WALKING WITH PABLO
Strolling the Barrio with a Native Albaicínero.
Kay and I met Pablo’s mother back in September 2004, when we came across her putting up flyers with instructions on how to vote absentee in the upcoming American presidential election. We introduced ourselves. Her name was Alex. She was, as we’d guessed, an American. She was also, as they say, great with child.
Alex, Manuel and Pablo, who is now fourteen months old, live only minutes away from us. Both Alex and Manuel work as translators, and Alex, a freelancer, works at home. When Alex’s workload was heavy and her babysitter wasn’t available, Kay was more than happy to help out for a couple of hours or so in the afternoon. That, unfortunately, ended last summer when Kay suffered a major back problem, and it became increasingly painful to pick up anything, particularly a fast growing Pablo, from the floor.
Pablo goes to childcare now, so Alex’s need for help is not as pressing. But there are still days when an extra hour or two of childfree concentration is good. And we still like to help out. And we certainly like to hang out with Pablo.
If there were a contest for the most beautiful, Spanish child, Pablo would definitely be in the running. And that’s high praise, as Spanish children are quite beautiful. He has curly, light brown hair; dark brown eyes with impossibly long eyelashes; checks as round and rosy as apples; full, red lips; and a sly, almost coy, smile.
When we go walking with Pablo, we, of course, do the walking, while Pablo lounges in his jogging stroller taking in the world through half-closed eyes. Because the streets and sidewalks of the Albaicín are cobblestone, paving stone or simply small stones set on edge in cement, strollers with bicycle-type wheels are absolutely necessary. Even so, the ride is very bouncy. If Pablo had milk before leaving, he would be a living, breathing milkshake. Perhaps that is why I never see Spanish mothers “burping” their babies; it’s much easier to simply put them in a stroller and bump down the street.
On this particular afternoon, we picked Pablo up at four. It was January and chilly, so he was wearing his red parka and gloves, which, of course, he immediately took off. He was nibbling on a rice cake.
Our first destination was the Sacromonte, and we pushed the stroller down Calle San Luis, one of the few streets in the Albaicín where traffic is allowed. At one point the street is just wide enough for a car. But there was little traffic at four in the afternoon, just a motorcycle or two, and we reached the pedestrian walkways of the Sacromonte without having had to press ourselves against a house or seek shelter behind a parked car.
At one point, high on the hillside, there is a small café, really little more than a widening of the walkway. The café consists of three tables and two umbrellas placed under two trees that grow there. The couple that runs the cafe lives across the walkway, where a “bar,” possibly 30 inches long, has been placed across their front door. They serve bottles of beer, sodas and juices, along with a tapa, and sandwiches. From the café, there is a view of the river valley below, the Alhambra and the city. We stopped there with Pablo to take in the view. We sighed with pleasure. Pablo sighed, too, but did not seem impressed. I think it is difficult to impress a native Albaicínero with a view.
We soon headed back along San Luis, took a shortcut along narrow alleys, one no more than four-feet wide, through Plaza Aliatar to Calle Panaderos, normally lined with busy shops but, because it was siesta, quiet and closed. We crossed Plaza Larga, passed through the ancient Moorish walls at Puerta Nueva and on to a new park built on an underground parking garage. Except for the entrance down the hill, the garage cannot be seen.
The park, which is on a hillside, is a series of terraces – three steps down, a terrace, and so on – dissected by large, mostly empty planter boxes, and a fountain that runs almost the length of the park. The fountain, which is made of marble, begins on the second terrace and drops down to the fourth along a deep, narrow trough. We’ve never seen water in it.
Near the top of the park, two young women are juggling — or rather attempting to juggle — Indian clubs. We parked Pablo so that he could watch. Back and forth the clubs went, sometimes for as long as ten seconds before being dropped.
“They’re not very good,” I said to him.
He looked up with a patient smile.
“I think they’re just learning.”
He looked at them and then back at me. Watching people trying to juggle, and failing, did not seem to interest him.
Inside the large, marble basin at the head of the fountain, four young women and a young male guitarist were rehearsing a flamenco dance. They were good dancers but hadn’t perfected the routines yet. As the guitarist played, they practiced one dance number after another, their dance shoes pounding out the rhythm on the marble floor of the fountain, which, because it was one of the few smooth, flat surfaces in the area, was probably the reason they were using it. Over and over, the four dancers began a number, dancing beautifully and perfectly synchronized, until one failed to make a turn, or took it too late. Then they stopped, conferred, and began again.
