Cordoba, Spain

Wildcamping at it's very best !

2022-09-13

After a to long, rainy and windy day of cycling I found a very nice campspot directly next to the Rio Guadalquivir.

Cars can not drive over here, unless they are accepting they will not be able to leave again, because of the 5mts high dike. Only some dogowners, fishinglovers and joggers visit this area. Con is that this (only flat) spot is in the full sun all day, which ruines the tent fast. But I myself could quite easily sit in the shade at some 10mts away.

And during the nights it is very quiet here. Some cargotrains pass by during the nights at there track at some 500mts. And one extremely loud and/but very slow roadvehicle-something is passing every night at 02h00 at also some 500mts at the mainroad.

But waking up during the nights brings extra beautiful "planet(s)".

And in the mornings I was somewhat desperately waiting for the new celsiuses. The sun rises at the other side of the rio but there is a 20mts high wall. That means it takes until 10h00 for Sun shines on me again for a new day. I love the heat but I hate the cold ...

One day I had a very slow puncture while in Cordoba centre which probably was caused at my campspot already. I had made a walk for about 2 hours and the tyre was still somewhat pressurized when I returned, so I started to cycle out ot town. But I thought it more safe to pump it up since a real flat would mean I would have to make an one and a quarter hour walk along a very boring, busy and noisy road, so I bought a pump at the last china bazaar.

But pressurizing the tube made the puncture obviously to grow rapidly, so now I did have an extra pump but had to make that one and a quarter hour walk along a very boring, busy and noisy road. After some 45mins I had a nice cana at the only cafe along the track. After the repair the tyre was flat once more the next morning. There turned out to be a second puncture, extremely tiny and hardly visible. The plus is that I now have three pumps, time to put one in every bag ...

I had one "medium" rainy day this season (yesterday) and 1 hour of "medium" rain while camping here, so that is all agua in some 6 months.

The agua-situation is rather hopeless in very large parts of Spain ... This diagram shows the national situation of the artificial waterstorage of the lakes Spain is depending on for it's national watersupply. In 2021 there was less stock then the 10-years average, in 2022 there was less stock then in 2021 and 2023 doesn't seem to get better either. This situation is all over the news almost every day in all media then without sufficient water there actually is no country anymore ...

Low tide, very low tide ...

This series of pictures show the change of the waterlevel of the Rio Guadalquivir in the course of only 12 days. And it is only just september ... Fish can not migrate here anymore, and I assume this is by far not the only blocked location in the 657 kilometers long river. At first instance the birds are lucky with that since they catch fish more easily. At second instance they will not catch any fish anymore since there are no more and there swim no more new fish. Will these birds survive ? It is only just september ...

The draught is a very huge problem, and ofcourse the business-model of the farmers. To grow ie 1 mango some 3000 liters of water are spoiled (pumped out of "something"). And although water is never lost (as long as it is still clean) it is lost locally (on the "scale of planet") and probably for a very long time (on the "scale of menkind").

To my opinion

the whole worldwide "business-system" of menkind will (really) collapse within ie 10 years from now. We spoil planet's yearly resources in average within 6 months 🖱️. Qatar spills the (it's) yearly planet-quotum already per early februari, so within 6 weeks, Jamaica is the "best" by using planet's quotum in 50 weeks. Spain has used it's quotom somewhere in may and the Netherlands somewhere in april.

There Is Not One Country able to do it's year with planet's year. So Don't Be An Optimist since they never have any solution, except for others ...

You want (need ???) another example ?

These pictures show the garbage of two friendly young (!) guys that came over here several times to go fishing. They "clean" their bags before they leave and they don't even care (nor realize) that they themselfs will be in their own garbage few days later. To be very clear : all this shit is left behind at some 2 x 2 meters after a 6 hours "session'. Then they also drop any garbage next to their car if they happen to find something in there "by accident". Or after finishing the last limonade or beer there before they leave.

But winter was preparing it's strike. Or was this also maybe the draught ???

It is now official

In 2022 in Spain, the first heat wave started much earlier than usual and was the earliest in 40 years. This year it started in May, while the record before that was June 11, 1981. July saw the worst heat wave that lasted no less than 15 days in 40 Spanish provinces. After several other heat waves in the summer months, October was also much warmer than normal and the most abnormal month of all recorded October since 1964. The summer of 2022 will go down in history as the warmest of the last 50 years with the second warmest month of August since 1961, the year Spain started recording the weather. This summer was on average 2.2 degrees warmer than the old record year 2003. So let's be optimistic : there are still some records to go !

Click 🖱️ to open

Welcome near Cordoba

So all in all a lot happened. But the best thing was probably that I bought a new hat. These two hats are exactly the same type, including there color but excluding the belt and there outdoorlife, so which one is the new one ?

Postscriptum : then, in december, came the rain

Some two months after I had left here to continue my stay in the winter-workshop 🖱️ Manuel made these pictures to show me the situation at my campspot when finally in december some days of quite heavy rain arrived. This looks very nice to compensate for the lack of water of this year. But fact is that all this water is running to the Mediterranean Sea where it will "disappear". "All this water" has hardly any influence to the general problem of the lack of water in very large parts of Spain.

Time to make up my mind : would I stay or would I go ?!

◀️ ▶️ Route 🖱️ ⏫