Vive el Ebro - Episode VII-Grand Finale

Miravet-Deltebre (75 kms)

Huge scare this morning, as Wilbur, who was calmly sitting in the front seat of the van, started convulsing, his body and legs contorting and cramping for 2 minutes, then 20 more minutes for his muscles to relax, his eyes to come back and his breathing to become regular, then another hour before he could lift his head. Annelies calls an emergency vet in Tortosa, gives me the phone, and she informs me the symptoms I describe are that of an epilepsy attack.

So I leave the group and head directly to Tortosa, which is where we are getting together with local members for lunch. I had breakfast while I waited for the test results from the vet, which turned out just fine, the vet explains how these episodes are not unusual, that it may be just a one time incident, and to watch over him in case it would happen again to keep his head in a position that would avoid him drowning in his vomit.

I head over to the Pabello Firal, where the locals are already busy preparing a lovely lunch, and since it’s still early, I shower and grab the bike to go for a a visit of the old downtown of Tortosa, in hopes to buy a new pair of sunglasses, but after seeing the prices I decide to live without, at least for the time being.

The group finally arrives, and during lunch, Paco, the local member who was nice enough to take the time to post signs along the way the past couple of days, to keep the group from getting lost, tells me of some of the local issues with the river, and mentions one emerging problem that nobody has yet presented, and that is the huge amounts of chemical salt scattered on the winter roads that are adding to the deterioration of the quality of the water.

Francois, who joined the group recently. and has a marvellous ability to play his flute while riding his bike, iniciates a jam session during the “sobre mesa” (after lunch conversations). And while others are showering or enjoying a siesta, I ask Jordi to accompany me to climb up to the castle walls, as Pepa mentioned to me earlier, Tortosa is known to have the longest wall in all of Europe, part Iberian, part Roman, part low and high Medieval and even part Contemporary.

Before continuing to Deltebre, which is our final destination (yes, it “is” coming to an end, which I know, you’ve been wondering about) we first go down to a section of the river to take more photos for the media, while chanting: “lo riu es vida, no al transvasement” ( the river is life, no to the trasvase).

Paco leads the vehicles out of Tortosa, and I take over the lead to Deltebre, and find the “Camp de Futbol” (soccer stadium), where we will sleep the next two nights.

We all get together over the bridge where a very young group of kids recieves us with a Batukada, which is a very emotional moment, tears, laughter, joy, and I can’t believe my eyes when I see Marisa, my friend from Cantabria who had left the group back in Logrono, she said she would try to come back, and she did. Manolo also came back a little later that evening with a small group from Madrid.

It had been a very long day, so while the town threw us a party that started around 1am, and was a bit far, those who did go, were partying threw the night, some called it in, and I wanted to spend time with Marisa, so we went with Jordi, Alene and her husband to a nearby hotel to have some beers and play pool.

Deltebre-Desembocadura-Deltebre

Wilbur ran alongside my bike, about 8 miles towards the ferry that will take the group to the spot where river meets the Mediterranian Sea, but upon boarding, the captain refuses to let Wilbur on board, so I take Reme’s car to try to catch Polet, but I’m too late, they’re already off meeting with the ferry. I go as far as I can, to take pictures while they symbolically deliver the sediments collected along the way. 

Suddenly a sadness takes over in my mind, while I’m standing here with Wilbur next to me, watching my friends only less than a mile away, with flashbacks of the trip from the first day at the birth of the river, and now to be left back just 1 kilometer from the end, I began to cry. I left, but I couldn’t shake off the sadness, I went to buy some meat for Wilbur and back to the empty stadium, read a book for awhile, then when I went to take a shower, I saw a single sheet of paper on the wall that read: “you need to change any situation from negative to a positive one”. That was all it took, to clear my mind that was playing tricks on me; took a shower and joined my friends for lunch. However I still wanted to get “there”, so when Tom asked if he could borrow the canoe, I told him he could if he took me to the desembocadura.

First he had to go help move our tents at the soccer field as the townspeople were having an event there, while I joined other follow a tour leader for some bird watching, Later Tom and I took the canoe out, I left Wilbur in the van, as I was afraid of rolling it over, cause of the wavy currents, which left enough room in the canoe to collect large trash objects that we found there.

