More than a sea, it would seem that La Rambla (Córdoba) is surrounded by an ocean of olive trees. And instead of the waves, its soundtrack is the cicadas. Its song, which can reach up to 86 hertz, gains intensity as its profile becomes clearer and closer.. Like a song of welcome to La Rambla, to the summer and, above all, to the heat. The Spanish Meteorological Agency certified on August 14, 2021 a temperature of 47.6 degrees, the highest ever recorded in Spain. Here, life has a different rhythm and, above all, a schedule. After noon the streets empty and until late afternoon the town is almost a desert where the only traces of life are the cicadas and Juan, the controller of the blue zone who watches over ghost cars on ghost streets. Welcome to ground zero for heat, welcome to La Rambla, where this 23-J is also voted with the help, yes, of the jugs that your council is going to make available to voters.
In La Rambla, as in the rest of Spain, people also vote and not even the high, extremely high temperatures are enough to deter the majority of its citizens.. Of all those interviewed for this report, 100% say that, no matter what the thermometer shows, today they will go to vote and the official figures for the last elections confirm that the level of participation is usually around 80%.. “Voting is our obligation,” they say at the Hogar del Pensionista gathering.
The City Council, where Jorge Jiménez (PP) rules after winning his second consecutive elections last May, has ensured that the polling stations are located in air-conditioned premises and, just in case, it is going to take out its secret weapon, the jug on La Rambla. Made from a native clay, the clay, which is extracted from the subsoil, has a particular shape, although the key is, says Jiménez, that salt is added to the clay “so that it sweats” and the water “really” cools.. There will be two in each school, explains the mayor, plus 200 bottles of mineral water for the members of the tables.
The objective is that the heat does not mark the electoral day, in which, if the last two calls to the polls are attended (July 19, the Andalusian ones, and March 28, the regional and municipal calls), the PP has everything to win. At 87 years old, Fernando knows what he is talking about. At only nine years old, he got behind a team and did not leave the field until he retired.. With her head protected by a hat, she takes the fresh air – it is a saying – in the shade of a tree in the Parque del Arroyazo, very close to her house, like every day. He leaves first thing in the morning, at 7:00 a.m. to be exact, and enjoys his freedom until, more or less, 11:00 a.m., when the temperatures begin to be more than bearable.. He spends the rest of the day locked up, a prisoner in his house and tied to the air conditioning unit that, while life gives him, takes its toll on his tired legs.
On the opposite bench, Juan, 47, has just returned from enjoying his daily dose of cycling, 70 kilometers, to the neighboring town of Lucena, which he starts riding almost at dawn.. Because he, like his neighbor Fernando, also locks himself in his apartment at noon, although in the afternoon he has to go out to work. He is a bus driver in the capital, Córdoba, which is barely 40 kilometers from here.. To give us an idea of what heat is like on La Rambla, he explains that in his house they have “hot water and, in addition, very hot water” because the pipes are in full sun and not a drop comes out of the tap that can be described as cold or even warm.
A fan in a polling station in Getafe.
When EL MUNDO looks into this corner of Córdoba, La Rambla is reasonably well. The maximum temperature will not rise above 38 degrees and that is like saying that it refreshes. Nothing to do with the previous days, in which hell emerged and took over this town of just over 7,500 inhabitants.. Although the rambleños are made to withstand heat and the phrase they repeat the most is that “we are used to it”. What a remedy, one might add.
Marta, Lola and Carmen have breakfast on a terrace on the Paseo de España before fleeing to their respective houses and swimming pools, which are not a luxury here, but a lifesaver.. They meet up every morning to play sports -they practice crossfit- and then give each other a tribute based on coffee and toast with wholemeal bread. They say, between bites and sips, that in La Rambla what it is about is “surviving”.
the recipe is simple. Full air conditioning (there is practically no house without an air conditioning unit), hangouts at the pools and outings, just enough, and when it gets dark. Or before the mercury shoots up. And who can move during these months to the country houses -with swimming pools, of course- that abound along the Montemayor road. A hailstorm also helps, the coffee one is the star, in the ice cream parlor that the Colomina family has run for decades. Enna now attends to the other side of the counter and advises against, as an expert that she is, ordering ice cream these days. “It doesn't get past the door without melting,” he warns with a smile.
