This aqueduct is a pipe bomb!

I took a long weekend to go meet up with Brad and Juliane who were travelling in France & Spain and spending some time in Barcelona. Barcelona has moved into a tie with Amsterdam as my favorite city. Amsterdam is at the top because there’s more bikes than cars…that’s enough reason (but its also a pretty city with good art, good food and interesting history). Barcelona is paradise if you love art and artistic architecture, Spanish flag burning, anarchists, about a 1000 year history, archaeology…and theres a lot of bikes on the street and reportedly a very nice big beach. I was so intrigued with everything else I never laid eyes on the beach, or even the ocean until I flew home. I arrived sleepless because the light was on in the train all night and I was worried I might get rousted for laying down on the floor, so the next day was a bit of a dream state. The day was pretty much about the modernist architecture of Gaudi starting with the one I can’t remember the name of which is a homage to the legend of St. George (Jordi in Catalan) and the dragon. Next was la Pedrera, an apartment building with no straight lines, and a ridiculous amount of decorative details and natural forms. Then we hopped the metro to La Sagrada Familia cathedral, which has been under construction for over a century and is only about half done. This project turned Gaudi into a bit of a loon and one day he got run over in the street. Let this be a lesson to you. It was intended to be neo-gothic (its basic shape was in fact quite gothic with Ankgor Wat-like spires and an aged dark sinister look to it), but it is thoroughly encrusted with angels, apostles, natural undulating or even melting forms, and at least one frog. No shit. I think it must be the world’s only synthesis of art nouveau and gothic. The other side is being completed by another architect who nobody can seem to name (doomed to be “the other architect” his whole life, kind of an architectural George Harrison), and who has a very different aesthetic and style adding to the weirdness of the building. Nobody knows what Gaudi’s plans were for the rest of the building because they were destroyed by anarchists. When I first heard this I thought that despite all their talk and ideals, anarchists just stomped on in like a bunch of fascist goons and wrecked the place, depriving the world of an art treasure. But I guess you need to know a little context…Sagrada Familia symbolized expenditure of enormous funds to build a gift to god in a purposeful throwback to more conservation religious times (medieval in fact when you just paid the church to be accepted into heaven, oh…you’re poor, well you’re going to hell). So in other words it is and was a monument to wealth, the church, and conservatism (anti-anarchism)…there was also a festering multi-decadal resentment due to a military draft that was instituted to send catalunyan soldiers to fight for rich peoples interests. One of the men strongly benefiting happened to be the major financier of Gaudi, Guell. It is analogous to a draft to invade Iran to protect the interests of Chevron or something like that. So I guess we have to cut the anarchists at least a little slack, or at least try and understand the motives, but what a bummer Gaudi’s plans didn’t survive. I guess this history just makes the thing even more cool. I believe Barcelona was the only major city in the world to ever be controlled by anarchists, until Franco and the REAL Hilter-financed fascist goons stormed in and killed them all. The view of anarchists in the US is colored by the famous Sacco and Vanzetti trial and bombings conducted by anarchists using terrorist tactics. In Europe, the anarchists are viewed differently because they were a realized (not theoretical) movement toward human freedom, at at least for a while they successfully repelled the fascists, who are by almost everyones assessment clearly A-holes. So I’m writing too much already and its not even day 2. Day 1 ended with the Roman wall and aqueduct, Gothic neighborhood and its Dracula churches, and fantastic gargoyles, and an Ancient Roman necropolis unearthed when a developer was trying to build a parking garage. The Roman tombs used to line the road into the ancient walled city. Really all that in one day, and a perfect nights rest on the balcony despite reportedly raucous noise all night.

