being chased by the indians...on our motorcycles???

by Track McCreary
(Bayfield, WI, USA)

This is from back in the early 70's....long before there were any theme parks...There were a group of us stationed in Rota and off on a 3 day holiday ride, and we were tooling along enjoying the scenery and thinking of how much this area looked like the western part of the United States. Then off to our right, we see a stage coach , about a half mile away on the right, speed past...(we were enjoying a slow ride that morning on the motorcycles)...We slowed down and stopped, wondering if the Sangria and Brandy and whatever else we had been drinking the night before was playing some serious tricks with our vision. Then we saw and heard a band of Indians on horseback speed past us...apparently chasing the stagecoach????? Well, we couldn't pass up the chance to see what was going on so we took off across the hardscrabble sandy surface and followed in quick pursuit of both parties and as we came over the next rise we were met with a large group of very upset movie makers!....lol We had inadvertently wandered into a chase scene for one of the myriad of spaghetti westerns that were being made out there in those days.

After some humble apologies and a serious dressing down by many of the directors and such, we were invited to have a bit of a snack of water, wine, beer, cheese and bread and we sat in on an hours worth of shooting to see how things were done.The town that we stumbled upon was literally out in the middle of nowhere and so well made. The tops of the buildings were protected by rolled up canvas to keep out any inclement weather but useful for down camera angles, but everything else was spot on! I can only imagine that they've stood the test of time well!. They gave us a plastic mold of a bar of gold to take with us back to our base. It caused quite a bit of confusion and consternation on the barracks room inspections...lol seeing a 'bar' of gold...in the corner of the room.!!