal today, so when Sebastian grew old, fearing for his soul, he decided to abandon everything, donate his goods and become a Franciscan . And here the story begins to get complicated.

The good of Sebastian died in 1600, after having donated all his assets and since then his incorrupt body is preserved in the church of San Francisco de Puebla, in Mexico . Well, to be exact almost his whole body, because, over the years, the fervent devotees who came to pray before him took a piece of memory. What if a finger over here, if a piece of thigh over there ... Poor Sebastian seemed to be doomed to continue traveling even after he died.

The curious thing is that, despite all the centuries that have passed and the hundreds of miracles that assure that they have happened through their intercession, Sebastián de Aparicio is still not holy , although his canonization process has been open for an eternity. It is seen that all the hurries he had in life to accelerate the traffic of people is not replicated in the Vatican paperwork. Church stuff, I guess.

The fact is that in A Gudiña there is a beautiful statue of Sebastián de Aparicio , donated by Mexican businessmen and every year solemn masses are celebrated in his honor, within the framework of the town's patron saint festivities. And so, in such a rocambolesque way, the taxi drivers of a city of almost three million inhabitants and the little more than 1,300 neighbors of a small village in the interior of Ourense are joined by devotion, from which one day a determined boy left to be rich and ended up almost becoming a saint. Don't tell me you don't have the crumb thing.

After taking a look at the statue of Sebastian we continue our way to the last stage of this trip that we have made through these unknown corners of the most magical and strange Galicia . And finally, we will go to the shores of the Atlantic, where huge dance stones await us to get rid of the evil eye and tell us some strange legend.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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