Day two we went to the Picasso museum in the morning, and the history museum in the evening. Both are excellent, but I have to point out that the history museum happens to have roman ruins in its basement. When I was telling my roommate what I liked so much about Barcelona he didn’t really understand why I didn’t just go to Rome if I like Roman ruins so much. Its not that the ruins were Roman that is so cool…its that that are buried under the city, encased in other buildings, recycled and built on, around, over, and in. Another example: one of my favorite small moments is when we lost juliane down a random alley and followed. Walking down the nearly deserted alley takes you to sort of a tiny indoor plaza inside an apartment building. There are four columns standing there which used to be a portion of the temple in the old Roman city. Its in an apartment complex for fucks sake. I like that a lot about Barcelona. My friends kindly let me crash on the floor of their hotel that night. Before bed I went out to book a hostel for the next night and happened to hear some kind of punk rock show. I figured I should check it out since this was anarchist city. It turned out to be an outdoor show in a plaza and it was free and they were selling enormous beers (I get so tired of tiny Spanish beers, you just end up ordering three instead of one). It turns out it was a benefit or rally to liberate Franki. I’m a bit ignorant about this so please excuse any inadvertent fabrications…but I think he is a catalunyan separatist imprisoned for burning the Spanish flag. I was waiting for another band to come on when about 20 masked people appeared and made a big show of torching the Spanish flag with roman candles and shit. Eventually there was no more punk rock, just a skinny mulleted kid who was spinning hip hop and reggae. So I realized I was getting loaded and decided to put myself to bed in the hotel.

Day 3 was entirely occupied by a trip to a small catalunyan town near France which happens to be the home town of Dali, and the site of the Dali museum which he designed himself. My dad is famous for asking “Have you ever seen a picture of Lincoln, dead?” (sorry you had to be there). To that I reply “Have you ever seen a picture of Lincoln with a nude woman on his face?” The Dali museum is in the foothills of the Pyrennees and is the largest surrealist object in the world. I guess you can think of surrealism as art’s reaction to Freud. The surrealists employed depictions of the dream state and Freudian symbols, especially Dali. I recently learned that the drawer symbol commonly employed by Dali (a drawer which opens form some point in the human body…often the forehead) is a direct reference to the impact of Freud upon our understanding of people. Two things are apparent about Dali from the museum: 1) he had a serious fear of sex and consequent obsession early in his life, 2) the guy loved his wife. One of the things I really like about him is the humor in his art, and the deadpan delivery exhibited by some of the titles of his works. Interestingly, his early interactions with Luis Bunuel, Spains greatest surrealist filmmaker are entirely blown off in Dali’s museum. I would guess this was because Dali became a bit of a nationalist (was even a Franco supporter) later in his life and disapproved of Bunuel’s communism. I wondered if the way he was signing his later work (a very official looking symbol featuring a cross over a crown) was a reflection of this. The night at the hostel was uneventful. There was four hilarious Finnish guys who sat in the lobby looking at a porno magazine and drinking about 20 tall boys of beer. They had a boom box and were playing some really shitty songs such as “Hold the Line” by Toto. They knew and sang every word, and one of them said “We do not approve of the new school rock”. They were just warming up for the bars and I went to bed early.

Day four I had just enough time for another taste of Gaudi, I went to Buell Park. This was supposed to be a fantastical place for stinking rich people to live. The project flopped and It is now an amazing city park just crawling with tourists. I can barely describe it, you should just go. More catalunyan art nouveau by the master, except this time it’s a giant sculpture posing as a park. In the tradition of Dali, here’s some pictures from the whole trip in no coherent order, figure it out…

the most fabulous object in the universe- hayedo de tejera negra

i dont much feel like writing. i went with some friends to the most beautiful place i have seen in Spain and we only saw about 3 other people. my friends are botany geeks, the first place we went was a young beech forest. its a pleistocene relict, this vegetation type is more common farther north. the second was a fairly natural birch forest in a hunting area. the first (most of the pics) featured an amazing combination of colors due to perfect timing...Erica in flower (pink), Fagus leafing out (bright green), Fagus not yet leafed out (purplish brown), shiny schist with pure white quartz intrusions, a yellow green endemic lichen, and skys threatening rain with occasional rays of light. the second was like a Robin Hood forest, and turned out to be perfect for having a nap. A few fungi were out, but mushroom season (Boletes!) is in fall.

Puta Imperial en bici

Alright I did a bike tour, the thing I keep thinking and talking about. It was a holiday weekend (4 days off) and my work trip was cancelled…so here was my chance to throw something together. I stole my route from Bike Spain who sell guided bike tours for hundred of euros but are stupid enough to post enough information on the web that you can deduce the route…and do it free! And I had to bust a little freestyle to link my town up with the route. Bike Spain packages this as a 7 day affair, I think with 5 days of riding. Turns out it only takes about 2.5 days. …should have done more exhaustive research. Heres a silly tour log for anybody who ever might want to do the ride. It’s a nice long weekend straight out of Madrid city.