Another option is the municipal swimming pool, which in this town in deep Córdoba, in the heart of the Guadalquivir Valley, opens uninterruptedly from nine in the morning to ten at night. In the early hours it offers sports activities, especially aquagym, and the rest of the day, an oasis where bodies battered by the heat can cool down.
Antonio's wife is one of the regulars, says the husband as he pays the bill for the coffee he just had with his friends at the Hogar del Pensionista. The gathering is already declining because here everything starts early. Antonio, Bernardo, Juan and Manolo can be found every morning at the same table (or one beyond) discussing the same face-to-face thing between Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo as Alcaraz's triumph at Wimbledon. And from the heat, of course, although the song is the same. “We are used to it,” Antonio says, and the others nod.. By sitting in the shade and collecting yourself at a prudent hour…
Alerts throughout Spain
But although the records do, the heat is not going to be the only patrimony of anyone this Sunday. The AEMET has declared an orange alert for temperatures of up to 40 degrees this Sunday, as well as in the Cordoba countryside, in the Genil Basin, the Guadalquivir Valley in Jaén, the Guadix and Baza regions (Granada) or in the Ribera del Ebro, in Navarra.. There are also yellow alerts for the heat wave in Seville, Jaén capital, La Mancha, the Serranía de Cuenca, and a good part of Aragón, La Rioja and the provinces of Lérida and Madrid. EL MUNDO witnessed this Saturday the preparations at the CEIP Emperador Carlos V electoral college, in Getafe, in which air conditioners, fans and all available devices have been arranged so that the polling stations, usually already closed on these dates, do not become hell during voting day.
The same is happening in the Balearic Islands, which are preparing to face an election day marked by the high temperatures expected for this Sunday.. In an essentially touristic community and with more than 160 kilometers of beach, it is expected that the influx to the polls will be concentrated in the early hours of the day and in the late afternoon. The Balearic government has activated a plan to prevent heat stroke, reinforcing the presence of the SAMU061 emergency services and supplying polling stations with documentation with protocols for action in the event of heat stroke.
A worker unloads bottles of mineral water for the Hogar del Pensionista de La Rambla.
In the case of the Valencian Community, with a forecast that the thermometer will reach 36 degrees in inland areas of Valencia, the main concern of the municipalities and the Government Delegation is how to mitigate the heat in the polling stations. Most of them do not have air conditioning in their classrooms, so the fan will be practically the only way to alleviate the high temperatures.. So the Delegation and the consistories have made hundreds of fans available to the schools. In some municipalities such as Aldaia, Ontinyent or Xàtiva, the decision of the city councils has been directly to move the polling stations to places with air conditioning.
The other measure consists of the distribution of bottles of water for the members of the tables. In the case of the city of Valencia, for example, those who have had to be at one of the polling stations will have up to two liters of water for the whole day. In the Valencian capital alone, the special device that the consistory has designed for the proper functioning of voting involves mobilizing a total of 800 people, including local police officers and library and education guards to open and close schools.
In the same way, the embarrassment that drowns the Barcelonan at the end of July will be mitigated with the distribution of 18,000 half-liter bottles of water that will be distributed among the different polling stations in the Catalan capital. 10% of the polling stations in the city -a total of 163, spread over 32 polling stations- will change location, in most cases because the schools are carrying out improvement works taking advantage of the summer break.
In other Catalan cities such as Sabadell, a dozen polling stations have been closed due to not having adequate ventilation to be able to face voting day with guarantees. And in the Barcelona town of Mollet del Vallès, the City Council will place fans in schools that do not have air conditioning and will deliver fans to the citizens who are members of the polling stations.