Death of a Bridge

March 16, 2022April 13, 2022 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

There’s a great big mound of earth down in Downside Wood where the old bridge used to stand. The stream that once ran gaily beneath its mossy arches hiccups and lurches through two black plastic pipes, swallowed at one end of the slump and regurgitated out the other. The vegetation hangs back from the mire, keeping a cautious distance, thorns and nettles recoiling as though stung by the mud. Caesar’s legions made siege ramps that looked more sightly. At either end, where the track leads up and out of the forest, smoothed slabs of brickwork poke out of the mud like the bones of the bridge that was. The rest of the rubble lies buried deep beneath the mound, I suppose, making a barrow of the dell. Do bridges have ghosts? I suspect this one might.

I sat up in the branches of a tree during a break between lessons one summer, listening to M.M. Kaye’s Trade Wind and taking in the view of the bridge as for the last time. That was the year I saw the first signs of what was coming: a waterlogged sheet of A4 paper in a plastic wallet, fastened to the masonry by a tag, bearing the stamp of the local council. The word “SAFETY” written in bold black ink is all I can remember, smudged and blued at the corners by a couple of days of dew and rain. Safety… how satisfying it must sound to the inspector, and how terrifying to the stonework of the old buildings of the world. If stone could shake, it might do so at the word.

The world cried out in despair when Palmyra and the Buddhas of Bamiyan went up in smoke, reduced to dust by religious bigotry, but when I see the Great Slump in Downside Wood, I wonder how many other beautiful works of man and God disappeared under the councilor’s red pen without a word of protest.

As I looked down upon the devastation, a nightmare from my childhood came back to me: a scene from a film that haunted me so terribly that I remember every word, every brush-stroke, every note pulled from the strings of the violins. I’m talking, of course, about the nightmare fuel that is the 1978 Watership Down:

Holly: Our warren… destroyed… Men came… filled in the burrows… couldn’t get out… There was a strange sound… hissing… the air turned bad… runs blocked with dead bodies… Couldn’t get out…. Everything turned mad. Warren, earth, roots, grass… All pushed into the air.
Hazel: Men have always hated us.
Holly: No… they just destroyed the warren because we were in their way.
Fiver: They’ll never rest until they’ve spoiled the earth.
Richard Adams, Watership Down

I know so little of the bridge that once stood in Downside Wood. Was it only a fanciful exercise by a local mason for the lord of the manor, or did it have stories to tell? Did lovers sit upon its parapets before the ramblers and the cross country team tramped across its back? Did a poet or writer pause for thought over the archway and listen to the buzzards crying over the meadow beyond, before cigarettes were hastily stamped out into the mud as somebody saw Sir coming?

The bridge is gone. Safety and development swept it aside like so much that was beautiful. The old meadow behind St Aidan’s College, where I once saw a barn owl drifting in the evening air looking for voles, lies deep beneath a building site as the students choke the city. Like Richard Adams before me, I can only look on in dismay and add my voice to the thousands. There is a mystical beauty in the ruins of man’s work that is surely greater than any single life, if we can but look beyond our own existence for just a moment. These things around us, these rocks and trees, will be here long after we are gone, and will tell their own stories from generation to generation.

I hope that, one day, a generation will come along with mercy in its heart. It’s too late for the Downside Bridge, but not for a thousand other unsung relics scattered across this island. Not every fern is sacred, but in the grand scale of things, the world around us is worth more than a human accident. BB x

And the Manacles are Off

October 16, 2015January 3, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

It’s over, at last! After almost a month of to-and-froing between school, the ayuntamiento and the Almendralejo police station, I have a Spanish bank account and the admin period is finally at an end. Alright, so there’s still some confusion over whether I really need a Spanish social security number and I’m not entirely sure how to top up my phone since it isn’t compatible with its own network app, but the most important stage (and one that, by the sounds of things, the other assistants accomplished weeks ago) is done and dusted.

So what better way to celebrate than with a little travel?