Day 1: Mostoles to vicinity of Pto. Navacerrada (~80 km with a decent climb.) -

I have no gas for my camp stove, the outdoor shop was sold out. So I’m hoping to find some on the way. Instead I have some heavy fuel for human bodies that does not require cooking: nutella, cheese, two bags of fritos (not the corn chips this is a great Spanish thing that blends cornnuts, honey roasted peanuts, and fried chick peas), and a little bread just to help get the other shit to my mouth. This will go on top of my breakfast of fried potatoes and cheese and sriracha (which Becky mailed to me! ... aw shucks). Last year I read about a feral punk rocker guy who toured on a dumpstered bike with a trailer he made, and wore a hat made of roadkill. He could ride faster than anyone and woudn’t buy food, he would just scavenge food from dumpsters. This amazing athlete’s dietary advice was “ eat like a fat guy”. Years ago I learned this riding the ring road around Iceland…I got really skinny. You’ve got to eat like a fat guy just to maintain your weight. I reckon I need 5000 calories just to come close to breaking even today.

Ok so I started out form my apartment and as usual riding out of the city (any city) kind of sucked. The road I was using was borderline freeway…but shortly I changed roads in a town called Brunete. After that I was having a marvelous, if uneventful ride. The country is pretty nice in that area, it’s mostly cattle pasture with these oak trees that have had all their branches cut off, so the trees overcompensate with a proliferation of branches making excellent shade. Occasional granite outcrops, and stone walls of un-mortared granite pretty much complete the pastoral aesthetic. I had considered stopping by Escorial in the vicinity of Pablo’s house to actually take a tour of the palace and monastery, but it was a holiday and El Escorial was a freaking madhouse…so I blew right through. Apparently, I was riding on the “Ruta Imperial”, a reference to some damned thing that Fellipe II did, someone had altered the road sign to read “Puta Imperial”. The funniest jokes are simple. Then I blew right through Guadarrama, to Navacerrada. So at this point it’s time to climb my first Puerto, although I’ve gradually been climbing all day. It was a fairly steep pitch and kept me in my granny gears. But the climb was pretty short. I even stopped for water at a spring called “the geologists fountain” and dozed off for a while. I still made it to the Puerto de Navacerrada from Mostoles in only 6 hours, with plenty of daylight and some energy left.

I didn’t want to climb the next Puerto just yet (not that energetic) which was a few km around the corner…so I fucked off for a while at the Puerto. I had beer and patatas bravas (fried potatoes with a sauce), the only food item that doesn’t have ham or fucking tuna. Tuna is number three on my list of most disgusting substances on planet earth, the smell makes me gag. Then I went for a nice short hike to the top of the ski slope. Theres actually a windy paved cobbly road that goes up there.

My eye was drawn to a yellow flag flying up top. When I got there I sat in front of the flag taking in the panaoramic view and trying to convince my camera that it had enough battery power to take some pictures. I was curious about this weird metal thing protruding from the rocks a few meters in front of me. I clambered around to the front of it and found that it was a Madonna & child statue of metal, painted glossy black, with skis on her back. What a fun surprise!

After my hike it was starting to get dusky, so I had a logistical problem to solve: where to sleep. Camping is prohibited in these mountains, I think because of fear of fires. The only type of campground in Spain, as far as I can tell, are like those giant private ones with RVs and shit. The type that makes a backpacker shudder in horror. And these are absent from the mountains, so not even an option. There are a couple youth hostels, but why the hell did I lug all my camping gear up here if I was going to sleep in a hostel? So, long story short, I need to ninja camp somewhere and its better to not try and figure it out in the dark. Everywhere I looked was on a rather steep slope…eventually I just had to find the flattest spot I could (not very flat) before it got dark.

Day 2- Pto. Navacerrada to El Buerreco (~ 65 km).

