Spain Rocks

By Richard Morley

The snow capped peaks of the Gredos mountains. Part of the "Sistema Central" of Spain's Mountains.

I wrote recently in my post about the source of the Manzanares river that today’s tranquil landscape had been, a long, long time ago, a rather turbulent place. That while today the pink, or Rose Granite lends a colourful hue to the peaceful slopes of the Yelmo, at the time of its formation it was a place of volcanoes and heaving rivers of lava. It’s a nice place today because it’s been a gneiss place for ages. (Geological joke! – Look it up.)

 A (very) close up picture of the rose granite through which the young Manzanares runs.

The Manzanares’ source lies in the Sierra de Guadarrama, part of the central system of mountains that stretches from Portugal to just north of Madrid, incorporating the sierras of Gredos, Avilla,  and Guadarrama (among several others) and delineates the divide between northern Spain and the south. In geological terms they are quite young mountains. A famous mountaineer, when asked why he wanted to climb a mountain said, “Because it is there”. Me, I want to know why.

 The Iberian "Sistema Central" mountains running more or less West-East until terminating at the perpendicular Iberian system, formed 40 million years earlier when Spain faced in another direction.

Today we tend to think of dramatic geological events in terms of unpronounceable Icelandic volcanoes and havoc inducing tsunamis. That’s because they happen quickly; over days, or even hours. Most geological events happen much, much slower. For us, and the world in general, that’s a good thing. For Spain, it has been a blessing. The country that we know and love has taken a very long time to reach it’s present state. It has travelled – and will continue to do so. It has been subject to amazing forces – and still is. Geology has shaped the world and shaped us. We respond to our surroundings. Geologically, the country went it’s own way for eons. Historically, it did the same. Perhaps this says something about the tenacious spirit of the Spanish, of their, sometimes, fiery “carácter” , but also their more often seen tranquil nature.

Weathered peaks of the Pedriza in the Guadarrama mountains.

Let’s see the events unfold. (But in a really, really simplified form. I don’t want comments telling me that I have forgotten such and such an event. As an old tee-shirt of mine once said, “Geophysicists do it deeper!”, but here I am just scratching the surface.)

Cast your minds back to, oh, let’s say, 600 million years ago. We will have to speculate a bit. I’ve attempted to do the research, but, as I have discovered in a long career in one particular branch of earth studies, if there is one thing that geologists can’t agree on – it’s EVERYTHING! So, there are competing theories. Quite a few of them have had to be formulated relatively recently. After all, it’s just exactly one hundred years since Alfred Wegener,  noticing how the coastlines on opposite sides of the Atlantic fitted together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, published the first paper on how the world’s landmasses seemed to drift across the Earth’s surface. Perhaps because he was an astronomer and meteorologist and not a geologist many did not take his ideas seriously. Plus, there were competing theories (the discredited “expanding Earth”) and the fact that there seemed to be no driving mechanism behind the continental movements. They were still arguing about it in the early seventies when I was a student.

But it seems to go a bit like this. Prior to 600 million years ago the World’s landmasses had been forming and reforming into groups until on almost opposite sides of the globe two super continents, one called Gondwana and the other Laurasia, had come into being. Slowly they drifted together and at about 600 million years ago they met and formed the giant extra-super continent, Pangea.

Pangea looked like a letter C, or a very distorted 8. A bit like a knobbly Pac man figure facing right, it’s mouth agape. But think of the 8, bent into a C shape. Where the two halves of the 8 meet, or perhaps where Pac man’s tonsils could be, were a few independent landmasses which had been crushed together and bridged the gap between the two continents. They are known as the Avalonian, the Amorican, and the Iberian plates. You might like to bear in mind the “Iberian” plate. It’s sort of important in this article!

To the east, ie, within the Pac man’s gaping jaw, lay the Tethys sea.

Then several things happened. Firstly, the pressure of Gondwana pushing up into Laurasia compressed bits of the northern continent and pushed them upwards, forming mountains. Today, these mountains are so eroded it’s not easy, except by using reflective seismic techniques, (a bit like sonar on land) to find the evidence, but some can be found in Spain’s north west, on its corner with Portugal, in south east Galicia.

As the southern continent pushed against Laurasia, it subducted, meaning it slid underneath. This, as today can be seen around the Pacific’s rim, leads to volcanic activity. This can be seen in ancient volcanoes found in Spain’s northeast, but in the centre, where the Iberian plate was thin and weak, a great intrusion of magmatic rock oozed to swell into a huge globule of granite. It is as if the rivers of fire from hell rose to the surface and, in fact, we call that action “Plutonism”, named for Pluto, the ancient Roman god of the underworld. That’s what I was gazing at in the last post. But 600 million years ago it didn’t break the surface, so at the time there was little evidence of what was going on below. On the Avalonian plate, however, there was huge amounts of violent volcanic activity, which had already been going on for 100 million years and would continue for another 100 million.

Moving forward in time this volcanic activity would lead to a splitting of the left hand side of Pangea. (Incidentally, I write of left and right rather than east or west, north or south, because even though geologists speak of “Laurasia”, “Amorica”, even “Euro-America”, those land masses were nowhere near their present geographical locations – and after which they are named. (Laurasia became, after the splitting off of north America, Eurasia.) All of what I am writing happened when these land masses where deep in the southern ocean. Spain at that time was thought to be around 55º south of the equator and probably not in its current orientation relative to north and south. Events are hard to construct from the historical carousel of continental drift. But not impossible.)

