The Greenhouse Effect

Four seasons in one day, people sometimes say when referring to New Zealand's climate. A similar statement holds true for Spain, particularly for the province of Almería, in the extreme southeast of the country: four continents in one day. And you don't even need a car to see all four of them. A bicycle will do.

It's somewhat of a shock to leave the Alpujarras mountain range—craggy peaks, remote hamlets, stunning vistas—and shoot straight into the suburban sprawl of Almería city, where it’s hot, dirty and noisy. The city doesn’t have much going for itself, apart from its location. The Alpujarras on one side, the Tabernas desert, home of the spaghetti Western, on the other. (You can still visit the set of A Fistful of Dollars in a place called Mini Hollywood…)

But the region’s main prize is Cabo de Gata, a vast parque nacional sporting low mountains and a string of secluded coves with some of Spain’s finest beaches. Some of them are easily accessible. You just park your car and lay your towel wherever you want. Others require a bit of effort (a steep climb down) or a lot of effort (a seven-kilometre hike through rugged terrain).

You’d think that this stunning scenery automatically generates a modicum of wealth for the region, but that’s not the case. Tourists tend to stick to the Granada side of the Alpujarras, and Cabo de Gata, being a protected area, doesn’t have the horrid seaside resorts you get up north.

Almería owes its new-found prosperity not to tourism but to some unconventional thinking. ‘Why,’ someone must have said one day, ‘you know what we should do here, in the most arid part of Europe? Grow tomatoes!’

And so they did. But not in the tidy glass greenhouses I grew up amongst in Holland. They use invernaderos here, a fancy word for something very basic: endless sheets of plastic. A shimmering sea of white as far as the eye can see. And while the characteristic glass greenhouses are rapidly disappearing from my home region—high costs, low return—the plastic sea in Almería keeps expanding. It’s guerrilla agriculture at its most effective.

Sigh

People visit Granada for one reason, and one reason only. And it's not the free tapa you get with each drink—a once widespread tradition now limited to a handful of cities. (Although, for the thrifty Dutch that may be a very compelling reason to rush off to the nearest travel agency and book a last-minute holiday.) No, it's all about the Alhambra, “the most exciting, sensual and romantic of all European monuments”, according to the Rough Guide to Spain. A subtle qualification, given that the Alhambra is an Islamic work of art, the epitome of a way of thinking, feeling and believing wholly at odds with the direction many modern-day European politicians would like the continent to take.

Nowadays, Andalusians are proud of the mishmash of cultural influences that make up their identity. They point to the gypsy roots of flamenco or the region's numerous Mudéjar churches and monasteries, constructed by Muslim artists under Christian rule. But strolling through Granada is a good way to remind yourself of the fact that people didn't always have the same happy-go-lucky take on these matters.

When Granada was still a Moorish stronghold, the city boasted no less than fourteen caravanserai, places for merchants and their camels to sit back and relax after a strenuous journey. Now only one remains. Cross the street and you enter the Alcaicería, in Moorish times a maze of alleyways lined with tiny shops where you could buy various sought-after products, such as spices, silver and silk. After half a century of Christian rule, Philip II, never a man of compromise, decided playtime was over and kicked out the entire lot. What you see today is a late nineteenth-century reconstruction built to lure tourists hungry for a bit of exotism.

Eradicating every trace of things Islamic hadn't been part of the original plan. When, after an eight-month siege, Granada finally fell in 1492, King Fernando and Queen Isabel went house hunting and decided the Alhambra would do. They rearranged the furniture a bit, hoisted one or two of their banners, and that was it. More lasting damage was done by their grandson, Carlos V. Those rooms full of geometrical patterns and floral decoration made him feel slightly woozy, so he demolished an entire wing of the palace and replaced it with something sensible: a humongous Renaissance building, all straight lines, columns, circle-in-a-square floorplan—the lot. And, whether you like the aggressive contrast or not, the place actually has its merits. Nice touch: the construction of the thing was funded by imposing an extra tax on Granada's Moorish population.

