ZAHARA de la Sierra, Cádiz, Andalucia, Spain

PARQUE NATURAL, SIERRA DE GRAZALEMA

What makes a legend?

I am a writer of fiction, a record producer of Latin, Hip Hop, Jazz, Reggae and World grooves. Also a part-time academic. And I have a love affair with Spain, all things Spanish including the Americas and the Natural World.

Members of my family fought fascism in Spain during the 1930s, opposing the military muscle of Franco and Hitler. 

Our love of Spain never diminished from our lives and trips were frequent. My Grandmother captured much of Spain then on 8mm Cine film; we would watch fisherman dragging their boats up the sand in Torremolinos after a day's fishing, girls and women in Flamenco dresses sauntering during the lazy hot afternoon hours...

Of course, Torremolinos is a much changed place, as is the Costa del Sol with its huge commercial tourist industry and lack of poetry. And yet the untouched wonders of Mediterranean Spain can be easily reached after only an hour's drive from the coast. This journey begins from Málaga - a city well worth visiting before you leave all this behind you, especially the hilltop fortress - the Alcazaba and the Pasaje de Chinitas where García Lorca performed his songs 20 Poems for the Gypsy and his Guitar.

When Reggae producer Lee Scratch Perry sang his song City Too Hot: ''The City too hot, Need to get cooler 'pon the hilltop, I'm heading for the hills where it fresh and clean, green' - he was singing a reality as city life is what drives us, inspires us, pays us, cultures us, but at the same time it chokes us, manufactures us, tricks us into believing that the World was solely created for Man.

It is good to return to roots, walk amid the mountains, realise our true vulnerability and to give way to a natural landscape that is more powerful than ourselves and that holds us within it's awe.

As you leave the Málaga province and enter into Cádiz you will soon notice the roads deteriorate, but the gateway to the Parque Natural open before you and with it a tremendous peace coupled with a feeling that you are somewhat closer to that mystic land of the Moors; the land they called 'al-Andalus' - the land of the 'Red Earth'.

An almost fairytale Kingdom that fought for autonomy from the rest of Islam. Zahara's first impressions are of this once idyllic Kingdom. The steadily ascending road towards it brings this whitewashed Pueblo Blanco into full view. It appears as if it is just over there, then you sweep behind the next mountainous flanks and it is gone.

It was in this manner that I first saw it, only from a higher opposing mountaintop. Zahara's Moorish hilltop castle was ablaze in reddish-orange stone. The sunset had long since passed. Modern ways were upon it and the spotlights detracted nothing from its enchanting aura.

It stood with the lights of the town below, church towers dominant, like the front cover of a book of an ancient Arabic Fairytale. And as the years went by I realised that first impressions last and do ring true - the village of Zahara is precisely the true source out of which echoes form legends.

From now on this village shall be referred to as 'al-Zahar' of 'al-Andalus' where: a princess deeply loved her small slice of a huge Kingdom, peace translated into violence - a battleground for the fight of religions in order to ensure existence, then the final search for that Word that hinges on the brink of silence: poetry about poetry - 'al-Zahar'.

The Madinat al-Zahra was in existence between years 936 to 1010. The ruling Caliph Abd al-Rahman III embarked on the construction of his empire's governmental HQ, which remained unsurpassed and the largest and most ambitious building project of his epoch. It was a phenomenon, breathtaking in its layout of gardens, archways, living quarters, waterworks, intricate lattice stonework, polished marble avenues...And Abd al-Rahman III sported the audacious and lively personality required to live and characterise such a larger-than-life abode. He walked the avenues with confidence and royal dignity, cheekily dishing out niceties to those who caught his gaze. There was also a whiff of arrogance and outlandishness about his being, as if to pronounce 'won't you just look at this. A marvel to behold. Respect its creator'.

And his reputation, as is often the case, was far bigger than the reality. It soon spread that he was indeed larger-than-life, a revolutionary making laws unto his own; that the people of Madinat al-Zahra were liberated intellects who re-interpreted Islam, prayed less, debated more, gave more precedence to poetry, music, lovemaking, astronomy, medicine, let drop the woman's veil...

This fuelled the hatred of the Berbers of the Motherland. The Kingdom was short-lived, being sacked and burnt to the ground. Proof of the fire's destruction is torched into the marble flooring where nails from the collapsed roof timbers are burnt into the veiny stone.

Respect to the Junta De Andalucia who began restoration work in 1911, nearly a century later they have uncovered a tenth of this Kingdom's expanse. A simple calculation as to when it might be presumed 'fully restored' leaves you with your mouth open trying to mutter a figure.

And the admission is free, as is a beautiful accompanying pamphlet of informative literatura and historia: Respect the dead and those that bring them back again.

Abd al-Rahman III was a formidable man versed in the fine balance between chivalry and the darkness of politics that those at the top must delve into head first in order to survive.

So, a Word was uttered one early evening in his ear as he sat drinking vino, and after already having drank copious amounts of this blood of his nation - La Sangre del Pueblo:

"Zahar, whose beauty, as her name suggests, is that of the fragrance of the orange tree."

Abd al-Rahman III inhaled deeply. A mixture of incense and orange blossom stirred him. "And where?" he prised dreamily.

The Words 'al-Zahar' entered his eardrum.

But our heroin is not weak-willed nor easily seduced. The historic meeting between Princess Zahar of a small rustic hilltop settlement and Abd al-Rahman III of the lavish Palace-City Madinat al-Zahra will be further developed in a new and on-going novel, simply entitled 'Zahara'.

Dynasties come and go, waves of history spring back at us, the cruelty becomes interspersed with romance and legend. It is precisely the distance between ourselves and the real events that allows this softening of truths. What happened to Princess Zahar, as the Catholic army of Spain encroached and began to re-conquer parts of al-Andalus, was a blatant manifestation of man's inhumanity to man: a loss of religious tolerance, fear sewn into people's minds, the Inquisition, superstition, execution, and the terrible lie of colonialism - exploitation claiming to be philanthropy.

Princess Zahar would not cede her beloved al-Zahar and convert to Christianity. Instead she took to the castle keep with her loyal troops and fought a doomed and desperate battle. Not even her beauty could save her now. The fortress was starved, overrun and she was thrown over the crenellated walls that rise upward on top of a sharp, dry mountain pinnacle. Food for the vultures, recycled back into the red earth where grows the Orange Tree.

When Granada fell the ruling Nasrid Boabdil had long since departed as all the surrounding hilltop fortresses like al-Zahar were ablaze with fire; beacons signifying a severe warning to the rulers. However, from a vantage point Boabdil witnessed the Spanish troops enter the Palace and claim it. This was sufficient to cause him to fall to his knees, then sigh a million sighs and enter into a chant-dialogue with Allah.

That exact point is known as 'El Suspiro del Moro' - 'The Moor's Last Sigh'.

But the plot is lost.

Thankfully the lucid clarity of mind returns and corresponds to the surrounding transparency of the air: we are at/in a Nature Reserve of the highest beauty.