But I digressed.

The splitting off of the left hand side of Gondwana led to the formation of South America. Parts of Avalonia are found in the British Isles south of Scotland and continue through northern Europe. Other parts are found in eastern Canada, from where it took its name from the Avalonian peninsular in Newfoundland.

For the next 250 million years the great continent drifted northwards. 450 million years ago the Tethys sea began to close. So, as Pac man’s mouth slowly closed, the land mass of Laurasia turned clockwise. In the middle of this upheaval the two plates of Iberia and Amorica thrust together. Amorica is the land mass where today you find France, and you will think that Iberia and France, were, from that moment on, like co-joined twins tumbling around in the centre of global activity. But wait, there’s a twist, very literally, to their tale. But that’s for later. Right now, well 450 million years ago, extensive mountains were being built by the squeezing of the plates. The remains of this mountain building can be found today in Portugal, Galicia and Northern France. (Remember that little fact!)

Meanwhile Iberia and Amorica were passing though tropical regions. During this time they became great jungles of vegetation which died and their remains laid down in great belts of carboniferous strata. That’s coal to you and me. The coal is found in seams between layers of limestone and sandstone showing that the landmasses were alternately above sea-level (and covered in trees) and below sea-level, where oozing sand from eroding land and the shells of sea creatures created intervening limestone and sandstone strata. The bodies of those sea creatures, the soft parts, decomposed to give us oil. The great explosion for this was after the carboniferous, mainly during the Triassic and Jurrasic periods.

 Limestone strata found in the Cordillera Iberica near Soria in northeast Spain.

It was in the Jurrasic, around 180 million years ago, that Pangea began to split up. The Tethys sea was closing rapidly. The Indian plate was sliding across to bump into asia. The Antarctic plate, with Australia and New Zealand still attached headed southward. They didn’t have far to go! The major landmasses were still travelling northwards. Laurasia, soon to become Eurasia with the loss of North America, was revolving clockwise. What was left of Gondwana, basically Africa, was continuing to push north and the two joined landmasses of Armorica and Iberia were rolled anti-clockwise and to the left between them.

The theory of much of what I have written is pretty common knowledge these days. The Discovery channel and others present documentaries about how these giant plates; the Pacific Plate, the African Plate and so on, are rolling around the earth. These giant plates are, in fact, “cratons”, meaning they are composed of lots of smaller plates that seem to have permanently joined together; the completed parts of a jigsaw puzzle, if you like. It is where the constituent plates rub against each other that we get seismic activity like earthquakes and volcanoes.

Iberia swivels under France to open up the Bay of Biscay.

For many millions of years the Amorica-Iberian landmass had formed a bridge between Northern Laurasia and Southern Gondwana. About 120 years ago they made their choice and Amorica, with its twin, became a craton of Eurasia. But the forces that had split North America away, first a volcanic rift then the spread of the Atlantic ocean, were pulling on Iberia and the clockwise motion of Eurasia was pulling on Amorica. Eventually they swung apart, but hinged at their southern extremity. This is the, literal, twist in the tail. As Amorica moved north and clockwise, Iberia twisted anticlockwise under it. The resulting gap opened to become the Bay of Biscay and about 65 million years ago, when the Iberian swing terminated by crashing into  southern France, the beginnings of the Pyrenees were formed.

 NASA photograph of the Pyrenees. Notice the compression folds as Iberia was pushed into Armorica.

A glance at the geological map above shows the continuation of the north-south oriented western Iberian mountains continuing oriented east-west in Brittany and Normandy in northern France. Geologists have used paleomagnetism, a technique that indicates the original  magnetic orientation of rocks when they were formed.  I used to think the similarity between those two parts of Europe was their love of cider, but it obviously goes much deeper – and further back – than that!

Europe basically had now taken the shape we are familiar with.

But things did not stop there. Africa, divested of south America, India, Antarctica, continued, and continues, to move north, still pushing into Europe.  With Europe now more or less in its current position this northern movement of Africa exerted such pressure that ridges of mountains were formed all over the place. The mechanism is known as the “Alpine Orogeny” (mountain building) and, obviously, the European Alps are its main manifestation, but it is responsible for the rolling south downs of England, the Apennines in  Italy and the Atlas mountains in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. In Spain this action is responsible for the Cantabrian mountains, including the Picos de Europa in Asturias and the Sierra Nevada in Andalucía.

 The black lines represent the fold lines, showing how Iberia was squeezed while the plate rotated in its travels.

Squeezed at both ends the centre of Spain buckled like a sheet of paper. Mountain ranges rose, then collapsed. There is evidence that much of this time was spent below sea-level, with the peaks of the ranges existing as island chains. Signs of this are shown in layers of sedimentary rock around the slopes of the Guadarrama chain in the central system, but not at their summits. And the “Plate” of Iberia is also a craton, made up of smaller plates. It is through such a gap between plates that the Granite mass of the Pedriza finally pushed its way to the surface – and beyond – around 25 million years ago – hundreds of millions of years after it originally formed.

 Elevation model of the central system and it's location on a general map of the Iberian peninsular. Notice how the land is raised higher to the north of the mountain range.

The Tethys sea had completely closed up at its eastern end by the land masses of India and the Arabian plate, what we now call the middle east. What’s left of that early sea is the Mediterranean. By any standard the Mediterranean is a substantial body of water. It has a surface area of 2.5 million square kilometres, an average depth of 1500 metres. It nearly 3000 kilometres from end to end and around a thousand wide, not including its sub seas; the Adriatic, the Aegean and so on. It borders 21 countries and has many important sea routes.

