4. Spain: Madrid, Córdoba to Sevilla

                                                                                              Madrid — Córdoba, Sunday Oct. 10. 1982

Now we have started our southward trip for real. The train ride south was again fascinating.  The land is stark just south of Madrid, but soon you start seeing small fields of irrigated corn. Farther south there is some more sugar beet and then more and more vineyards and the fields get larger and larger. We started seeing some olive trees and then groves. After about 3 hours we started climbing into the Sierra Morena which is again very striking.  The vegetation turns to scrub and low broadleaf trees. Both the olive groves and vineyards are planted in wide rows up and down hills. All the plantations I saw had no visible attempt at any kind of soil conservation tactics and there was a lot of exposed ground between rows.

Once we got to the Guadalquivir River we turned west and followed it. The pattern there is olive on the upland and cotton in the bottomland. There were a lot of workers out in the cotton.

Hugo had told us that there are a lot of campgrounds in Spain, and that for a fee one can set up a tent, wash clothes, get a hot shower, etc. Here in Córdoba we are at a “first class” one that has all of the above plus a swimming pool (closed). It is very pleasant with the lots delineated by shady eucalyptus trees.

Helena, Córdoba Campground and the REI tent.

There are not a lot of tourists, though we are next to a group of three couples with (at last count) 14 kids between the ages of 1 and 12.  We’ve also met a dude from California who is spending a month’s vacation on a bicycle riding around Spain.  He is running out of time, so he is leaving his bicycle with us and taking the train to Granada for a day.  The camp is only about a kilometer from the train station and the post office. Dude’s name is Tom Storm.

Córdoba, Monday Oct. 11, 1982

(HELENA) It was mighty nice to wake up after a night in the tent_.   We really like Córdoba. One place we visited was a lot like good old Bolivian markets, except for a couple of details.  For one thing it was in the midst of a completely enclosed plaza. You could see only clothes and stuff at first glance, but then we discovered that all of the food was either underground (reached by stairs) or in a place off of the square. We got our usual cheese and sardines plus a bunch of fruit, enough to make up for the days we’d been without. We got another of those delicious melons we’d gotten with grandmother, plus apples, pears and grapes.  We completed our shopping with our usual bread and took it all to eat on the banks of the Río Guadalquivir.

In the afternoon we wandered around the Judería (the Jewish quarter, prior to the Inquisition).  Of course everything there is whitewashed, but besides that it was neat the way you could be hot standing in the sun one minute, and the next you would feel nice and cool by walking in the narrow shaded streets.  My favorite pastime was to walk along those narrow streets (naturally with geraniums in the window boxes) and stare into the open doorways. Almost invariably you could see a short tiled hallway leading to a black iron—grilled door.  Beyond that you could see a nice cool patio with various kinds of greenery. We had to walk in a circle in order to find what the guide book called the synagogue. It was so well hidden and closed, that I’m afraid we can only say we’ve been there y punto.  One of only two synagogues left in Spain, according to Michelin.

Córdoba.  The Juderia or old Jewish quarter

At 4:00 p.m. the Alcázar opened, so Dan and I trooped in with the hundreds of other tourists. A high percentage of it (this is where Columbus received permission from Isabel la Católica to make his trip) is in ruins, and what they have restored is not too convincing (the gardens are big but not special), BUT... I got to fulfill one of my lifelong dreams: we walked up to the tops of its two towers. 

The Alcázar, Córdoba.

We then walked back “home” to our tent. Oh yes, in spite of the way we talk about our restricted budget, we yielded to temptation and walked in to see Bananas, a Woody Allen movie. We were surprised to see that it was dubbed rather than sub-titled. Anyway, we got home and did a grand washing of our fruit (we’d bought iodine in Santiago de Compostela). Right beside us there as a man washing dishes who asked about our washing process. He turned out to be from New Zealand. Later, Dan went over to socialize and found out that Paul and Ana were winding up a long trip.  They started by traveling through Asia on a plane pass (Nov. 1980). They'd fly between capitals and travel around by land. They eventually got to England and worked for 7 months in pubs. Now they are traveling some in Europe in a tiny covered pick-up (Renault 4) and will head back home for Christmas.

Córdoba, Tuesday, Oct. 12, 1982

(DAN) We waited till today to see the famous Mosque-Cathedral because the guide-book said that it is free on holidays. (Today is Our Lady of Pilar and the 490^th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery). We got to the cathedral after they closed the doors and were told we would have to pay, but never did find anybody to collect, so we just went in.  Our New Zealand friends (to whom we’d made a spe­cific point of informing of the gratuity) arrived a few minutes later and had to pay. The building itself is incredible. It was first started in 785 AD after knocking down a Visigoth cathedral in the same spot. The mosque part is enormous with hundreds of double arches of alternate brick and stone. The ceilings are of carved wood and then on the wall facing Mecca there is a lot of beautiful intricate mosaic. They also did miles of intricate carving in soft stone and plaster. Apparently Muslims cannot make images of man or other animals, so all the designs are variations of writing, plant life (stylized) and beautiful geometry. A lot of the structure work is various combinations of arches.  I hope that our pictures will do it justice.  Oh yes, in the 16th century the Christians went back in, knocked out a lot of the central roof and converted it into a Baroque cathedral, again with miles of carved mahogany and plaster. It is quite a building.

