Hiking around Madrid

by Sean McLachlan on

Madrid is a city of fine dining, fine wines, and fine-looking Spaniards. Because of this many visitors never get out and see the beautiful countryside of the surrounding Comunidad de Madrid. Another obstacle has been the lack of English-speaking hiking groups.

Luckily that’s changed. A new group called Hiking in the Community of Madrid has been started by avid expat hikers Beau Macksoud and Cynthia Kane. Last Sunday I joined them in La Pedriza, a beautiful jumble of low mountains sculpted by the elements into bizarre shapes. It’s located outside the town of Manzanares el Real just a 45 minute bus ride from Madrid. The whole area is crisscrossed by trails and the cliffs are a big draw for rock climbers as well.

While our hike was only 8.5 km (5.3 miles) we still had an invigorating day. First we had a tough slog up a steep slope under a strong sun, followed by a scramble over strange rock formations that looked like dogs, camels, and sleeping people. We got sweeping views of a lake and castle far below, sightings of Spanish ibex, and a visit to a cave that used to be a hideout for guerrillas during the Civil War, and more recently by a group of murderers. The last part of the hike was a swift descent and a pleasant ramble along a stream back to town.

I found the hike well organized and the guides friendly and flexible to the needs of the various hikers. They have an expert knowledge of the region and have completed the first English-language hiking guide to the Comunidad de Madrid. It includes 18 towns easily reached by public transport and details hikes for each of them. They’re currently seeking publication.

Beau and Cynthia plan to run hikes every weekend. They may also run weekday hikes and intercambio hikes, where English and Spanish speakers practice their language on each other while enjoying the great outdoors. Costs vary, but are generally about 20 euros and includes a packed lunch and an information sheet about the area.

Fake pilots try to smuggle cocaine through airport

by Sean McLachlan on

Spanish police have arrested two men who tried to smuggle cocaine through Madrid’s Barajas airport while dressed as pilots.

The two men boarded a flight from Bolivia and then changed into pilot uniforms. So far, so good, but once they landed in Madrid they joined the queue with the rest of the passengers. This struck the airport police as a wee bit suspicious. When asked for ID, they produced IDs from a different airline than the one they arrived on. Strike two. The cops then questioned the real crew of the plane and found out these folks were, in fact, passengers. Strike three. The daring duo then had their bags searched and were found to be in possession of 55 kilos (121 lbs) of Bolivian marching powder.

This video (in Spanish) shows just how good their disguises were. It is unclear at this point whether the uniforms are brilliant fakes or real ones they acquired somehow. Too bad for them they hadn’t thought out the rest of their plan as carefully. Perhaps they read how Gadling caught the cops at Barajas “allegedly” playing solitaire and figured it was an easy target.

Airport security “allegedly” caught playing solitaire

by Sean McLachlan on

Once again, airport security is screwing up in public.

My wife, son, and I passed through Madrid’s Barajas airport to fly to London yesterday. While waiting to board, I “allegedly” caught this police officer playing solitaire on the computer at the police checkpoint. She was so engrossed in her game that I was able to take four shots of her without her noticing.

Granted, nobody was boarding at that moment, so she might technically have been on break, but she was in full view of the public and within sight of several gates for international flights, so she had better things to keep her eyes on. When I worked security for IBM back in my college days we were under strict instructions not to take breaks within sight of the public because (duh) it made it look like we were slacking off.

This isn’t the first time airport security has been caught playing solitaire, and considering that there was a deadly terrorist bombing in Spain less than a year ago, I think Spanish airport police should be a bit more watchful.

If anyone at Barajas is interested, this occurred on March 30 at 2:44 PM local time at Gate H22 of Terminal 4. I have the officer’s badge number in case you want to contact me.

NOTE: My editors asked me to insert “allegedly” into this post to cover our collective legal asses, but I know what I saw. I take my family’s security seriously. More seriously than this cop, allegedly.

Five art exhibitions you must see this year

by Sean McLachlan on

Art lovers, take note, 2010 is shaping up to be a great year for exhibitions. Here are five of the best, but there are plenty more than these!

Tokyo
It’s hard to beat Japanese art for sheer naturalistic beauty, and the Tokyo National Museum has an extensive collection of the best. See the work of one of the great Japanese masters in Hasegawa Tohaku: 400th Memorial Retrospective. This painter, who died in 1610, specialized in nature and Buddhist subjects, and you can see an example of his work in this post. The delicacy and ethereal quality of Japanese landscapes always gives me goosebumps. The exhibition runs from February 23 to March 22.