Imagine it empty.

Slightly less than 6 million years ago that happened. In an event named the “Messinian Salinity”,  after the city of Messina in Sicily. Africa’s relentless push actually closed the access of the Atlantic through the straits of Gibraltar. Within a thousand years, apart from a few very salty lakes, some more than 3Km below present day sea levels, the Mediterranean was dry. And it stayed that way for nearly 700,000 years! The fossil record shows evidence that animals used the dried up sea bed to migrate between the two continents.  The mineral record, achieved by studying core drilling samples show typical shore line mineralogy from the sea bed hundreds of kilometres from modern day shorelines.

Almost as abruptly, in geological time-speak, as it had begun, 5.3 million years ago, due to yet more geological shifting, waters once again poured through the straits in an event called the Zanclean Flood. Zanclean is the name geologists give to that era which begins the modern geological age. Geological studies show that the straits of Gibraltar were not the only water course open. There was one through Morocco and another across the Betic Plain, around modern day Seville. (Think Betis football club!)

 These carried water of a much higher volume than is carried over Niagara Falls today, and over a drop of several kilometres. Some scientists have proposed that the rate of flow was as much as a billion cubic metres per second and the Mediterranean refilled in as little as a few months to two years, with water levels rising ten metres a day. (To compare: Niagara’s rate of flow is just under 2000 cubic metres per second.) However, Niagara’s waters come from the narrow confines of the Niagara river, the waters pouring into the Mediterranean had the force of the entire Atlantic ocean behind them.

Of course, that was not the end of Spanish seismic activity. Since written records began there has been a long history of seismic destruction. To mention the more famous – or infamous, there is the Lisbon earthquake of 1775. It struck in the morning of All Saints day, November the 1^st. Its six and a half minute duration caused huge fissures to open up in the city centre and the sea water receded from the harbour revealing long forgotten wrecks.  Forty five minutes later the water returned as a tsunami. Estimates tell of between 60,000 to 100,000 dead and the complete destruction of the city.

 These staples were used to repair a crack in the Church in La Alberca, Salamanca. The crack opened after shock waves from the Lisbon earthquake reached the town. La Alberca is some 330 km distant from Lisbon.

In 1884 the town of Arenas de Rey was struck by an earthquake reckoned to be around 7 on the Richter Scale. Eight hundred people were killed and a further 1500 injured. 14,000 homes were destroyed.

I take no joy from the fact that, following reading a few reports, I posted on my Facebook page on May 1^st this year that Spain could expect a major earthquake “soon”. Twelve days later the town of Lorca was rocked by a severe earthquake that killed eight, injured many and rendered many families homeless.

Earthquakes, having been part of my life for so many years, means that I often get asked to speak about them. By coincidence, I was doing just that on the 12^th of August 2007 when news came in that there had been a mild(ish) earthquake in Ciudad Real.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. I monitor the website of the Spanish geographic institute which reports on all quakes around the Iberian Peninsular. You can see it here. 

That’s the downside of living on top of active geology. The advantages have been enormous. Spain’s mineral wealth is huge. The chemical reactions that occur within molten rock produce some useful stuff, like gold (4000kgs annually), silver (20,000kgs annually), feldspar (600,000 tons annually – that’s what all that granite gives you, as well as expensive kitchen tops) and of course historically Spain has been the world’s number one producer of Mercury from the mines at Almadén, which have produced 250,000 tons since Roman times.

The carboniferous era laid down coal in Galicia and Asturias. Current reserves suggest there is 530 million tons waiting to be mined, but apparently the work there is difficult. The damned geology gets in the way! Erosion of rock over the millennia has led to Spain being pretty much self-sufficient in sand and gravel, and the limestone deposits means that cement production is nearly all home grown. Years of shallow submergence, particularly during the Messinian salinity has given Spain untold quantities of gypsum. If you look at the map of the Messianian refilling above you will see the town of Sorbas marked. The Mediterranean used to flood and then recede in this shoreline area, leaving behind each time more minerals, known as evaporates (for obvious reasons), including gypsum,  that would later be mined. Used in building everywhere (plaster walls and ceilings, fairground plaster of Paris statuettes!) Spain is Europe’s largest producer and the second largest in the world.

There’s iron, bauxite, and a long list of other minor stuff. Not much oil sadly. Some oil shale which kept the power stations of Spain running for many years  and a small field off the coast of Cantabridgia.

And all that mountain building has given Spain super fertile slopes for grapes and olives, not to mention the skiing. After Switzerland, Spain is the most mountainous country in Europe.

The continents will keep moving. Some think that Iberia will become so squashed by Africa’s relentless push that it will be squeezed out into the Atlantic like a geological zit. Perhaps it will become an island drifting who knows where. I read one report that suggested in 30 million years it will be somewhere near where Iceland is now. That’s a long time. You don’t have to pack the winter wear just yet, but enjoy the ride!

Just as a serendipitous postscript I was amused to find a shop specialising in "Geological Jewellery" (if there is such a thing!). Many long eJstablished businesses like to boast of their year of foundation. They are never going to beat this place.   

Find decorative geodes, fossil fashion, minerals and meteorites 72, C/Hermosilla. (Near Goya metro.)

Madrid's River Manzanares. Where it begins....

