When PALS executive officer Ann Smith Gordon first visited Spain 50 years ago, she travelled around in a rusty little car with suitcases strapped on the roof.

Last spring when she returned for a visit, she travelled mostly by high-speed train.

She found that while Spain is now more cosmopolitan than it was in 1959, with more restaurants, hotels and high rises on the beaches, a lot hadn't changed at all.

Her trip will be the subject of her 24th slide show 'A Journey to Spain – Andalusia, Madrid & Environs'.

It will be held on March 10 at 8 p.m. in the Mount Saint Agnes (MSA) auditorium. Proceeds go towards cancer charity PALS.

Unfortunately, while things may not have changed much in Spain, things have changed in Bermuda. PALS now has a budget of $1.2 million.

The annual slide show raises $3,000 to $4,000 a year, which equals about half of a single cancer patient's medicine for one month.

"The money will go to patient care," said Ms Smith Gordon. "We now have patients on cancer drugs that cost between $6,000 to $11,000 per month.

"How can anyone pay it? Even if you have major medical which pays 80 percent. Twenty percent of $8,000 is a lot of money.

"It is terrible and I don't know what we are going to do."

She said insurance companies will pay 100 percent for chemotherapy drugs administered in the hospital, but now chemotherapy drugs often come in pill form and are taken at home.

"Therefore, the insurance companies don't pay all of it."

She said it was terrible to think of finances dictating whether people in Bermuda lived or died from cancer.

Ms Smith Gordon said PALS was a charity that put a lot of effort into raising money through its own initiatives, such as slide shows and walks.

"It seems sometimes like there is more cancer in Bermuda, but we are such a small community," she said.

"According to the statistics we run pretty close to cancer statistics in North America.

"Cancer is not going away, I'm afraid. When a businessman says to me 'have you had a good year?' and I say 'no', they jump back.

"They are talking money. I am talking cancer. The best year for me would be not to have a job and not have any cancers."

Ms Smith Gordon's trip began in Madrid last spring. From Madrid she went to Cordoba.

She visited Spain during Semana Santa, Easter Week. This is a special time in Spain when the streets are crammed with penitents and processions.

The penitents wear hoods meant to represent the 'the Nazareños', people from Nazareth.

"We had planned the trip very carefully to be in Spain and in some wonderful place for Holy Week," said Ms Smith Gordon.

"There were processions carrying huge statues of Jesus and Mary. That was a very moving experience because all day and night they would be parading through the streets."

The men chosen to carry religious statues are known as cofradias.

"I don't know how they manoeuvred these huge statues around corners," said Ms Smith Gordon. "You have to put them down occasionally because they are so heavy. When they pick them up again people really cheer them.

"It takes 12 men to pick most of them up. They were beautiful floats."

Ms Gordon Smith next visited Seville, which is also known for its Semana Santa.

"The processions there are incredible," she said. "We stayed at little tiny hotel in an alley not as wide as that corridor. It had a roof terrace and even an elevator but it was a couple of old houses put together.

"It was called 'Amadeus' for Mozart. They played beautiful Mozart music all the time.

"They had a sound proof room where musicians could practice. I don't think there was any connection other than the name. It was a hotel where a lot of musicians played. Sometimes there are concerts there. Most of the places we stayed in had been renovated."

This part of Spain is known for its white-washed villages. Ms Smith Gordon visited one of these villages in the mountains called Ronda in the Malaga province.

"I didn't know anything about Ronda until we read about it in my research," she said. "In this place the town is divided by this deep ravine and a river.

"They eventually built a bridge and now you can walk from one side to the other."

In Ronda, they visited a water mine, 200 feet under the ground.

"I don't know how my poor knees did it," said Ms Smith Gordon. "We had to haul ourselves up afterward. But at the bottom you look up and see a white-washed town above your head.

"It was just amazing. The water mine was a secret underground military passage way, cut by the Christian slaves in the 14th century. They cut it to make sure they had a steady supply of water in case Ronda came under siege and was cut off from a water supply. It zigzags down and there are arches and holes where they could drop boiling oil on people if they tried to come in.

"It was an incredible engineering feat. I don't think too many people know about it."

Ms Smith Gordon and a companion next went on to visit Granada which is known for among other things, its cave dwellings, and also the Alhambra Fortress.

The Alhambra meaning 'the red one' was built by Moorish rulers in the 14th Century.

It is located on a hilly terrace on the southeastern outskirts of Granada. It was eventually taken over by Christians, and became the Palace of Charles V in the 1500s.

"In Granada, there were flowers everywhere," said Ms Smith Gordon. "We happened to be there in April when the oranges were out. That was nice.

"The Alhambra is one of the greatest fortresses in the world. It was up the hill, but we couldn't possibly have made it it on foot. It was too tough."

Ms Smith Gordon said if you want to visit this fortress, you have to book well in advance. It is a very popular tourist attraction.

"They have 7,000 tickets every day," said Ms Smith Gordon. "They sell half in the morning and half in the afternoon.

"If you don't go at the exact time they tell you you don't get in. You have 30 minutes from whatever the ticket says."

She also said to get a map because the fortress, made up of three different complexes, can be confusing otherwise.

Ms Smith Gordon and her friend mostly travelled by fast train around Spain.

"We went 250 miles in an hour and 40 minutes," she said. "The train was very fast."

She is currently working out next year's itinerary, but she thought it would probably be at some of the national parks in the Western United States.

"We are working out a rather ambitious itinerary," she said. "Hopefully, we will be able to do it."

Tickets to the slide show are $15 and available from PALS volunteers or the PALS office at 18 Point Finger Road in Paget. Telephone 236-7257 for more information.