We rushed to get a sandwich for dinner in order to make it on time to see the Teatro Participatorio that Natalia and a few volunteers had prepared for us, I had mentioned it before, and while I very much wanted to volunteer, I was either late, or to tired to participate in the rehearsals. Luckily we have awesome younger people with energy and willingness to spare, so Leo, Pablo, Marta, Demeza and LP played out the scene, that was  later reproduced several times along with members of the public who had ideas on how to improve the story being told. And while it was a wonderful effort with great results on moving the viewer to take action, it had been another long day, and I wasn’t the only one that was having a hard time keeping my eyes open, and yet we still took the time to celebrate Marta’s birthday and again being led by Natalia on another ingenious exercise of hand holding and creating swaying, moving line where we crossed looking each other  deep into our eyes as a way of remembering everyone present before saying goodbye and collecting as many emails as I could.

Going Home

I got up at 7am to go potty, and found all the vans leaving, one to Madrid, one to Bilbao and Jordi was taking 5 people to Tortosa to catch trains and buses. I said goodbyes again and went back to sleep till 9am, which I got up in a flash, as I was theoretically supposed to have packed all the tents and bags by the time Jordi got back; of course he arrived 5 minutes later and I was far from done. I was saddened again when I realized that Marisa had already left, which later I found out that she left thinking that we had gone and was taken by her own melancholy.

After all was packed, the much smaller group remaining was easily swayed by our local members, Josep, Jon and Lluch to go to the beach, which we did, we all went to El Trabucador, on the other side of the Delta; but first we had to leave the stadium, which also meant leaving behind a very sweet little dog that we found on arrival here, obviously homeless, and while many of us thought about taking her, it was Lluch who actually stood up to the plate and adopted her as his own and named her Ebreta, in honor of the river that we had enjoyed all these days. 

While nobody was in a hurry to go home, and the locals kept finding ways to delay our departure, it was already 7pm and we still had a couple of hours to reach Barcelona where we dropped off Annelies, Pablo, Lidia and Alexis before home.

Vive el Ebro - Episode VI

Caspe-Mequinenza (42 kms)

It’s a hard day today for our cyclists, not just because of the lengthy climb and heat, but also because the decision was made to use the NA road, in order to make the route shorter (40 kms as opposed to 80 kms) and not get into excessive heat problems; but this road is loaded with crazy truck drivers, that pass the bikes along solid lines, curves with no visibility.

Mequinenza is the center of this enormous dam, the actual town is currentlt underwater along with a few others, the only original building is the historic castle, used by the Reyes de Aragon in Medieval Spain, however nobody is allowed within 200mts of it, as the recent  mayor, sister of the owner of the power plant has been in charge, and she too had denied us to stay in the “poli”. But we knew this before coming, so arrangements had been made to stay at the Albergue, 18euros p/p. A few of us went to a camping for about half as much.

I found nothing interesting about this town, which while in the province of Zaragoza, Catalan is widely spoken even in schools for it’s proxinity to Catalonia. The only tourist attraction here is fishing the SILURO (Silurus Glanis), which was illegally introduced here in the 70’s as a young fish, and they have grown sometimes as much as 300 pounds. Anything worth seeing has been buried underwater.

Mequinenza-Almetret-Flix (43 kms)

This morning was a great feeling, not just because I was anxious to leave Aragon, but because when we arrived to the town of Almetret, the towns people received us wearing their own statement Tshirts and banners. They were so happy that we made it to their small town, Albert tells us of their struggle against the polluting corporate power giant, and how they feel powerless being such a small community, and how their spirits are lifted with our presence and support. Makes you wanna cry...a little bit.

After a late breakfast in Almetret. Albert and Jordi show us where to take the right path to Flix; so Annelies (who’s my copilot today) and I follow the bikes down this crazy bumpy road, something you wouldn’t dream of doing unless you were 4 wheeling, but there was no going back now. Suddenly the canoe on the roof slid onto the windshield...we looked at eachother and laughed our heads off, and I climbed on top to tie it down.

We arrived at the Parc Nacional del Bosc de la Ribera de Sebes, where Pere Josep, the director gave us a lecture on the problems created in this area by Erkimia, a chemical company established here back in 1898, which in just the last 40 years have created over 400,000 tons of toxic waste, to which some brianiach decided to build a containment wall and to continue filling it with more waste.