Or Out of the frying pan and into the Fridge,
By Richard Morley.

When I wrote, a couple of posts ago, about Madrid’s new park running alongside the Manzanares River as it lazily glides though the city, I gave little thought to where that water came from. Like the crowds happily picnicking on the river banks in Goya’s famous painting above, I was quite happy to spend a cool evening beside the cool water.

Not many days later and Madrid stopped having cool evenings. The numbers on the electronic temperature displays at the bus stops climbed way up into the thirties and refuse to come down. Madrid is hot and sticky. The washing machine seems to be continuously on, removing the perspiration from several shirts a day, with the shower doing the same thing from my body. (I wish the guy on the Metro this morning had followed my example. It must have been yesterdays shirt. What a stink!)

Last week one of my students injured himself playing football and limped into Monday’s lesson wincing as he walked. On Tuesday he called and cancelled, claiming his ankle needed the expertise of a doctor. And so, with a free evening ahead, a friend suggested an escape to Madrid’s northerly mountains.

Now I like a walk in the hills, but I should have smelled a rat when she also suggested that I bring my swimming trunks.

By six that evening we had parked the car in an almost deserted car park in the Parque Regional de la Cuenca Alta del Manzanares, a nature reserve high in the Guadarrama mountains, recognised by UNESCO for its unique biological heritage and overlooked by La Pedriza, a huge granite uplift that dominates the region.

Geologically speaking, the Spanish word “Cuenca” means valley or bowl. Hence the town of Cuenca, which has nothing to do with this post, but where houses precariously hang from cliffs over-looking a deep valley. In the case of the Parque Regional de la Cuenca Alta del Manzanares, the “bowl” here signifies the confluence of several small streams into one main river valley which officially becomes the Manzanares river.

On the drive up to the parque I took in the scene of boulder strewn slopes and thought that at sometime in the past something pretty serious had happened to the geology. Granite is an igneous rock, spewed out by volcanoes, and here was several cubic kilometres of it. In places the granite was fissures and the cracks were filled with black basalt, again of volcanic production, and then it had been uplifted and split asunder. The area would have been pretty uninhabitable at the time. Now the parque is a peaceful retreat from the heat and bustle of the city. A place of shady pines and scented bushes, riverside walks and picnic spots. And, my friend told me, of places to bathe in the cooling water.

We left the car and strolled down the slope to the river. A handy sign informs you or where you are and what you can see. Beyond, a narrow wooden bridge, half submerged in the shadows of high tree – don’t ask me what they are, I am no botanist – led us across a narrow stream that tripped lightly over a few rocks and a fallen tree trunk.

A pretty little river I thought. But as we progressed up stream the rocks became boulders, the trickle turned into competing flows of white water. There was a water fall around every bend, and behind each fall a pool where people picnicked and splashed in the water.

Now, if you were to dip a toe into the waters of the Manzanares as it meanders though the city you might remark that the water is “refreshing”. But when the water reaches the city it is well on its way along its eighty-three kilometre journey from its source to where it joins the Jarama river. Yes, the “mighty Manzanares” is but the tributary of another. On the first half of its journey it has had time to relax under the warming sun while it dawdled in the Santillana reservoir, near the town of Manzanares de Real, and then slowly tumble along its lazy route, past courses for golf and horse racing, into the city.

 Cooling off in the cold, cold waters.

Up near its source, in the Parque Regional de la Cuenca Alta del Manzanares, the water is not “refreshing” but BLOODY FREEZING. A few degrees cooler and those sparkling water trickles would be icicles. It is not many days since the tumbling water of the Manzanares headwaters was snow peacefully at rest on the peaks of the Guadarrama mountains. Then summer arrived and raising the temperature by not very much sent the snowmelt in a raging torrent over the granite boulders where it splashed and tumbled, eddied and pooled as it squeezed through the rocks.

 A local resident basks in the evening sun.

Still unaware of just how cold this snowmelt was, as my friend and I walked along the river banks under a burning sun from a cloudless blue sky, I looked on with envy as groups of family and friends paddled and splashed in the water. The car park we had used was not the only one. My friend stopped a passing dog walker and asked him how far up river did the picnics and pool parties continue. He laughed sardonically, remarking that on a Tuesday evening he had hopes of having the woods and banks to himself, but that he thought most of Madrid, us included I suppose, had come out to spoil his evening.

 Going ...... going ........ soon to be gone. A boulder balances precariously over the river bank.

My friend remarked how nice it was to be able to walk unencumbered with a back-pack through the shady woods. I, being a gentleman, had volunteered to carry the back pack and grunted that I was happy for her. A language difference means that irony sometimes gets lost in translation!

The open and flattish woodland walk soon gave way to a more rugged and narrower path. There were cracks to be squeezed though, boulders requiring giant steps to surmount, sticky, snagging bushes to circumvent. All the while the laughter and joy of those who had already found their little pool of paradise rose up from the river.

Eventually we found an empty spot. A place of washed pink granite, known appropriately as Rose Granite, that had been eroded over millennia into broad, smooth beds which the acrobatic water washed with sporadic waves. We changed into our swimming stuff and dipped a toe in the water.

I shall not record the first word I used. Children might read this! Suffice it to say the coldness of the water came as a surprise. The second surprise was that the smoothness of the eroded rock allowed for no grip and I slid into the water. My friend was greatly amused by this, until the same thing happened to her and it took us a while to scramble back on to dry rock, which, compared to the water, was positively hot. Half on and half off the rocks we dangled our feet in the water. We had possibly walked four or five kilometres so the cold water gurgling though our toes was a welcome relief. Later, now with anticipation than ignorance, we let the water console more of our bodies.

