Can you tell which one is the original and which is the 'improved version'?
It's 10.54 on Wednesday morning, it's raining and the Plaza de la Fuente Arriba is virtually deserted. Only three bars, a cake shop and the Estanco (tobacconist and salt cod shop) have opened their doors for business but with few takers.
Yes, it's that time again. Today is La Fiesta Nacional de España (Spain's National Day), October 12th. It is also El día de la Hispanidad, El Día de la Raza, Espainiako Jai Nazionala (If you're Basque), Columbus Day in the USA ,although they had it on Monday this year,and Las Fiestas de San Pilar, ( The festival of the Virgin of the Pillar, Patron Virgin of Zaragoza and the national Guardia Civil. It also marks the end of the bullfighting season drawing sighs of relief from bulls everywhere and the disappearance of Rabo de Toro (Bull's Tail) from restaurant menus - except in Ronda where it's a big moneyspinner.
If all that lot isn't a good enough excuse for a knees up, I don't know what is! Well, it is in Zaragoza but not round here, apparently.. The Guardia Civil will have a big piss up at their headquarters down on Avenida Pablo Ruiz Picasso on Sunday but Mrs. Sánchez and I aren't invited again this year owing, we believe, to the unfortunate disappearance of a lavatory chain during our attendance at their party some years ago. No offical charges were brought but we have drawn our own conclusions.
I'm surprised that the streets here aren't full of people celebrating the arrival of the first real drop of rain for months. We had a brief shower (quatro gotas (4 drops, as they say here)) a couple of weeks ago but everyone you bump into says '¡Oy. Hace falta agua!' or '¡Oy para el campo!' or 'Another lovely day!' if you're a Brit.
The day that Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492, as everyone used to believe, (120 years before the first English colony at Plymouth, Mass.) has long been a big day for Spanish speaking people all over the world, including the Phillipines, Central and South America (not Brazil, of course) and the United States of America where it is a big cultural and political event, especially in an election year. Thousands of New Yorkers of Spanish and HIspanic origin march down New York's Fifth Avenue and any politician who fancies his or her chances appears on the parade. This year's Republican presidential favourite discovered a prior engagement and could not attend. He had been booked as the keynote speaker at the ILGA annual conference.
'The Trump' just before his speech at the ILGA conference.
In Spain all the excitement is more or less confined to Madrid where they have a big military parade with a flypast by the Spanish Red Arrows (La Patrulla Águila). All the top politicians and the royal family attend and try to join in with the National Anthem of Spain, La Marcha Real, which has no words. Notable dissenters, like Basques, Catalans and human rights activists often refuse to stand up as lots of colourful troops march past at double speed. The Alcaldesa (lady mayor) of a smallish town here is in a lot of trouble because she said that La Fiesta Nacional de España celebrates a genocide carried out all over the world by Spain. As if!
Here's King Felipe VI reviewing the troops today and trying to remember the words to the national anthem helped by his lovely wife Queen Letizia.. It's raining there too. The uncomfortable looking wet bearded man on the right is Mariano Rajoy, acting Prime Minister. He never says much even when he DOES know the words.
Speaking of troublemakers, that chirpy and much loved celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has created a major brou ha ha here by having the barefaced cheek to try to tell the Spanish how to make a Paella, one of Spain's three official national dishes. The others are Tortilla Española (Spanish Omelette) and Gazpacho. Originally a Valencian dish, Paella is a firm favourite from Ferrol to Fuengirola. Here in Álora it's just called 'Arroz' (rice) and I hope I'm not being too self congratulatory when I say that I make a pretty damned good one myself.
Last Wednesday I switched on the Spanish national news and there sat a group of 'serious' TV journalists discussing Jamie's new idea for this great Spanish dish. He had only suggested adding a bit of chorizo after all, but some people just can't take a joke.
'How would you like us to come and mess about with your fish and chips?' one threatened. 'It's just another stew.' whined another 'We don't negotiate with terrorists!' ejaculated another. His fellow panel members eyed him uncomprehendingly (it's a real word OK?).
It's not even a new idea. They tried it at the restaurant at St. Mary's Hall Hotel on the Isles of Scilly earlier this year and everybody liked it except Ciro, a Spanish barman at the nearby Tregarthan's Hotel.
Alcalde José Sánchez (no relation) and his pals dishing out Sopas Perotas to the hungry masses, bless 'em
(Desiré Cortes is 2nd. from the left)
Last Saturday was another exciting day here in Álora when the town was taken over by Crazy Cross; an obstacle course of inflatables which were set up around the town. It looked like great fun. The best bit was the final stage which was a water slide nearly all the way from Plaza Santa Ana down to La Plaza de la Fuente Arriba. It went on till midnight and attracted over a thousand funlovers, 90% from out of town and many in fancy dress, all paying 15€ to enter. All the town's hotels (3) were fully booked and the bars were very busy too.
It must have been advertised on 'social media', and very successfully too.
Mrs. Sánchez and I got a bit too close to the bottom of the 'toboggan' and copped a soaking.
We went to Ronda yesterday with Graham and Mary. Nearly everybody has heard of Ronda. It's an ancient market town with a spectacular position on the edge of a high cliff with views to match. It sits amid the high Serranía de Ronda and has cold winters with snow, sometimes very deep.
Alastair Boyd, later Lord Kilmarnock, left the financial institutions of London behind to live there in 1957. In his two books about Ronda, 'The Road From Ronda' and 'The Sierras of the South' he describes how the town authorities made a deliberate decision to transform a busy and beautiful Andalusian hill town into a profitable tourist trap, destroying grand buildings and communties in the process. It is ideally placed for coach trips from Marbella, Fuenguirola and other popular Costa Del Sol resorts.
These days it's difficult to spot any Rondeños who are not occupied in the act of extracting money from the pockets of strangers in one way or another. The odd group of schoolchildren, some elderly pedestrians and the owners of a few tradtional shops are about as close as you will get to 'the real Spain' here.
The whole place has been infected with that offhand rudeness which you meet in all over-exploited tourist destinations. Even the receptionist in the posh Parador Hotel was rude. The Parador once was home to the busy municipal market but was on far too valuable a site to be wasted on a market! I couldn't wait to get out of the place and back to good old unspoilt Álora.
Juanito Sánchez
October 12th. 2016
