Following the Sun: A Bicycle Pilgrimage from Andalusia to the Outer Hebrides

by John Hanson Mitchell

  For six years prior to this event, Columbus had directed appeals to Queen Isabella for support of his idea of a route westward to the Orient. How he got the idea to sail west in order to find a short route to the East is not known. But finally, not long after the fall of Granada, Isabella agreed to allow him to attempt his voyage and named him Admiral of the Ocean Sea. She granted him a contract to any new lands that he might discover and granted him, further, a tenth part of all the wealth that he might find, in pearls or precious stones, or gold or silver or spices. Columbus was already over forty; he had gray hair, and a long career as a local sea captain. But this was no ordinary voyage. His persistent advocacy of this singular idea effectively altered the cultures of the globe, spread Europe far beyond its borders, and begat a vast redistribution of life-forms that continues to this day. The event also effectively destroyed the native cultures that were then thriving in the Americas.

  Columbus did not know what was beyond the horizon west of the Canary Islands and the Azores when he set out in the summer of 1492, nor did he know that he would have fair winds all the way west. But he had spent some time on the Portuguese island of Madeira and it is thought that he may have heard from sailors there of a prevailing easterly wind just to the south. He also knew that all the Portuguese voyages of discovery that had ventured west from the Azores had run into contrary winds. So he sailed south some seven hundred miles, refitted his ships in the Canaries, and on Thursday, September 6th, departed from the harbor at San Sebastián de la Gomera and with light following winds sailed into the unknown. Two days later, in the night, Columbus picked up a strong easterly breeze and found himself in the rumored band of favorable winds for the rest of the voyage.

  Day after day for four weeks he sailed westward with his small flotilla of three vessels. On the seventeenth of September something went awry with his compass and it would no longer register true north. The crew became concerned. There were grumblings. The rumored edge of the flat earth could lie ahead. But Columbus claimed the variation was due to nothing more than their westward position. He was guessing, but it turns out he was right. They were now far enough west to alter the bearings of magnetic north and the north star.

  The little group sailed on. More leagues covered, more empty ocean. Columbus spotted crabs and claimed that they were a sign that the ships were near land. But there was none in sight the next day, nor the next. Then he saw cumulus clouds and claimed again that they were near land. Then the crew saw a length of sugarcane and a small carved stick float by, and a few nights later Columbus saw, so he said, a light gleaming to the west and announced that they would find land the next morning. At dawn there was no land.

  Finally, on the eve of the twelfth of October in the moonlight they saw a low-lying coast and hove to. In the morning, they saw the islands of the Bahamas, unfurled their flags, blessed their god and rowed ashore. On shore they found palm trees, and many ponds, and grassy plains. They signed themselves. They smelled the fresh earth and drank fresh waters, and then the following day a company of bronze-colored people emerged from the thick groves of palms. Presuming himself on an island off the coast of India, he called the people Indios—Indians.

  There is a good physical explanation for the prevailing easterly winds that carried Columbus westward to this “new” world, and as with so many earthly phenomena, it begins with the sun. Because of the angle of the earth to the sun, solar radiation streaming off this supercharged star makes a direct hit on the equatorial regions of the planet. This heated air rises and thereby creates a zone of low pressure around the equator known as the doldrums, a region of hot humid air and sticky, dead calms, interspersed with towering thunderheads and broken with short bursts of heavy rains. This rising, warmed air flows outward toward the cooler regions of the poles thereby creating a vacuum in the equatorial regions, into which the cooler surface winds rush from both north and south. But as the surface winds flow back in toward the equator, they are turned by the spin of the earth, a phenomenon known as the Coriolis effect. Since these winds flow from east to west just north and south of the equator, they are known as the easterlies, and they are, as all transatlantic sailors know, among the most reliable and predictable breezes on earth. By leaving from as far south as the Canaries, Columbus had happened upon them. Had he left from the Azores, he might well have turned back.