 A couple of degrees less .....and this would be an icicle!!!

From the backpack she produced tortilla and bread and something to drink. Like others in their own personal paradises along the river bank we let all thoughts of hot and sweaty Madrid pass from our minds.

Walking back, with the sun casting long shadows and dappling the wood floor with light and shade, we noticed birds hovering on thermals over the Pedriza. The mountains here claim the title of the largest expanse of Granite in Europe.

On the way from Madrid I thought I was being clever and spotted the shape of a face in the rocks. My friend gave me that look which means I will for ever be a guiri and remarked that gazing at the slopes of the Pedriza is like observing shapes in the flames of a fire. She pointed out a tortoise, a helmet, which is what this particular peak, El Yelmo, is named for, and even a mammoth, while above us the rock formation known as the Canchos de los Muertos contemplated the living below.

I am told that there are nearly a thousand different routes for hill walkers and rock climbers within the thirty two square kilometres of the Pedriza. I had already had enough exercise for one day and the only exercise I was now contemplating was raising a glass or two of cold beer.

This was achieved after we drove out of the park into the small town of Manzanares el Real where stands a real medieval castle and a church tower swarming with storks.

Below that tower, in a small plaza, lay a bar. Around me kids, lots of kids, probably something to do with the storks, played in the plaza. A beer sat in front of me - but not for long!!

Now that was paradise.

Not a quiet revolution.

By Richard Morley.

The times they are a-changing.

Something is happening here is Spain, and I am not sure what it is.

Now, not being a native, but a guest, I do not feel it has been appropriate for me to take sides with the “indignados” (the indignant ones) who have recently been encamped in the Pueta del Sol here in Madrid and in public squares around the country. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion.

Before moving to Spain permanently I would compare the control being imposed by central government on the people of the UK with the relative laissez faire attitude of the Spanish authorities. However, recent events here, for whatever reasons, have inculcated a feeling that the state is sticking it’s nose in where it’s not wanted. And in the minds of those who can remember a time when the Government very much imposed its will on the populace, this latest interference is not welcome. Particularly when the activities of that government seem to be doing nothing to relieve the very real and current concerns of a nation with massive debt, high unemployment, and a lack of confidence in the future.

Even though the next general election will probably see a change of political will in congress, the indignados don’t think that will change the direction in which the country is going.

Of course, part of the problem does not lie with central government, but with each of the autonomous regions where each  creates their own problems. The workers’ unions must also take some of the blame. The “sindicatos” have been engaged in negotiations with the government in order to come up with some sort of policy that would make the creation of jobs easier. The employers say that the cost of employing people is high under current legislation and the social packages Spanish workers are entitled to make it expensive to fire people also. As the sindicatos have been refusing to relinquish workers rights and the employers have also dug their heels in, the negotiations reached an impasse. As the government want to be seen doing something, they will now impose an employment policy that no one will agree to.

Last year Esperanza Aguirre’s Comunidad de Madrid said it would cut fifty-eight legal steps from those needed to create a new business. They cut fifty-eight! How many are left? A friend of mine involved with starting a new business here in Madrid can answer that. Too damn many!

Many are not taking those steps. The ex-construction workers who want to put a roof over their family’s heads and food on their table can’t afford the luxury of time or the cost of legally starting a new business, so the lamp post are adorned with computer printed, or hand-written, advertisements for their services to decorate your home or replace a kitchen or bathroom. I am sure that most cannot afford the €3000 payment that must be made when starting any form of business, or the very high social security payments demanded of the self-employed. Not being legal, I doubt they are declaring their earnings for tax. They can’t legally take on employees either, so the unemployment numbers don’t get reduced and the hacienda, the tax office, loses revenue. But to make the process easier would mean that government funcionarios, civil servants, (a misnomer in many cases!), and notarios would have nothing to do. Except get a proper job, of course!

So, the indignados have been protesting. Firstly in the month long encampment that formed in Sol and other plazas around the country. Then in small demonstrations everywhere and culminating last weekend in street protests all over the country. They claim to want “Democracia, Ya!”, or democracy now, but enticed voters to spoil their ballot papers at the recent local elections. I don’t follow that. A young protester that recently gate-crashed the inauguration ceremony for the swearing in on the newly elected representatives of the Comunidad and managed to demand from Señora Aguirre what right she had to represent all the Madrileños as voter turn-out was far from 100% and there were so many spoiled papers. She replied that, “This is a free country and …… each is entitled to vote ……. and the nature of elections is to renew the mandate of those who had done a good job and throw out those who had a done a bad one.” She went on to remark that voting was the one important responsibility of a country’s citizens. I agree and will also say that those who did not vote, or enticed others not to vote, were not supporters of democracy.

As Winston Churchill said (I think) “democracy has many faults but it’s better than the alternative”.  

The protesters’ camp in Sol had their own problems with democracy. They had lots of noisy protests, but couldn’t actually agree an anything. Apparently their decisions needed everyone to agree. Just one dissenting voice meant they would not reach concensus, because the voice of the majority was not the voice of all. As Abraham Lincoln remarked, “…….. you can’t please all of the people all of the time”. In a democracy the minority have to lick their wounds and wait for their turn.