As I walked the streets of Granada and explored the rooms and gardens of the Alhambra complex, I kept thinking of Boabdil, the last Moorish ruler. After years of plotting and backstabbing he had finally assumed power, and then, just because they felt like it, los Reyes Católicos Fernando and Isabel marched in and told him to take a hike. It must have been a bitter defeat, for, with the capture of Granada, the Christian Reconquest of Spain was complete. Boabdil handed over the keys of the city, packed his things and headed south, on foot, for the Alpujarras mountain range. On a hill a few miles south of the city he looked over his shoulder and let out a sad sigh. That sigh led to his final humiliation. Legend has it that his mum—on the back of a camel, I imagine—started bitching and snapped: 'Don't cry like a woman for what you couldn't defend like a man'.

More than five hundred years later I stand on the top of the same hill, now appropriately known as the Puerto del Suspiro del Moro. I look back to Granada and sigh. I think of my mum, click my right foot into the pedal, then my left foot, and head south for the Alpujarras.

Roughing It

Am I a faker? A poseur? Admittedly, not a very nice thing to ask yourself. But sometimes, when the old soul-searching fails to get you anywhere, questions such as these can add a bit of oomph. Do away with the frills. Cut to the chase, so to say.

My most recent experience with this type of gritty introspection wasn't something I was actively looking for. Rather, it hit me like something blunt and heavy—not unlike the big parasol that toppled over in a gust of wind the other day and nearly split my skull in two while I was quietly enjoying some pescado frito.

The thing is, I ran into a colleague of mine. Not someone from the old job but a fellow cyclist. Now, I don't know whether you've ever seen me in full 3D action, with my semicustomised touring bicycle and ultratight outfit, but this guy was the complete opposite. In every sense. I spotted him from afar, while he was working the pedals to get to the top of a particularly steep hill. As is common usage among cycle tourists, we both grinded to a halt for a bit of practical chitchat. Usually talk about weight, gear, destination and road condition.

This time it was different. For a few seconds I just stood there and gaped at this big hulk of a guy on his rickety racing bicycle. The thing he rode looked like a classic, but not in the good sense of the word. In fact, it reminded me of the thing they fished out of a ravine after Dutch cycling crack Wim van Est had missed a curve in the Tour de France of 1951. (They managed to pull the poor sod out by tying together a bunch of bicycle tubes. Badly shaken of course, but not a scratch on his body.)

He told me he was from Austria. Left home in November, spent two months in Marseille, now on his way to a mountain lake for a bit of climbing. After that maybe to Morocco and push south, or catch a boat to Latin America.

I nodded and tried to produce a coherent sentence. 'On this bike?' I asked. 'Without front panniers?' I examined his outfit. Cotton shirt. Baggy shorts. Sneakers. And, very unorthodox, a backpack. All of a sudden I found myself asking the same questions worried friends had asked me before I left. Are you prepared for different types of weather? Where do you keep your water? Where do you sleep at night? When I mentioned that I sometimes stay in a pension or hostal—generally very affordable here in Spain—he winced. 'I never pay for accommodation,' he said, in the same way you might say 'I never have sex with minors'. Just like me he tries to couchsurf as frequently as possible. When that doesn't work out he pitches his tent in a field. 'And I'm thinking of getting rid of that tent. I don't need more than a bivy.'

I lowered my gaze from his longish beard to his tyres. Frightfully thin. Next to his my tyres looked like the things you see on monstertrucks. I started to feel embarrassed. I like to think of myself as someone who doesn't care much about luxury. Sure, I know how to appreciate the good things in life—a comfy bed, a fine meal, those sexy gadgets Apple churns out every so often—but I'm not much of a materialist. I could just as well do without all of that. But why then am I carrying so many high-quality items with me? Do I really need a windstopper jacket? Hydraulic brakes? Three pairs of gloves? Or even padded tights? Would my progress be hampered if I didn't have them? Am I, in short, afraid to rough it?

Possibly. But there was also something about this bloke that didn't quite agree with me. The frantic look in his eyes, perhaps. Or a certain sense of self-righteousness. Maybe I could rough it a bit more, I thought as we both went our separate ways. Maybe I should learn to let go and embrace the unexpected. But roughing it is one thing. Getting chafed is another.