  But there is more to exploration than the outbound voyage. All explorers from the European continent had to come home to tell the tale, and this too involves the solar-based planetary conditions that create a fair wind for the return trip to Europe. The rising warm air over the doldrums sinks back to earth around 35 degrees north and south of the equator, a region known to sailors as the horse latitudes. The air masses in this region are churned by a combination of the Coriolis effect and areas of high and low pressure, which creates prevailing westerly winds.

  These east and west winds provided mariners with a regular system of shipping lanes. After Columbus, a set course of trade developed. Adventurers, colonists, and Spanish grandees would sail southwestward from the Guadalquivir, catch the prevailing easterlies for the outbound voyage, load up with gold and spices, subdue the locals, put down colonies, and then sail north to the region around northern Florida or Georgia to pick up the westerlies for the long voyage home.

  Within these churned-up, complex bands of moving air there are local disturbances caused by varying landforms, mountains, cold or warm sea currents, sun-heated deserts, and polar regions. These have begotten a variety of sometimes predictable, sometimes erratic winds that have acquired names: the Elephanta of the Malabar Coast in southwest India, for example, or the chill Mistral of the Rhone Valley in France; the Sirocco that blows off the dry deserts of North Africa, bringing clouds of red dust into southern Europe; the Föhn; and the Churada, and the hot-breathed Harmattan of the Sahara; the Helm of England, which blows in from the Pennine Chain; and the Penente of Italy, the Purga and the Buran of Siberia, the Khamsin of Egypt, the Melteme of Greece. For every region on earth there are named winds, in fact there are some four hundred names for different winds around the globe and these winds bring forth, in their various seasons, recognized changes in the collective mood of the human community—headaches caused by the Föhn, for example, irritability from the Santa Ana, depressions, elations, bad luck, good luck, evil days, and propitious hours.

  Our science tells us, and we believe it for the most part, that all these winds of the earth are caused by the Coriolis effect and the spin of the planet and the fact that the continuous furnace of nuclear fusion streaming off our nearest star heats the tropical regions of the planet. But as with so many stories of creation, there are other explanations.

  The seafaring Greeks believed that the winds of the earth were housed on a cliff in the Tyrrhenian Sea, kept in a cave by their overlord, the god Aeolus. Here dwelt Zephyros, the gentle west wind, and Boreas, the chill wind from the north, and Notos, who brought rain from the south, and Eurus, the ill-tempered wind from the east. Odysseus, on his way home from Troy, stopped to visit Aeolus, who instructed Zephyros to carry him safely back to Ithaca. He tied the other winds up in a goatskin sack and told Odysseus not to open it. With a fair wind and following seas, the company of sailors was soon within sight of Ithaca, but the greedy crew, thinking there was gold inside, opened the bag while Odysseus was sleeping. Out burst the angry winds of the north and the east, and sent the vessel scudding back to sea. It took Odysseus twenty more years to get back home. At the culmination of his voyaging, he and his men landed on the Island of the Sun. Here, while Odysseus slept, his men made the mistake of killing and roasting the favored cattle of the sun, who grazed on the island. Instantly there arose a mighty wind out of the west, and the blast snapped the forestays of the ship’s mast; the vessel foundered and sank, with all hands, save Odysseus, who clung to the keel and the broken mast and after ten days finally washed up on Calypso’s island, where he lived for the next eight years.

  In North America, th
e Abenaki of northern New England claim that there is a mountain peak in the far north where, on top, lives a giant eagle that continuously flaps his wings, thus creating all the winds of earth. In Central Asia there is a mountain, possibly the same one since the Abenaki originated in Central Asia, where, according to legend, there is a hole, and from this hole winds issue at tremendous force.

  In Central America the Aztecs, whose culture was destroyed by those Sevillanos and Castilians who, riding the easterlies, came after Columbus, believed that the sun god begat an associate deity, a god of the wind. In time he evolved into a dragonlike, flying figure, a serpent with wings whom they called Quetzalcoatl. He was a god of extreme purity, a kindly benevolent redeemer who gave his blood for humankind. But like many gods of old, in the time of the Aztecs, the story held that Quetzalcoatl had gone away. He promised to return, though.

