Chapter 174
The sky is pure, clear blue… cloudless, endless, translucent, full of imaginings. Moments later the sun has reached a certain angle and the quality of the light deepened, more profound in its illumination of the folding hills. The rumpled ridges coated in deep green and elusive silvered-olive interspace deepest dark shadows and ancient mysteries. In some of the golden, ochre cliffs, black caves look like accidental naive paintings. This is a landscape of mystery and history. A landscape that hearkens back to the Alberta Foothills through mercurial weather changes, temperature slides and winds that arise and evaporate on the breath. It is a land of outrageous colours, intense desertification and sudden lush bursts of life. There are similarities and strangeness in every view.
The architecture is something else. Little to nothing links to the western reaches of Canada, yet there are echos connecting everything. Here the influence of the Moors of the 8th to 15th centuries gives a wealth of exotica and richness absent in the rest of the country and majority of Europe. Monuments of ingenuity, hydro- science, astrological learning, agriculture, art, music, creativity, practicality and more, still remain despite later attempts to obliterate them. Thank the many deities and fortunes that the Alhambra still stands today, that we can see the ingenious beauty of such constructions, their tremendous knowledge of water conservation and dispersion still extant.
In Almeria, we spent a couple of days of loooong walks through city streets from the highest point of the Alcazaba down to the furthermost edge of the Cable Ingles (a feat of English engineering from the beginning of the 20th century). The Alcazaba – like the Alhambra – showcases stunning water systems. When one considers the time in which it was built…walking into the Aljibe (cistern) at the top of the hill is a breathless experience. I stand surrounded by deep stone walls and arching ceilings. There is a stone pillar about four feet high in one rounded end of one room… a depth marker. The spot on which I stand would have been immersed in water a few hundred years ago. A system of ceramic pipes would bring the majority of the water from large catchment reservoirs on the roofs of the buildings and on the surrounding hilltops. The rain, when it falls, was and still can be, torrential. Massive amounts of water can be caught in a short space of time and piped into the cool underground caverns to be siphoned off for use throughout the drier times.
Much of the Alcazaba has now been restored. The last time my parents visited about twenty years ago, they tell me it was predominantly ruins emerging from preliminary excavations. Now the city walls are rebuilt, the great defensive wall stands again, a tower looms over all and from its parapets I can see an expanse of excavation works still being explored and rediscovered. Beyond the walls the city undergoes a subtle translation to modernity while an incongruous giant ferry rests at harbour. The original layout of valley agriculture and gardens to the north and east is recreated with small enclosures housing goats appearing as minuscule caricatures from my viewing distance.
After, we made our descent to a Moorish tea room… eventually discovering the minuscule kitchen did not receive our order from the tall, thin waiter. A lady bustled out apologizing profusely, thrusting a plate of pastelitos árabes before us which we promptly devoured. I saw the stove in the tiny kitchen, watched the double- bellied silver teapot atop spewing forth boiling tea from its spout. The tea, on arrival, was delicious. A deeply satisfying té negro pakistani sweetened and brewed with milk, poured from a great height into gold-traced glasses, frothing, emitting deliciously appetizing odours. A lovely way to round off the afternoon.
And the sky. Again. Sunset is a swiftly- morphing cacophony of colour. I rush from one aspect to another to watch the colour of the sky in each direction. The moon, stunningly bright each night, and ghosting the daylight blue, it’s startling luminosity is magic.
May your own sunrises and sunsets continue to awe and amaze.
Kat Dancer
bodymudra@gmail.com 1 415 525 2630 (c)