Annelies gave an interview to local tv station.

Another local issue was the fluvial transport, a couple hundred traditional boats were bought by Asco Nuclear Power Plant and burned to cinders, to avoid having to find a solution for continued navigation; doesn’t that remind you of GMotors buying and destroying Los Angeles amazing public transport?

Currently another problem is seeing many people sent to hospitals in the Delta area, as a local tiny fly known as “la mosca negra” has become a plague, since the lack of sediments creates giant weeds that boosts the flies.

Already in Flix, after a very late lunch, we discover the man working in the kitchen of the small restaurant, Rafael Castro, was fired from Erkimia, the chemical plant, for refusing to cover up the waste being thrown directly into the river. I take over his place in cleaning up the dishes in exchange for a short interview.

We took a brief trip on the transborder, and later in the evening, Jordi and I went to scout the area in front of the nuclear power plant, in order to find the best spot to take photos and deploy the canoes the next morning.

Flix-Asco-Miravet (44 kms)

Last night was caotic, as the organizers had diverse opinions on today’s plan, while some were on the verge of a nervous breakdown, we said screw it as nobody was listening. Despite the anxiety, the stand was a success; Jordi joined the canoes together with Chusa, a wonderful ornithologist (bird watcher) from Santander. After the manifesto, the canoes continue to Mora de Ebro for lunch, and the bikes stop first in the town of Asco for a quick snack.

After lunch Demelsa and I take Jordi’s canoe to our final destination of Miravet, about 13 miles or so, and while I would have liked to take the camara with me, after a series of previous incidences, I thought it best to leave it in the van with Jordi and Wilbur.

Once in Miravet, the mayor comes to gives us a speech about how his small town is struggling, not receiving any government grants, while other wealthier towns get it all, because they play ball with government officials and big corporations.

Vive el Ebro - Episode V

Zaragoza-Zuera-Zaragoza (60 kms)

The group travelled 30 kms NE towards Huesca this morning in order to meet with another cyclist group from Columna Rios Vivos and share lunch together, however the parc area selected in Zuera did not offer a large enough shade for people to stay together, the group was split, but for the time we took to take the group photo.

As we were gearing up to leave and head back to Zaragoza, we began to notice flat tires, lots of flat tires, more than 20 bikes had flats, some had upto 5 holes, and we found the culprit, a dry weed with some nasty spikes in this parc; even Demelza’s and my own that had arrived via van were flat. This caused another hour delay.

Before leaving to the next event this evening, Diego leads an assembly, mostly to inform all about logistic problems in the next few days, aswe are going to be heading down to some hard ass corporate monger type controlled towns, that refuse to give us shelter, so we will be making more noise than usual.

There was a showing @ 9pm of “Voces do Brazil”, but by the time we made it to the locale it was 10.30pm, so we went to dinner at barrio de la Magdalena, later went back to the locale to join a party, had a drink, after which some of us made it club named “Crapula”, where “la pena” was dancing to some basque punk rock, a particular song came on and the crowd (me too) created a lite style mosh pit in which we were “bumping into each other” (no pain involved), we went back to sleep earlier than others, as tomorrow we depart at 8am, for no other reason than to avoid excessive heat, as we will be travelling through more dessert like terrain approaching “los Monegros”. Diego suggests we may be needing to go as early as 6am in the next few days, depending on weather conditions.

Zaragoza-Pina de Ebro (52 kms)

First stop today is in Burgo de Ebro, where a local “cacique” chose to build a concrete wall, covered it with land and grew wheat right on the middle of a public path to discourage hikers and cyclists from using it. The local environmental tecnician sued him, so the cacique of the Yarza Family used his influence to have him fired from the city hall. When Ecologistas in Accion found out, they went to cut down the wheat and found the local “Guardia Civil” waiting for them, as they too are corrupt in this area, but the activists went ahead with their objective, and filed a new suit. Our group is now there to bring media atention to the situation and make all this corruption come to light.

From what I’ve been learning these days, Ecologistas en Accion, is an international organization (have not had enough time yet to dig in), and are more powerful in Spain than Green Peace or any other activist group, with more members, supporters and sympathizers, due to their media attention grabbing stunts...hey! what ever works, right?

