December 17, 2003
Crossing New Mountains
In our trip to Spain I tried to stay attuned to the physiography of the countryside, noticing the geology and the vegetation. We took the train from Madrid across the Guadarrama Mountains to go on a day trip to Ávila, and later on went south by car into Andalucía, returning by train. Andalucía, at least the portion east of Cádiz, is quite reminiscent of Southern California: scrubby vegetation, steeply rising and folded sedimentary formations, streamcourses that are dry most of the year but flood during torrential rains. Eucalyptus trees, exotic to both places, are common and add to the resemblance. The photo at left was taken from the train going from Málaga to Sevilla, passing through the Garganta del Chorro.
The amazing thing about Spain when I crossed it by train back in 1988 was just how much it resembled Southern California and Arizona. As I passed through the area between Zaragoza and Madrid I finally understood just how at home the Spaniards must have felt when they arrived in California and Arizona... and how familiar the landforms were. Already they had words like "canyon", "mesa", "arroyo" at their disposal. The West for the Spaniards must have had quite a different effect on them compared to the East for the British, who were not used to the vast spaces and unending forests (and Alaska must have seemed right at home for the Russians).
Posted by: butuki at December 18, 2003 07:44 AMYes. I've often wondered -- indeed, it's an underlying theme in my research -- what the United States would be like if it had been settled from the West rather than from the East.
Australia prompts similar responses -- not unsurprisingly, given where eucalyptus comes from...
Posted by: Rana at December 18, 2003 02:04 PM