But whatever the demonstrators protested about, they did it very noisily. Walking though Sol one Saturday evening at the height of the protests I was struck by the sheer volume of the voices raised in anger and was pleased that I wasn’t living in that neighbourhood and trying to get to sleep. It would have been impossible. And it would have been impossible for four long weeks. The erection of the encampment brought with it, despite the best efforts of the organisers to impose some order, a hygiene problem and restricted free passage though, and free use of, the Plaza. Many businesses reported a severe drop in trade because the “Democracia, Ya” protesters had imposed their own, un-elected will on the area.

And just as an aside here, When I wandered though the encampment which was set up to highlight and publicise the plight of so many, I noticed many notices restricting the taking of photographs. What were they afraid of? Surely they wanted all the publicity they could get? If you want someone to take notice, you have to stand and be counted.

However, Spain is, whatever the protesters say, a democracy. They have the right to protest and freedom of speech. Having lived and worked in countries where neither of these things is a “right” I probably value them more highly than those under forty here do. Perhaps they should ask their parents and grandparents what the country was like before 1975.

But did they have the right to disturb the sleep and business life in Sol during their month long protest? You see, while the authorities let them do what they wanted, those same authorities are prohibiting loud music in the street in Chueca during Gay Pride weekend – because the local residents have complained.

And it’s not just Chueca. Over thirty barrios that traditionally have “fiestas patronales” such as the Verbena de Poloma in La Latina, in Tetuan for the Fiesta de Victoria and for the Fiesta de Carmen in Vallecas. All of them are being reviewed regarding the loudness of the entertainment that will now be allowed. A spokesman for the barrio of Tetuan commented,”…. In the first week of July there will be concerts and fairs in the plaza de Remonta. Of course they are noisy and some residents have already complained”. But “What would become of Madrid without the streets fairs?” said Fernando Garcia of the Cuatro Caminos neighbourhood association.

Suddenly Madrid’s, and Spain’s, live and let live attitude is undergoing a sea change. After years of smoking being allowed everywhere, now we have had to adjust to being restricted. Most of us smokers have happily taken that on board, but it must have affected sales as twice in two weeks the price of cigarettes came down recently.

Yes, that’s right. They came down! Amazing.

My recent remarks regarding a speed restriction on cycling in the new cycle lanes in Madrid Rio meant that I watched with some amusement interviews with cyclists on TV last week. They were angry. “Six kilometres an hour is hardly enough to allow you to balance”, claimed one. Another, echoing my point, argued that painted lines delineating walkers from those on wheels was the sensible solution. One more made the point that the cycle lanes were designed for the users to enjoy exercising on their machines and introducing ridiculous speed limits was not a proper solution. After all, they are called “Cycle Lanes”. Were these of a similar age to the young “indignados”? No, they senior citizens wanting to enjoy a bike ride in the sun.

The smoking restrictions, noise controls (on a normally noisy city), reduced speed limits on the motorways and now other petty rules are seen by many here to be unwarranted intrusions into the citizens’ right to enjoy life. Non-smokers, those wanting peace and those who like to walk without fear of accident will all have their opinions – as do those who think otherwise.

Shouldn’t we all learn to live together?

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Madrid New Riverside Park - Madrid Rio.

By Richard Morley.

Six years ago when I first came to Madrid I  had no idea the city had a river. Today’s metro maps feature a zig-zag of pale blue giving an impression of the river’s route, but this doesn’t appear on maps until after 2007. The free street map given away by the tourist office also showed a blue squiggle in its bottom right corner with the word “Rio”, but no actual name. The delights of the Prado, the Plaza Mayor, Sol and Gran via are so far removed from the watercourse that the river hardly registered in the mind. While Paris and London were built on the flood plains of their great rivers early settlements in the Spanish capital tended to be on the high plateau, which was probably much better for defence than confined in the river valley.

While it might have supplied water for a small community, the Manzanares River has never carried enough water to provide for a thirsty city. I admit to having been rather scathing about the waterway in past posts, referring to it, ironically, as the “Mighty Manzanares” and quoting the wag of a couple of centuries ago who wrote that “The Manzanares is eminently navigable by a coach and horses”.

Could it be that the city was a little ashamed of its river?

Certainly the history of the river seems to be one of slight utilitarian use to the city and so little regarded as to be isolated between the north and south bound lanes of the M30 ring road. The river ran, hidden,  between them. In short, compared to the other delights of this wonderful town, the river was far from being regarded as one of  its attractions.

It was the forgotten river.

That has now changed! But it took a while.

In 2006 I made a friend who told me she lived close to the Puente de Pragua in an area of the city I had not visited before. So now I had a new part of Madrid to discover. My trusty Michelin Map told me to head on metro line 5 to Piramides and cross the river by the Puente de Toledo. What a terrible scene of devastation awaited me.

In 2004 a decision had been taken to redirect the M30 underground. Madrid’s alcalde, (mayor) Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, or at least his advisors, had determined that the motorway was “a barrier to movement in the urban areas it ran through”. The old road was anyway in disrepair and it was thought that tens of thousands of vehicles polluted the air and the waters of the river.

I could have agreed with this. I live on the other side of the city where the M30, all eleven lanes of it, does not exactly contribute to a healthy atmosphere.

Diagram of a section of both tunnel and Park. Walking through the new park you have no idea of the traffic passing below your feet.

The project began in 2005, using one of the largest tunnel boring machines in the world, and was opened to traffic on the 5^th of February 2007. I had arrived on the river bank at about the halfway point in its construction. It was a mess.