Pablo gave me that look again, one that seemed to say: this will be far more enjoyable when they get it right. He is a tough critic.
There is a spot in the park with just enough incline for the stroller to roll on its own. I sat along the fountain, count to three, and push the stroller away, perhaps ten or twelve feet. The stroller stopped, then rolled back down towards my outstretched arms. Pablo liked this game. He liked it the first time, the thirtieth time and the sixty-eighth time. As he rolled back and forth, he munched on another rice cake. I taught him another English word: tasteless. This made him smile.
After the seventieth trip back and forth, we left the park and headed towards Mirador San Nicolás. From the mirador, you looked out over the tiled roofs and across the narrow river valley to the opposite hillside where the Alhambra stretched along the ridge. Beyond the Alhambra lay the snow-capped Sierra Nevada. Below and to the right stretched the city of Granada.
We pushed Pablo to the wall and took it in. Although we’ve seen it hundreds of times, it is a view we never tire of.
Being a chilly January day, there were no more than a hundred or so people in the small square. But there was, as always, a guitarist. A young couple sat near the guitarist. The man had a cajon flamenco, a rectangular, wooden percussion box. The player sits on the cajon and plays it with open hands between his legs. After a brief discussion, the man withdrew the cajon from its cloth case and began playing along. The young woman accompanied them by clapping.
Suddenly she jumped to her feet and began dancing. There was little if any sound from her stomping feet on the stone surface, but she more than compensated with swirls and claps and shouts. She was pretty good. Soon she paused to take off her coat, then continued, her hands dancing over her head. Every eye, including Pablo’s, followed her as she swirled back and forth.
When she finished, the crowd broke into applause and a number of people stepped forward to drop a coin or two into the open guitar case. Pablo smiled broadly. It appears that he is much more receptive to a finished performance.
It was time to go home. We passed back through Puerta Nueva, crossed Plaza Larga and walked up Calle Agua. It was not yet six, and all the shops were still closed and shuttered. As we neared his house, Pablo began to babble and hum. Alex greeted him with open arms. As we said goodbye, Pablo rewarded us with a sly, almost flirtatious smile. We promised to do it again soon.
A NEW YEAR’S EVE LIKE NO OTHER
In Fruitless Search of a Celebration
Although Kay and I aren’t New Year’s Eve revelers, we always celebrate the occasion in some way. One year we watched all three Godfather videos, once we cooked and ate a seven-course dinner over the course of five hours, and one year we welcomed in the new year by drinking champagne and greeting neighbors at midnight around a fire pit in the driveway. This year we decided to do something we’d never done before: get out of town. We wanted to go someplace warmer than Granada, which meant the Mediterranean coast; we wanted to travel by train, but we didn’t want a trip much longer than two hours each way. Almería was the only place that met all three requirements.
We left Granada on Friday, December 30, on the ten o’clock train. The morning was cold and sunny, and we wore hats, gloves and scarves. Although Almería is southeast of Granada, the train first heads northeast, loops around the northern end of the Sierra Nevada before crossing the desert, the driest area in Spain.
We arrived a little after noon. Coming from Granada, it seemed almost tropical. Pedestrians walked about in shirtsleeves and palm trees swayed in the breeze. We made our over-dressed, mapless way from the station, through the bustling downtown to the hotel where we had reservations. The hotel was located on a narrow street in the heart of the historic district, just below the old city walls. We checked in, dumped our coats and sweaters, and hightailed it for the tourist office, which we assumed closed at two, to find out where the New Year’s Eve festivities would be taking place. In Granada the celebration takes place on the plaza in front of city hall, where there are fireworks, a band, free party favors, champagne booths and dignitaries who stand on the balconies to lead the eating of the twelve grapes, one at each gong of the bells at midnight. That was also the tradition in Almería, or had been until two years ago. It seems that city hall was being reconstructed. Last year’s celebration had been moved to the city’s grand boulevard. But this year, the lady told us, no celebration was planned. None. She’d just called for verification.
We looked at each other in disappointment. “There must be something,” we said.
“What do you want to do,” she asked.
“Nothing real special,” we told her. “Mingle with the merry makers, have a drink or two, a little dinner.”
She opened the map she’d just given us and circled an area that included a portion of the pedestrian shopping district and the main boulevard. “This is where the cafés and restaurants are,” she said.
Then we asked about the Cabo de Gata, the mountainous, seaside national park east of the city. She gave us another map and a bus schedule. We thanked her and left.