You see, I adore traveling. I’m sure I didn’t need to tell you that, but I feel like in the three weeks I’ve been here I’ve never had the chance to get out. Not for want of opportunity, of course, but I told myself right at the beginning that I wasn’t to go traveling until I’d finished all the paperwork. That was supposed to be before my (abortive) training course in Cáceres on 1st October. Well, now it’s the 16th. But that’s ok. Villafranca feels like home now, I’ve christened it with my first stupidly long walk, and I have to say I’m quite enjoying being ‘El Inglés’. But I’ve waited long enough, and now here I am in the Plaza Alta in Badajoz, enjoying a ración of some seriously high-quality croquetas as the city wakes up for the night.

A paltry three and a half euros took me all the way to Mérida, the regional capital of Extremadura. It’s also minuscule compared to Badajoz and Cáceres, for which the two provinces of Extremadura are named, which means you can get around the place in a couple of hours. I didn’t plan on staying long, since I only intended to use the city as a launch-pad for getting to Badajoz – there’s only one bus direct from Villafranca and it leaves at nine in the morning – but, as is so often the way of things, Mérida turned out to be a whole lot more than a collection of pristine Roman ruins.

At first glance it looks a lot like Córdoba, with the Roman bridge and the great big river splitting the old town from the new. But then, so does Badajoz. It’s missing the beauty of the mosque, of course, but then, Córdoba is and always will be in a league of its own. What it does have is a spectacular aqueduct on the north side of town. If you see any photos of Mérida, it’s bound to feature in more than one of them. Unlike the one in Segovia the city gave it breathing space and there’s a park around it now, but that hasn’t stopped the storks from taking advantage of all those convenient flat-topped towers.

Ah, but I can do better than that. It took me almost half an hour to cross the Roman bridge over the Guadiana this morning, not because of its length – you can span it in five minutes or less at a stride – but because I was held up by two of my favourite little riverside friends, both of them easy to spot because of all the noise they were making.

I haven’t been to Doñana National Park almost every year for the last seven years for nothing, and when I heard a distinctly disgruntled grunting cutting over the babble of an approaching horde of school kids, I was hanging over the side of the bridge and scanning the reeds in a flash; and sure enough, there he was. Old Longshanks himself.

What can I say? Gallinules. Love ’em. Loved the ridiculous things since I first saw a picture of one in a book. The name’s daft enough – Purple Swamp-Hen, in full – but the feet are something else.

I don’t know why I make such a big deal about gallinules over anything else, but they’ve always been the ultimate Doñana bird for me. Perhaps it’s because it’s basically a giant purple chicken. Mm, close enough.

Feathered friend number two should be a lot more familiar to most of you. He’s also rather colourful, but a heck of a lot smaller and shinier to boot. And once you know what they sound like, you’ll see a lot more of them. It’s a kingfisher, of course!

At least, I hope you know what a kingfisher is. Nobody here does. Not even if I give them the equally impressive Spanish name of martin pescador.

I’m still waiting on that perfect kingfisher photo. The one everyone wants: wings spread wide, water droplets falling from a dive, fish in beak etc. but until that moment, they’re always a pleasure to watch.

Everybody else was walking on by and doubtless wondering who that young loony was in the maroon hoodie-and-chinos combo with the ridiculous lens, hanging half over the bridge, but hey, I was having a good time. That’s my idea of a morning well spent, anyway.

Sheesh, long post. My travelogues usually are. Badajoz is rather beautiful, and if my right thigh weren’t still punishing me for that 45km cross-country hike last weekend, I’d probably be enjoying it more. I could do with a rest. It’s a lot bigger than Mérida and I had to double the distance when it turned out that the albergue I had in mind was a school groups affair. I was accosted outside by three young girls who asked me if I wanted a blowjob and called out ‘oyé, feo’ and ‘mochila verde’ after me when I ignored them. Then I tried taking a shortcut through the park into the Alcazaba, but shortcuts do tend to make long delays, and in this case the road came to a sudden and unexpected end. The door was there alright, but the road… wasn’t.