I took photos. See the “before” pictures in this sequence.

But now look at those I took a couple of weekends ago. The river banks have been transformed into a rather wonderful park known as “Madrid Rio”. It’s all very new and immature at the moment, but the trees will grow, the stone will develop lichen and the yellow cycle-paths stain.

This project has not been cheap. The tunnelising of this section of the motorway cost €237 million out of a total project budget of €3.9 billion. The actual cost of this new green area seems to be buried somewhere within those figures.

But whatever the cost, Madrid has a new park and the statistics are astounding.

23 new pedestrian bridges have been constructed.

3,200,000 square metres of new green areas have been developed.

26,263 new trees have been planted.

30 kilometres of cycle lanes and pedestrian paths

11 play spaces for kids

6 quiet spots for the elderly

Competitions were run in schools to find out what the kids wanted to have and it truly is a place for all the family. I am particularly impressed with the way the play areas, safely placed under the traffic overpasses have been used to provide shade and how the bridges themselves are used to secure the chains for incredibly high swings and some form of bouncy elasticised activity for which I have no name, but it involves strapping yourself to a bungee cord crucifix and bouncing around on a trampoline. It looks fun.

And very energetic!

 The Puerta de Toledo. Now cleaned and open to pedestrians.

Unfortunately I am no longer a kid. I prefer something a little more relaxing, and the new walkways through newly planted woods and flower gardens provide just that. A walk along the river bank with a friend would be the ideal way to spend an evening.

But the aforementioned friend had other ideas! (And not for the first time do I wonder why I seem to choose my friends from sadists!) “Madrid Rio is seven kilometres long. We should cycle. There’s a place we can rent bikes,” she announced, cruelly.

There is, and you can find it here.

 The Puente de Segovia with the Catherdral and Royal palace in the background.

It’s five minutes walk from the Puente de Segovia. It says on their website you could get there from either Príncipe Pio (Metro lines 6, 10 or R(from Opera) or Puerta del Angel (L6). Trust me when I tell you to only use Puerta del Angel, unless you want to walk what you will later be cycling.

 Not a sight you will ever see again. The author on a bike beside the Manzanares River. Note the upside down boat bridges in the background.

I calculated I hadn’t actually ridden a bicycle for fifteen years, but riding a bike is like, er, riding a bike. You don’t forget how it’s done, even if ones backside has become used to more comfortable seats.

It was a warm, sunny Saturday evening. My friend and I were not the only people to consider a camino along the river bank a good idea. This was disadvantageous to our bike ride. During my first visit, on foot, to Madrid Rio a couple of weeks previously I had thought that the bikers were a little inconsiderate in wanting to cut a swathe through the massed ranks of us walkers. Now the foot was on the other pedal. The walkers were getting in the way of us bikers. For this I blame the ayuntamiento. Whoever decided that allowing pedestrians and those on wheels to share the same space needs seriously to think again.

 The most modern of the new bridges accross the Manzanares. This is, officially, El Puente Arganzuela. It allows crossing between either side of the river in the new Parque Arganzuela. For strength it uses a helix design and so I think it should be known as el Puente del Sacacorchos, or "Corkscrew Bridge".

Spanish walkers spread themselves, as anyone who’s tried to walk along Gran Via will attest. Threading a strange bicycle while still a bit wobbly through years of no practise was precarious to say the least. I did not want a confrontation with a mother, or worse, an abuela, after little Juan or Jauna had been crushed under the wheels of my machine. What should have been done, of course, and has been done on the newly constructed cycle lanes in my part of the city, is to designate areas. A simple painted line is all it would take. Indeed, they have actually made this designation on one of the new bridges, but the pedestrians took no notice.

However, breaking news: Today it has been announced the Señor Ruiz-Gallardón, the aforementioned mayor, has decided that the solution to this is to restrict the speed of cyclists to six kilometres and hour. It will be interesting to see how this is enforced as the cycles we hired did not have any method of measuring out speed so arguments with uniformed park police pointing accusatory fingers could come to an impasse. Maybe we shall have to have a man with a red flag walk in front – or will that just add to the log jam?

But, pedestrian / bicycle gridlock aside, it was fun to ride these new lanes. The main problem is in the area now known as the parque de Aguanzuela, where most activity seems to take place. Once past that and it was almost the joys of the open road, cycling along side the river as far down as Legazpi / Usera.

Now the park is open the sluice gates have been raised and the river has an appearance of actually containing water. It’s not very deep water as exposed sandbanks attest, but it’s a far cry from the polluted days of before. Mother ducks led lines of chicks, a heron stalked the sandbanks and near the Puente del Rey a fisherman looked optimistic.

 While construction was going on the Ermita de Virgen del Puerta was buries in a sea of rubble. Now it is approchable though broad green parklands.

In a two fingered gesture to past criticism, most notably in a twenty year old pop song by the Refrescos which proclaimed the many attractions of Madrid but bewailed the fact it had no beach. “Vaya, vaya, No hay una playa en Madrid”, the song’s chorus proclaimed. This is no longer true. As part of the new park, Madrid has a beach – of sorts.

But some don’t need one. A stretch of grass will do. Crossing the Puente de Segovia one warm and sunny Monday afternoon I spied two bikinied young ladies working on an early tan. Encouragement indeed, if any were needed, to pay Madrid’s new attraction a visit.

Who needs a beach when a lawn will do. Bikinied ladies work on their tan bedside the river.