  There are winds that are known to be spirits of the dead. There are winds in some cultures that are carried in a sack by ancient figures who live in the mountains. There are winds that are dragons, and there are many winds that are horses (and many horses, it should be added, that were inseminated by the winds). And there is a mysterious, sun-heated desert wind in the Middle East that has no known source but has miraculous powers. In one local folktale it parted the sea, allowing an army to pass, and then closed up again, enveloping a pursuing enemy army. In another story this wind collapsed the house of a powerful local chieftain, killing all his sons. It brought plagues, and carried locusts, and swirled around mountaintops, and, as if in recognition of its fiery source, it had the ability to burst into flaming bushes. Sometimes it even spoke out loud. A wandering tribe of pastoralists in the region named this wind ruwach. The word meant, by association, a blast of air, or whirlwind. It also meant breath, or powerful breath, and finally it meant spirit, a very powerful spirit, so powerful that the tribal people refused even to utter its name. We here in the West are more direct (or less respectful) and have translated ruwach as God, the unspeakable Yahweh of the ancient Hebrews.

  By late afternoon the wind dropped and the road south to the Coto began to descend through rolling hills with pastures where rough-looking fighting bulls of the Romero family were grazing. There was no traffic, I was alone in the fading green light, separated from these trained killing bulls by a thin strand of wire alone, and as I pedaled along, I began to appreciate the bravery of the matador, John Fulton. He was just a good American boy from Philadelphia, an artist, who had somehow become fascinated with the corrida. Seeing these great, heavy-shouldered, full-horned bulls eyeing me as I innocently pedaled by gave me a chill. But I forged on to Castilleja del Campo and ate some pork sandwiches with a glass of tinto to calm my bull-tormented nerves, and then rode on to Carrion de los Cespedes.

  By now it was late, the hour of the paseo, and the town square was filled with families and courting couples, all strolling around the small square in the same direction or standing in the middle discussing important matters, such as the upcoming Feria at Seville or the football scores. I began looking for a place to stay, but it appeared that there was no hotel or pension in the town. A man I spoke to, with typical Spanish courtesy, took up my cause and spread the word and down at the plaza my homeless plight soon became the talk of the town. A great crowd of sympathetic black eyes surrounded me in the dusk; there was much discussion and the older men began talking among one another about what they could possibly do for this poor bicycle man who had appeared in their town. Then the crowd parted slightly and the alcalde himself came forward and took my elbow solicitously. Soon he summoned forth one Diego Valdería, a former bicycle racer, who happily assumed the role of personal escort. By now it was pitch dark, but the congress had decided my fate.

  Calls were made ahead and a room was secured for me in the town of Pilas, about five miles down the road. But how to get me to this room in the bull-haunted black nights of rural Andalusia, when the duendes emerge from the hollows and the foxes bark from the dry hills?

  Once again the alcalde arranged a conference, and a cavalcade of automobiles was organized to light the way. After much assembling, we set out, several cars in front of me, very many astern, and in this manner, riding along at my twelve-mile-an-hour pace, my escorts led me into the center of Pilas. Here I was bountifully received in the town plaza by another crowd, given dinner at a local restaurant, lubricated with much tinto and sherry, and then escorted to the only pension in town, a tiny room off an enclosed courtyard.

  Near dawn I heard a hideous coughing and braying and thought the Devil himself, accompanied by a herd of red-eyed Romero bulls, had burst into the room. But it was only the family burro, enclosed in the courtyard outside my window, greeting the day.

  The next morning, having bid farewell to my saviors, I rode on to Roccio and then headed for the coast and the town of Torre de la Higuera. The only place I could find near enough to the entrance to the Coto was a corrugated Quonset hut where workers constructing a new hotel (a sign of things to come) were staying.