The adventures never end! Left the restaurant to soak up the night in the square and a wandering troupe of musicians asked me for directions to the ayuntamiento. I pointed them in the right direction, but their leader deduced that I clearly wasn’t from Badajoz. Back atcha, tío; ‘I’m from Villafranca de los Barros’. ‘Villafranca?! Hombre, somos de Ribera!’ (the next town along from VdB). It’s a small world. And I’ve just noticed that I missed a major performance from the best gypsy musicians of Badajoz at the theatre tonight. Only two doors down from the hostel, as well. Rats. I’ll be back.

I’d better call it a night there and head on back to the hostel. I might try for sunrise over the Guadiana after this evening’s gorgeous Portuguese sunset. On a final note, I had the happiest moment of the month on the road to Badajoz when I saw, in the distance, a giant V-flock of some one hundred and twenty cranes on their way south. It’s only the very moment I’ve been waiting for, the first true sign of winter in Extremadura. I was practically jumping out of my seat, I was so happy.

The photo hardly does it justice, so I’ll go hunting for them some other time when I’m not stuck on a bus. But that’s an adventure for another day. BB, which may or may not stand for Bird-Brain amongst other things, signing out x

In the Shadow of the Golan Heights

July 6, 2015July 6, 2015 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

There’s a Palestine sunbird flitting about amongst the branches below, a dusky little thing with an emerald sheen on each shoulder. What difference does it make to her that there’s a tall iron fence all the way along the length of the cliff on the opposite bank? One little flutter of her tiny wings and she’s over. It seems a little ridiculous that a bird no bigger than my thumb can do things a human can’t.

I’ve found a shaded spot for myself in a makeshift bathhouse on the south side of the River Jordan, just a few miles to the north of Umm Qays, and closer still to Israel itself. The Golan Heights tower high above me, shining a brilliant gold in the midday sun. Down below is an offshoot of the Jordan, rushing westwards to its mother before the Sea of Galilee. A night heron flapped lazily past a little while back, and there’s a couple of geese paddling about downstream. The bulbuls aren’t exactly making themselves inconspicuous and all the while the hardy little sunbird is keeping herself busy hurrying to and from a crevice in the cliff. I guess she has a nest in there somewhere.

The others are frolicking about in one of the swimming pools under the lazy eye of the locals. I just had to get away. It’s so quiet here. Who’d have thought that I’m looking at a former war zone, just a few decades back? Legend tells that this is supposedly the place where Jesus drove the Gadarene swine into the river, but the landscape looks decidedly more Ethiopian than one of those colour drawings of Israel from an illustrated Bible. There’s even a laughing dove calling from a fig tree down in the valley. Ho-woo-hoo-hoo. A little slice of Africa in the Middle East. This is my idea of money well spent. If only there were places this idyllic nearer Amman.

And I’m now even more hungry for Israel; I’ve spent two days looking at its green hills and cool lakes from the dry Jordanian side. It’s enough to drive a man mad. Now more than ever I begin to understand why this place has seen so much conflict. Who would not fight to hold on to a home in a land like this, Arab or Hebrew? If there is a heaven-born hand guiding us all, let it lead me to Israel, just once, VIATOR or no VIATOR. I feel a strange pull to the place like never before, as though I have wanted nothing more my whole life. This, surely, is the stuff that wars are born from. Wars and jaded dreams.

The wind’s picking up a little. I expect we’ll be leaving for Jerash soon. Another sunset in an idyllic setting, and still holding true to a promise I made three years ago. I’ll paint this valley onto the backs of my eyes to keep me going over the next five days.

A flash of brilliant purple and the sunbird’s back. It’s the male this time. He clings to a vine hanging over the roof and looks my way before flitting off in the direction of the nest. If there are moments like this to wait for at the end of every week, I have strength enough to last out here. BB x