There were three sidewalk cafes in the next block, and we choose the one with the sunniest tables and sat. It was almost two and breakfast had been many hours ago. We studied our maps while enjoying especially delicious and generous tapas. I retrieved my sunglasses case from my pocket. It was empty. I’d left them in the tourist office. I walked quickly back, but it was closed, and wouldn’t, due to the holiday schedule, reopen until tomorrow at ten. Our bus to Cabo de Gata left at eleven.
Afterwards, we walked the beachfront promenades, and then explored the historic area, fortified by a plate of fried fish and a cold glass of wine. After siesta, we strolled the boulevard and historic area again, deciding where we might spend time the next evening, enjoyed another round of tapas, and returned to the hotel and turned in.
The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel before heading down to the port and tourist office - my sunglasses were still there – and then on to the bus station. The ride to Cabo de Gata took 45 minutes. We walked along a wide, almost deserted beach — the brown sand stretched on for miles — then picnicked in an observation hut overlooking a salt lagoon. Back in Almería, we walked the portside paseo, then climbed up through another historic neighborhood, which turned out to be little more than a very dirty slum, and then higher still into the alcazaba, the tenth century fortress.
By now we were very tired and in need of a bit of refreshment before siesta and the evening’s festivities. We made our way back down to the main boulevard, had drinks on the patio of a converted mid-nineteenth century theater, then headed back to the hotel around five-thirty. As we walked, we noticed that the cafes on the boulevard were bringing in their outside tables and chairs. The stores were also closing, but that was to be expected on Saturday afternoon.
We left the hotel again at eight-thirty. There were few people on the street and traffic was light. First we walked through the pedestrian area. Not one café was open. We headed for the boulevard. Nothing. Across the wide street Kay noticed that McDonald’s was closed. What was going on? Had there been some monumental catastrophe? In Spain? Elsewhere? Had New Year’s Eve been canceled?
We decided to walk down to the cafe where we’d enjoyed a drink and tapa the previous afternoon. As we walked, we found ourselves following three, extremely well dressed couples. Perhaps they were going somewhere. They were. To a five-star hotel, no doubt for an evening of fine dining and entertainment.
All three café’s were shuttered, even the one who’s outside poster advertised live entertainment. This should be the biggest night of the year. Perhaps, we thought, the cafes and restaurants don’t open till nine and then stayed open till dawn. We walked back up the boulevard and into the pedestrian zone. There were a few people on the street, but almost all carried bottles of wine or spirits and/or dishes of food. They were obviously party bound, which was somewhat reassuring. At least New Year’s hadn’t been cancelled, not for everyone. Just ours.
Other than a piece of toast that morning and a small picnic around 12:30, we hadn’t eaten all day. I was hungry. There was a bottle of champagne and a half bag of pistachios back in our room, something less than a sumptuous holiday feast. At this point, I would have gladly settled for a modest tapa. We continued our search, venturing further away from the “circled” area, getting lost in neighborhoods we didn’t know. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Not one, I repeat, not one café, bar or restaurant was open. In downtown Almería, a city of some 175,000 people, not one eating or drinking establishment, not one business was open. Unbelievable.
Private parties were going on, no doubt about it. But what about those with no family or friends to celebrate with? Or people like us, ignorant, starving tourists. Finally, leg weary and with stomach growling, we returned to the hotel to find that the lounge and café had been transformed into a banquet room, with a long, gaily decorated table lined with at least 25 settings. The lobby, dining area and hallway was filled with adults and children, all dressed in party finery, hugging and kissing as the children chased each other, squealing and shouting, up and down the hallways and stairs.
We retrieved our key from the hotel manager, now attired in a party dress, wound our way through the party, trying hard not to inhale the mouth-watering aromas of what would surely be a legendary feast, and slowly climbed the stairs to our room. We changed into our lounging sweats and settled in. I was, I admit, a bit dispirited. We drank our champagne, ate pistachios and watched the ball fall in Madrid on television. Then we put in our earplugs — the party downstairs was going full blast — and went to sleep.
It was our most memorably unmemorable New Year’s Eve.
Postscript: Two days later I asked our friend Tammo, who we knew had been planning to go out on the town in Granada with wife Caroline, Caroline’s brother and his lady friend, what had happened? As it turns out, the same thing happened to them, and they were as bewildered as we were. Unbeknownst to them, as it was to us, the custom in southern Spain is to dine with friends and family at home before going out to celebrate. Nothing opens till midnight, when, almost instantaneously, ghost town becomes party town.