Our final stop today, Pina de Ebro is currently the first true difficulty, as we found out only yesterday, while we already had an invitation to use the “polideportivo” to spend the night by the city hall and towns people, the current mayor and royal “biatch”, Maria Teresa Martinez, and behind the council members back, filed a decree to not allow us the space, since she found out the group is supporting a platform to stop a plan for a new lead factory, in which she has vested interest in.

Of course all of our media people were busy most of the day yesterday after this discovery,  so by the time we got to Burgo, well before Pina, we were already reading about it in the local papers, although not front page, because some psicopath went ballistic in Oslo in name of religion, hate and racism. Also in the news was the culmination of a march that had begun some days ago, 15M indignados from different parts of Spain (north, east, south) had converged at Plaza de Sol in Madrid. Also in the news the untimely death of Amy Winehouse.

Anyway, we don’t have the “poli” tonight, but we have two other much smaller facilities that the town folk arranged, but a good number of tents were also set up in the town plaza, right in front of the city hall. Meanwhile some town people already expressed their interest in singing along as Marta got busy last night coming up with something to honor the dictator Maria Teresa, while we ride along in circles with the bikes in the town square.

I have not felt so alive since the “opening” of Green Home Center, the world needs change and it looks like we’re taking our first steps.

Pina de Ebro-Caspe (68 kms)

Manolo (Madrid) and Juan (Málaga) had asked to take the canoe for a spin, so I drop them of at the river beach and drove about 15 kms of what seemed like Camel Trophy Expedition terrain, down river to find a spot they could easily carry the canoe out of. I found one of those old transboarders, pulled out my book and read for a little over an hour, till they appeared.

We chatted for a bit, while heading toward Monasterio de Rueda, where we planned to have lunch, after a tecnical stop for photos in front of another power plant.

Juan told me he had a canoeing business in Malaga, that he was forced to give up, as the city hall/government kept demanding more and more of him. Manolo, a public health care veterinarian, spent a few months working for the Obama campaign in Ohio, simply getting people registered to vote, since he was visiting his then american girlfriend.

Before lunch I went with Jordi to visit the monasterio, and ran into a man from Premia de Mar, as he was teaching his grandchildren Samuel, Dimas and Edna how to fish.

The town of Caspe doesn’t have much to offer, despite money behind a few, most people have basic to less education; we were advised to place all of our vehicles also into the poli.
This is Diego being interviewed upon our arrival.

A huge dam that creates what is known as “Mar de Aragon” is rataining most of the sediments that are badly needed further down river and at the same time are creating problems at the dam. A group of well paid engineers thought  the best way to take the sediments down would be to truck them....seriously!

Jordi and I chose a kebab/falafel joint for dinner at the town square, since neither the local food or wine is desireable in these parts. We began adding tables, as more group members showed up, and Natalia who has an amazing head o her shoulders, leads a conversation on how to create “teatro participativo” or “del oprimido” (sorry I lost my notes), but it was very interesting, where a situacion is created with an unhappy outcome, and the public has better ideas, so they are asked to come on stage and become a character that may change the ending. The scene is repeated as many times as necesary, with as many partcipants that may have alternate solutions, till the public is pleased.

Vive el Ebro - Episode IV

Alfaro-Castejon-Tudela

A local member takes us for a tour of the sotos, an area often flooded by the river, where a simple plank of driftwood soon becomes a small island, larger, or a peninsula, the river constantly shifting and changing.

We pick fallen peaches along the way.

This morning I’m riding my loaned bike, however I caught a flu the previous night, and congestion keeps me up all night long. I thought that by exercising with the pedals might help strengthen my inmune system, but as we head over to Castejon, I feel weak, and by the time we hit the third power plant, I feel faint and feverish, I lay on the ground to guard from the wind and call Jordi to come back for me with the van, as he is already half way to the small city of Tudela, our next lay over. 

Jordi tells me that his daughter warned him not to mention he’s her father around these parts, since Aida is a known activist for AnimaNaturalis, and these parts are still strong when it comes to animal abuse like bull fighting; so when Aida and her vegan friends come to these parts in buses to do their peaceful demonstrations, they have been received by crowds throwing rocks at them. This also happened in Tordecillas, where another form of torture is big, a few dozen macho guys on horses spear the bull over and over.

