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.