Woke up and made cold instant coffee (no gas remember? still no gas), which, shockingly was delicious. I’m anticipating a minor climb to Pto. de los Cotos this morning. There was a bajillion road riders out and few cars. Turns out there was no climb, because you never lose any elevation from Pto. Navacerrada. From Pto. de los Cotos, I took a short side trip to a ski resort (which I also thought was a climb but was not). So I have a steep downhill all the way to Rascafria (20km). On this side trip I saw numerous flat places I could have slept, had I not wasted so much time reconing slopes….next time. I contemplated screwing off for a while near the Puerto (because it really was pretty), but I prefer doing my screwing off after I’ve covered the miles I need to cover…also I’m not comfortable leaving my bike and panniers locked up while I hike. So I got to Rascafria in about 5 seconds, it was like riding one of those light cycles from Tron. I love long downhills in the mountains because you can move faster than the cars. There no goddamned douchbag bearing down on your ass who just has to pass you regardless of the safety of the maneuver…because cars just can’t keep up. I stopped at a famous monastery (de Paular) which is over 500 years old, although it has seen many modifications over the years. It was really cool. It’s too bad there’s no monasteries for atheists, I could enjoy the secular monastic life.

Then I chugged along and before long I had somehow missed my turn to Buitrago (goddamned headphones! They push you up the hills but they are like an attention span vampire), so I headed toward Lozoyuela. Oh well, I had no particular attachment…it was just on the Bike Spain route. The roadside maps say I have a campground option near there. Down here theres no longer good tree cover, so ninja camping will be harder. So I rode to Las Navas de Buitrago looking for the campground. For want of a better word…this town was really “cute” (next thing you know I’ll be saying it was “darling”) and the country was just flippin awesome, and the clouds were keeping the sun at bay. The town looks like it has maybe 200 residents, and no campground. The locals told me I’d have to go to La Cabrera for a campground, but I ended up finding one near El Burrueco. This was the part of the tour that I thought was going to be kind of blah, but really the region is ideal for bike touring, too bad there’s not simpler camping options other than hiding on someone’s property.

At first I actually liked the campground, there was a free shower so I could get the disgusting sunscreen off my body. Amazingly, there is also basketball and soccer courts, a swimming pool, and a restaurant/bar. I discovered I had a horizontal raging angry sunburned stripe where my shirt fails to meet the top of my shorts when I’m hunched over the handlebars. Turns out my He-man shirt is a little bit short. When I went to bed I was kept awake by this stupid light that exists so people without flashlights can find their camp. I had put my tent in a cluster of rocks. This worked against me because this is where stoner teenagers come to get baked at night and escape their parents. Then there was the cannons and trambucos (muskets, not penises). Did I mention this was a holiday similar to the 4^th of July…heavy artillery is a major part of the holidays in Spain.

Day 3. El Burrueco to Casa de Campo (~110 km)

So I’ve got a dilemma…my planned route is just too short, I could have made it to north Madrid last night if I’d wanted to push. I don’t have any destinations in mind to lengthen the route, I could just make some silly meanderings, but this seems, well, silly. There are a couple Puertos accessible out of Miraflores, but I’m pretty sure both are unpaved from my previous web searching, and I don’t want to try them with road tires. So early in the day I come to the conclusion that I’m going to get back home by the end of the day. I had a pleasant ride to Torrleaguna, through Guadalix de la Sierra, through Soto del Real, over to Manzaneres el Real. I came to Manzanares to see a castle. I had some vague recollection about some Spanish castle being used in several movies. Strangely, a fantasy sequence from Beverly Hillbillies came to mind where Jethro is a knight riding toward a castle…but I’m pretty sure they did not come to Spain to film a 5 minute sequence of the Beverly Hillbillies. I really enjoyed the castle, but unfortunately the library was not part of the tour. The castle was embellished and added on to many times over the years, including the 1700s, the most extreme being in 1917. The owner apparently wanted to jazz up the towers a bit to make the castle look more castley.

From the upper towers you can look out on a reservoir and pretend its Loch Ness. Also, you can see one of the ski resorts I rode to previously (not sure which one though). No movies I had heard of were made at this castle…but La Marca del Hombre Lobo (The mark of the wolfman) was filmed here. After the castle I took the via ciclista all the way back to north Madrid. This thing is an awesome 40 km two lane bike road. It makes you wonder about how much better the world would be if we had a handful of roads for cars, and thousands of these things, instead of the other way around. To simplify and shorten my ride on the metro (which I am dreading with a loaded touring bike) I linked back up with the Anillo Verde and cruised the last 20km to Casa de Campo. I’m actually only 10km away from Mostoles but I don’t think there is any route that is not an autopista (freeway). …so the metro is my way home. I got off the metro at 9:00pm in Mostoles and found that I had cold beer in the fridge.