Entrance to the Mezquita-Catedral, with mule-drawn organ and player.

We went across the Roman bridge (this one has a tower and moat at one end), ate lunch and made our way back to the camp-ground to wash and write. Since we were through touring, we lent our Michelin guide to Paul and Ana.  In exchange they invited us over for huge, delicious cups of café con leche when they got back to camp. While we were sitting there, Tom (of the bicycle) got back from Granada and we all talked of world travel until 10:30 pm.  Tom has done the Asian route on top of having traveled and lived in South America for two years. None, ehem, have been to Africa. Then when Paul and Ana found that we were going to Sevilla the next day, they offered to give us a lift in their minute Renault 4 camper to the camp-ground in that city. Tom works for the Postal Service in San Francisco. Paul is a lawyer in New Zealand and has practiced for 5 years. Ana has some job with the NZ government. Apparently the NZ government goes out of its way to facilitate two-year leave-of-absences for young professionals.  They are guaranteed their old jobs when they return.  It is part of an overall employment strategy.  You can spread the same number of jobs around more people if a significant percentage takes 2 year leaves of absence.

Córdoba-Sevilla, Oct. 13. 1982

(HELENA) It’s a good thing Dan and I set our alarm clock a bit early because, if we normally take a long time (which Grandmother can tell you we do), it was much worse this time with the tent.  I hope we do enough camping to get really efficient at it because it really is a neat tent (Dan keeps patting himself on the back for having bought it (an REI half-dome prototype) and often sneers - not maliciously — at other people’s efforts to put their lesser tents up).  Ana and Paul got up quite a bit later than we did and still had to wait for us.

It was quite a feat to get the two of us and our packs into the back of their Renault 4, along with their own camping gear, but we made it.  It all went well (we drove mostly through large fields which we think had been readied for wheat) until we decided to take a small detour to see this picturesque-looking castle at the top of a hill. On the way up, the radiator water started boiling. With that solved, we kept going up until we got to the edge of town (Carmona).  Were we surprised when we walked into town and found it to be a bustling town of 21,000. Naturally we proceeded to get lost in among the quaint little crooked whitewashed streets.  Actually we weren’t lost (in Dan’s and my book), but Paul and Ana got sort of nervous about their car.  We got back and started to clamber aboard when we decided to partake of some bread, cheese, and candied quince we had bought. Then Dan sighted a cactus with tunas (prickly pears) on it and decided to let Ana and Paul try one.  It was a good tuna, but Dan got the prickles all over his fingers and some in his mouth. Ana got some on her fingers too.  After trying fingernails and tweezers Dan finally decided to shave them off of his fingers. (Not altogether successful.)

The Castle turned out to be a Parador.  These are 5 star hotels built into old castles that are scattered around Spain and either run or organized by the government.  It was beautiful, except that there was trash scattered all about the foot of the hill.

Parador with trash spread about on the slopes below

We stopped on the edge of a cliff with 5—10 miles of visibility. All we could see were field after field of plowed ground completely exposed. That night there was a strong wind, and there was a lot of grit in the air.

Well, on the road again - we thought. We took a dirt road back down to the highway but right where they joined: clunk, the exhaust pipe fell off. They managed to wire it back on and we got to Sevilla without further problems.  We went directly to the “Camping Seville.’ It was pretty far from town (7 km.), but we saw that there was a regular bus into town so we stayed. Sevilla is further south than Córdoba, so I expected it to be warmer. Ha! We got there late afternoon in the midst of a very strong wind.  We were quite a spectacle, what with trying to put up our tent, etc.  Ana and Paul set up their little getup right next door (very convenient for those ‘cuppas’ Ana was always giving us - VERY NICE).  They had already invited us for supper, and because of the STRONG wind, Dan had the idea of inviting them over to eat dinner in our tent.  It took a little juggling, but we were eventually settled to a delicious dinner of chicken, potatoes, carrots and green beans (not to mention bread with butter) fixed in their pressure-cooker. They have a little two-burner stove that they use inside their little pickup. They knew that Dan’s and my usual fare is in the sandwich department, so it was a real treat for us.  Ana said that other people had done the same for them while they traveled through Asia, so they wanted to pass on the favor.