  The Coto DoÑana is made up of vegetated dunes, known as the cotos, interspersed with wide grassy marshland, and to the south a line of so-called “walking dunes” that move slowly northward each year. Wild boar, red deer, a few fallow deer, foxes, an odd weasel-like predator called the pharaoh’s rat, and the dreaded Pardelle lynx inhabit the cotos. Vast collections of graylag geese, widgeon, stilts, spoonbills, coots, and gallinules feed in the marismas, or marshes, along with flocks of thousands of flamingos who settle here as they move between their nesting grounds and the Camargue in France. And above the whole region, almost any time you glance skyward, you can see kites, and vultures, marsh harriers, and even the rare Iberian eagle.

  As it turned out, the road into the research center in the park was sandy and almost impossible to ride on, so I decided to hide my bicycle in the brush and hike in. After an hour of walking, this too grew tedious, so I headed into the brush to look for a high spot to take my lunch. The land was dry and characterized by sharp hilly dunes covered with juniper, Besom heath, and gorse, interspersed with bracken hollows and a few cork oaks and umbrella pines. It would have been very easy to get lost in the tangled thicket, and indeed within twenty minutes I wasn’t sure where I was. I could see a particularly high dune south of my position, so I worked my way through the bracken hollows and the thickets. Halfway to the hill there was a sudden scrambling at my feet, coupled with hideous squealings and snortings, and a family of baby boar burst from the brush around my ankles and scurried into the thickets. This was followed by a deeper, more ominous squeal as the great mother trotted off behind them. I considered myself lucky. Far more dangerous than the resident Pardelle lynx, more to be dreaded even than the purported lions is the boar sow with young. I had heard terrible stories of slashings and gashes from the tusks of these things.

  Safe at last, I climbed to the top of the hill, found a good outlook, and sat down for an alfresco repast.

  Even here, well away from the marshes, I could see rising and falling flights of ducks in the distance, and above in the sky the slow drift of a marsh harrier or kite. There were warblers and unidentifiable sparrows in the thickets, and I could hear chips and chirps of other species sounding out all around the hill.

  Migration in these parts begins in late February, and now, in late March, it had passed its peak, but there were still a lot of birds around. Actually, migration for many of these species probably began back in late January in Africa, where they had wintered. Their northward flights in fact have nothing to do with warming weather in Europe; birds are no better predictors of weather patterns than any other species, and considerably worse than weather forecasters. The thing that starts them moving is not weather, but the angle of the sun as it rides along the great road in the sky that astronomers call the ecliptic.

  As the light begins to increase in late winter, the changing length of day induces changes in the internal hormonal rhythms in a variety of migratory species. This in turn causes a phenomenon the Ge
rmans call Zugunruhe, a sort of premigratory restlessness that affects birds during seasons of migration. Ornithologists know of this because of experimental work that was carried out on a sparrowlike species known as the brambling. Researchers captured bramblings and kept them in aviaries and then artificially shortened the length of day throughout the normal spring migration period. Without their normal seasonal cycles of light and dark, the bramblings must have believed it was a very long winter indeed and failed to exhibit the migratory restlessness that they would normally have been feeling at that time of year. Furthermore, they did not experience the gonad enlargement that takes place in the spring mating season. Once they were put back into natural light, however, they began to get restless and accumulate fat, as they normally would do just before undertaking the hardships of migration. All this, as the researchers proved, had to do with the angle of the sun and the amount of light that occurs in the different seasons.

  Back on the road to the research station, after extricating myself from the thickets, I heard a loud popping and sputtering from behind and turned to see a much beaten truck rocking toward me, carrying in its bed the hives of bees. The kind driver offered me a ride and dropped me off at the station, the palatial hunting club of a former local grandee. Here I met with Torg, the Danish bird bander, a quiet man in his thirties with blond hair and steel-rimmed glasses. He and I talked about the migration of that year, of the various threats to European bird populations, and he broke out a bottle of tinto, uncorked it and set it out on a wooden table. There were no glasses, so he took the first drink in the Spanish style, that is, he held the neck of the bottle above his mouth and chug-a-lugged the wine without putting the bottle to his lips, an art of drinking I had never mastered in spite of the fact that I had lived in southern Spain. I said as much, and sucked from the bottle like any normal lush. Torg did not seem to mind.