Ana-gram from Madrid

I have just put the phone down. It was a pleasant conversation arranging a meeting tomorrow, but it started with a small confusion that, it seems to me at any rate, to be typical of my life here in Spain.

After answering with my cheery “Hello”, the person on the other end asked, “Do you know who this is?” I have to admit the voice was not one I immediately recognised and the consequent hesitation in my voice must have given the game away, because my caller identified herself with, “This is Ana”.

It is a pointer to the confusion in my life that this information was not immediately helpful.

You see, I know several Anas. However, usually, after a few seconds I am able to put name together with the voice and work out which Ana it was. Not this time. It may help you to visualise my initial uncertainty that this Ana was introduced to me by me friend, Ana. If it had been that Ana, who I have known for a long time, I would have recognised her voice immediately. Had it been Ana with whom I used to have lunch every Wednesday for more than two years until her company moved her to an office in Pozuelo, an expanding suburb to the west of Madrid and where, she claims, “Jesus lost his sandals”, I would have known at once without her having to tell me. There is my student, Ana, but she has a very distinctive voice, so I knew it wasn’t her, and I knew it couldn't have been the Ana the inebriate, who I see at my local from time to time. I have never had, nor will have, reason to give her my number. But the Ana on the phone is relatively new in my life. In fact I have met her only three or four times and that was late last year. Since then she has travelled to, and around, South America and has only just returned. I should feel flattered that she has called me to meet. She has, she told me, many things to speak about.

This phenomenon is not unknown at the English Villages I attend. (See last post.) Once with a plethora of Anas present the organisers decided to include the first letter of the family name to help differentiate the ladies. This led to one unfortunate wearing a name tag with “AnaL” on it. This was quickly changed to “Anita”. Another time we had five, yes five, ladies named Eva. We just numbered them, except for the last who was bulging in the eighth month of pregnancy. She was named “Eva Mummy”.

Last summer it was neither a sequence of Anas (would this be an “Ana-logue”?) nor a plethora of Evas (an Eva-luation?) that was making my mind reel, but a quickly growing row, or should that be column, of Pilars. In fact in the month of July alone I entered the numbers of four ladies of that name into my telephone. There, they joined five ladies called Eva, three called Julia, two called Marina, two called Mayte and, of course, a long long line of Marias.

In case you are thinking these list of ladies' names are some indication of a more prurient side of my life I might point out that at one time or another my phone has also contained copious Pedros, Davids, Juans and Pablos.

And, as I like to point out to the Christians who berate me for my evangelical atheism, unlike them I also have a Hot Line to Jesus. In fact several of them – of both sexes. Although Jesus Maria outnumbers Maria Jesus three to two. One of the Anas mentioned above is Ana Jesus and one I only know as Jesus.

My list of Marias that I could say “Ave” to would be much longer, but fortunately Maria Eugenia chooses to call herself “Mariu”, ( and thank goodness for that. Four distinctly pronounced vowels in a row, followed by an “h” sound, is not easy for the English tongue: i-a-e-u-hah!) Maria Isabel is Maribel, another similarly named is Marissa and Maria Teresa number one is Mayte, number two is Maite.

It would seem that the naming of children in Spain has, in the past, seemed a little repetitive. But there would seem to be only a limited number of saints and new testament personages and those are the names that are most favoured. That religious side to the Spanish carácter has had great impact on the giving of names. I have been told that at one time the church, or at least individual priests, demanded that every girl child was baptised Maria, whatever name her parents had chosen. There were, and are, whole families where every woman is officially named Maria Something.

I have also met a family where all four offspring bear the name Maria – and one of them is male!

When a male child is born I can almost guarantee that I know the child’s name before I am told. It will be the father’s name. Sometimes, in this freer age, I will be wrong, but Miguels beget other Miguels and Fernandos beget Fernandos, two examples I am familiar with.

However, this will not necessarily cause confusion as a) the children will have a slightly different surname to their parents, and b) nick-names will be used. I know of three generations of Maria Soledads who each answer to a different contraction of that name.

The Spanish seem slow to change in this respect. There are plenty of Albertos running around in school playgrounds here. I doubt there one Albert in any school in the UK.

I am told that there used to be a list of “official” names and any not included were just not allowed. That has changed, but not necessarily for the good. I have heard that the children of immigrants are being given the most outlandish names; usually after well-known personalities and actors. However, my own country seems to be following this trend with a vengeance. I am sure their will be just as many Catherines born this year as there were Dianas in 1981. As a boy in the 1950s I remember sharing classrooms with a plethora of Annes and Elizabeths. No Charles though! I cannot remember one boy called Charles.

And the double Christian names are no longer required, although I know of only one person with just a single first name.

Occasionally though, I find the odd unusual name. Three years ago I met my first Covadonga, named after the 722 battle of Covadonga, a battle which is said to have kindled the reconquista of Spain from the marauding Muslims, or the place where the battle took place. Apparently it is a relatively common name in Asturias. Now I know three, the third only a week ago, in comparison to the many tens of Marias. I know just one Amparo, which I am told is now very old fashioned, although the lady herself is far from fitting that description. I am jealous of my friend Rafael. What I would give for such a dignified and culturally important, name.

But one particular memory has stayed with me since my early days in Spain. Sitting with friends in a bar I suddenly realised that at either end of a short sofa sat a Maria and a José, and sitting between them was a Jesus. I couldn’t resist. I got down on my knees and ……