The Lively Bustle On The Plaza de Espana

To the onlooker, the lively bustle on the Plaza de Espana in Los Llanos has an almost stage-like quality.  The whole town meets here, to see and be seen, talking and shouting, stopping and scurrying.  This is what makes the social and acoustic dynamics of the setting.

Architecturally speaking all possibilities are left open.  The square seems able to accommodate almost any scene change.  The walls on all sides which enclose it as a terrace are for sitting and playing on.  Here, where the square edges onto the street, young people most like to meet whilst the main area is dominated by the younger children, nowhere else in Los Llanos being better for skating, cycling, chasing and tumbling.  It was here during last year's carnival that I danced into the small hours to the rhythms of a Cuban female band.

The plaza inclines gently upwards, and the far end, shaded by tall laurel trees, is dominated by open-air bars.  The Camareros of the plaza's busiest bar, the kiosko, know what their customers have come for and from behind the tiny encounter serve up almost miraculously the quintessential of urban live - us cafe solo, una cerveza, un zumo de naranja, una copa.  Orders flow in and the coins jingle, leaving behind a mountain of monedas in the kiosko.  When afternoon comes and the shops close, the square becomes still, but not silent, and the gentle sweeping of the palm-leaf broom across its surface sounds the hour of idleness and enjoyment.  Now is the time to peruse the newspapers.

When the bells chime for mass, the predominantly female congregation gathers in front of the church.  In the evening, the plaza becomes a promenade.  Tourists meet in larger groups for an aperitif.  Most postcards are written in front of the Cafe Eden.  The German palmeros emerge too, distinguishable by the fact that they banter with the Camareros in Spanish, but debate in German the trials and tribulations of their island existence.  The seats in front of the town's casino are reserved for the more elderly members of the Sociedad de Los Llanos, so-called local dignitaries, who scrape them endlessly back and forth, assembling, separating, and reassembling, separating and reassembling in constant search of the shade.  The newcomer quickly finds his own time and place on the Plaza de Epson in Los Lanes, its qualities of serenity, vivacity and diversity being firmly embedded in the rhythms of the days, weeks and island celebrations.

The wealthy of impressions and unique atmosphere to be savoured on the Plaza de Espana in Los Llanos spring from the coexistence in a confined space of many social groups.  Indeed, its complex physical and social structure is the expression of a culture whose main stage is the public space and which has long since vanished on our own country.