The next couple of days are a bit fuzzy for me, when we make it to the poli, I just drop myself onto a large gym mat and sleep for 3 hours straight. When I wake up, we hop on the bikes toward downtown to find a place for dinner.

Tudela- - Pradilla del Ebro

Wilbur and I drive the van behind the bikes, although the first 3 hours I got lost, probably due to the fever. I run into Jon, the illustrator from the Delta, who is also a little lost as he is searching for the boats, so we hang out for an hour or so, chatting about graphic novels and Zeitgeist.

I find the bikes, but I don’t remember much, I just collapse again when I make it to Pradilla del Ebro. Never even saw the poli, rather stayed and camped in the park. There was a soccer field and a town swimming pool next to the park, were a bunch of the group went, but I just wanted to sleep.

A quiet evening, Polet was teaching some people how to play “virles”, a very old moorish game and predesesor of bowling.

Adrian from Cantabria arrives, he left home on Sunday and just today rode an unbelievable 200 kms.

I also meet Leo and Juan, they came from Malaga.

Pradilla del Ebro-Zaragoza

I told everyone I was not driving or riding today, simply sleeping. The group takes off, Jordi is driving, first we acompany a girl from Huelva and her bike to catch a bus in Pedrosa, as she needs to get back to Alfaro, where she left her car a few days ago.

Then we go to Cabañas de Ebro to wait for the boaters, and we find out they’ll be about 3 hours, so we have some lunch at the one and only bar in town, and we go to take a long nap by the river. Wilbur wakes me up to let me know the boats have arrived. Jordi helps unload bikes and load boats to procede to Zaragoza, which is the largest city along the Ebro river; much larger than I remember it. Someone went nuts overbuilding here, the area where we are staying is by the Expo, huge modern design pavillions with hanging gondolas, are empty, unused, such a waste.

3 days here in the big city, so hopefully I will start to feel better in order to enjoy it. We unload the van and head straight to downtown area in hopes to find a store open to buy some ground meat for Wilbur and a Pharmacy to get some sea water to clear my congestion, but keep in mind that the stores close between aproximately 2pm-5pm, it’s 4.30pm now and we need to be by under the Third Millenium Bridge at 5.30pm. Jordi takes the opportunity to visit a customer for a repair that takes only 10 minutes, and we find the sea water next door.

The guy who the group arranged to rent the canoes from for a river protests, screws up the evening and leaves me in charge of watching over 27 bikes. Fortunately the sea water and other magic potions (provided by Patxopa) are starting to take effect, and while still tired, I no longer feel fever, at least for a while. Jordi leaves to find food for Wilbur.

4 hours later the bike owners show up, grateful for keeping their bikes and recognizing the canoe people didn’t keep their promise to deliver the bikes down the river. By this time I was upset and more tired, but it got worse, as the same screw ups had also told us they would bring back Jordi’s canoe, and abandoned it somewhere along the river, and we spent another +hour trying to find it in the dark.

Zaragoza

Due to what happened yesterday and taking in Concha’s advice (who I miss dearly, as she went back home to Logono), I began this day with the word “no”, which is what I said to MariAsu when she asked for my bike this morning.

Ignoring what the plan was today, the fever was gone now, Jordi and I went to town with the bikes to find a spot for breakfast, after which we found the Aljaferia, an old moorish castle, that has suffered may sad “remodels” over the years. We decided to pay the entrance fee 6 euros, toured the palace and ran into Javier and Miguel Angel from out group. As we exited, we also ran into Samuel and Maite, who gave us a great suggestion for lunch, Casa Emilio.

After a short siesta at the poli, we take the canoe down river to take some photos. At one point some strong cross currents almost tip us over, I was able to convince Wilbur not to jump out. By chance we happen to join the rest of the group down river, by the stone bridge, as they were just starting the pirate water war, followed by an assembly in la plaza directly behind el Pilar, the renown cathedral. Juan Carlos, a local farmer joins us, and talks to us about the problems with seeding crops due to climate change, in March can cause rotting during flowering due to flooding, April also can cause freezing if only for a single night, some farmers have even been seeding in September; regardless they average at least 20% losses. We also talk about 400% increase in phosphates and nitrates, controlled by China, and the problems caused by “transgenicos”, Aragon Region is the area of Spain with the most, and how the contaminate other farms.