Bares, qué lugares

Empty streets with closed bars, Caceres, Spain

The Camino a Ítaca has been circling for weeks now, waiting for the city’s plague status to be lifted. Cities and towns across the region, shut off from each other in order to try and stop the spread. One of the measures that has been taken is a complete shutdown of the restaurant and bar industry. You can feel their absence in the streets. Click over to read the original version in Spanish or read the English version below. (PDF version en castellano abajo)

I was completely baffled by them. No matter how hard I tried, I simply could not figure out how they were made. These mysterious, round, yellow creations that I had never seen before anywhere else in all my travels. Yet here in Spain, they were everywhere. How was it possible that the rest of the world didn’t know about these secrets? There they were. Lined up under the steamy glass next to an entire host of other things that I was also entirely unfamiliar with, but needed to try. I spoke no Spanish at the time and hand gestures didn’t help me find out more. What they could do though was get me another caña (little beer) and hopefully another slice of mystifying tortilla that accompanied every beer.

Here in Spain we take them for granted. They are on almost every other street corner, there is always one nearby when you need them and it’s a simple fact that the Spanish do them better than anywhere else in the world. There simply is nothing like the Spanish bar in the rest of the world. Sure, you might see the word ‘tapas’ on the streets of Tel Aviv, Toronto or even Tokyo, but I guarantee that, no matter how hard they try, it just isn’t going to be the same experience. That’s because, even if the bar’s owners are from Badajoz, or have learned from the best in Granada, it’s the society around them that can’t figure them out. How they intertwine with out daily lives. The word ‘bar’ might be a cognate in many different languages. It might be spelt the same and even sound similar, but the Spanish bar is in a league of its own.

Where else can you find sleepy red eyes ruminating over the first cup of coffee of the day elbow to elbow with someone with even redder eyes having the last drink before going to bed. Remember those stale, rancid peanuts that you were lucky to get when having a beer in Los Angeles? What about when you stepped off that bus in some small town in Holland and were hungry and the only thing you could find was a soulless vending machine? How about that glass of terrible wine you ordered in Berlin that cost you more than a bottle would here? Where do you turn after a dip in the sea or one of the natural swimming pools around the region? That civilized chiringuito of course.

Now, the streets have turned quiet. I see people shivering, huddled in corners with take out coffees, quickly getting their caffeine fix in silence. These very words, once read and commented on at the bar now glare at you from an omnipresent screen. More and more pensioners no longer bother to get dressed and go for their walk because there is no tertulia at the finish line.

So many lives and so much life has been lost to the pandemic. Those corners are emptying and with them a way of life. Because the bar is something more than just a place to get a drink. Look closely at the streets without them and what do you see? Just another hive of people, on repeat, going from their desks to their screens at home. Next stop: Socks with sandals and warm beer.