Madrid
Spain’s famous Museo Nacional del Prado is hosting The Art of Power: Arms, Armour and Paintings from the Spanish Court. This is a collection of weapons and armor from Spain’s Golden Age, along with paintings by important Spanish artists emphasizing Spain’s military might at a time when the country ruled most of the New World. Many of the suits or armor were the personal property of important kings such as Philip II. The show will be on from March 8 to May 16.

London
From March 4-June 6 the British Museum will have Kingdom of Ife: Sculptures from West Africa. Ife was an important kingdom from the 12th to the 15th centuries in what is now Nigeria. Its artists specialized in creating human sculptures in brass, terracotta, and stone. I caught this when it was in Madrid last year and it was amazed at the level of artistic achievement in a civilization I’m ashamed to say I knew almost nothing about. The thing that most impressed me was how lifelike the sculptures were. I felt like I was staring into the faces of priests and kings who have been dead for five hundred years. My kid preferred the statue of the crocodile god.Paris
For something a bit more grim, go to the Musée d’Orsay between March 15 and June 27 for Crime and Punishment: 1791-1981. The dates refer to the year of the first call in France to abolish the death penalty and the year it was actually abolished. The exhibition is a series of paintings with crime as their theme, by famous artists such as Picasso, Goya, and Magritte. There are also paintings of capital punishment, showing that crime does not pay, at least some of the time. This show is disturbing enough that it comes with a warning label, a bit like the Eros exhibit of ancient erotic art in Athens, which you can still catch until April 5.

New York City
If you want to see something right now, The Museum of Modern Art is showcasing the work of director Tim Burton until April 26. It’s a collection of more than seven hundred drawings, storyboards, puppets, and other items from his films. There’s also a large collection of his personal artwork that even most of his fans have never seen. They’re showing his movies too!

The Ethiopian coffee ceremony

by Sean McLachlan on

We’ve all heard of the Japanese tea ceremony, but in Ethiopia they have an elaborate ceremony for that other great caffeinated beverage–coffee.

The Ethiopians discovered coffee, surely the greatest of their many cultural achievements, so it’s not surprising they developed a ritual around it.

It was my wife’s birthday last week so I took her to Madrid’s one and only Ethiopian restaurant, Mesob Restaurante Etíope on Calle Manuela Malasaña. Madrileños will know that Malasaña is one of the best barrios in town for eating out, and I’m happy to say this outpost of East African culture is holding its own against some tough competition.

We arrived at the restaurant to find the settings laid out on a mat in front of our table. A portable stove, some handmade pitchers, and an incense burner were the main items. Our hostess sat on a wooden, three-legged stool and filled a small pot with unroasted coffee beans. She fired up the stove and started roasting them over the open flame.

As she shook the pot back and forth to turn the beans, she explained that the coffee ceremony is one of the cornerstones of social life in Ethiopia. Women go from house to house to see friends and end up attending four or five coffee ceremonies a day. She was also kind enough to teach me some Amharic and not smile too much at my bad pronunciation.

The beans were beginning to roast now and occasionally she took the pot off the flames and wafted the steam under our noses. Heaven! To keep us from going crazy waiting for the coffee she brought out some fatiira, which is sort of like a crepe made with honey. It’s a common dish for breakfast or at a coffee ceremony. As we munched she finished roasting the beans and lit an incense burner, which she passed close to our faces so we could get a good whiff. Then she ground up the beans and put them in a ceramic pitcher called a javena.

The javena went onto the stove and she poured some hot water into it. Not too much, mind you, because Ethiopian coffee is best served strong. We each got a nice cup and our hostess went back to making another javena of coffee. It’s interesting that only just enough is made at a time for each person to get a small cup. That way none goes to waste. You can, of course, just keep filling the javena if you want more coffee. We each had three cups but I’m sure the workers who carved all those churches at Lalibela out of sold rock probably drank more!

The whole ceremony took about an hour. I found it very relaxing, with the smell of the roasting beans and incense filling the air, and the soft rattle of the beans as they were shaken in the pot. The coffee was great, of course, but the best part was chatting with our hostess about life in Ethiopia and learning some Amharic in preparation for our trip in February. I’ll be interested to see if the coffee ceremonies are any different in the various regions of Ethiopia.

%Gallery-79456%