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INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: Flirting in Mercadona and the weirdest tourism protest yet

In this week’s Inside Spain we look at the new viral trend involving flirting at Mercadona supermarkets and how a village in Galicia has found a very odd way of protesting against mass tourism.

Published: 31 August 2024 10:54 CEST
Inside Spain: Flirting in Mercadona and the weirdest tourism protest yet
Want to find a partner at your local supermarket? Head to Mercadona between 7pm and 8pm. (Photo by Thomas COEX / AFP)

If you live in Spain or have been here on holiday, there’s a very big chance you’ve done grocery shopping at Mercadona.

But did you know there’s ‘a time to flirt’ at the country’s most popular supermarket?

It all started with a TikTok video that’s gone viral (although if there was someone in Mercadona’s marketing department that came up with the campaign they should definitely get a bonus). 

Everybody in Spain is talking about it. The idea is that if you turn up at a Mercadona between 7pm and 8pm, that’s la hora de ligar (the time to flirt), and there’s a secret language of love as well. 

Putting a pineapple upside down in your shopping trolley means that you’re ‘available’ and ‘interested’. 

Then you have to head to the wine aisle, and if you spot someone you like, you have to bump your trolley against theirs. 

That’s what singletons 40 and up should do if interested in amor de Hacendado (love of Hacendado, Mercadona’s home brand).

For those aged 19 to 25, the frozen goods section is the place to meet prospective lovers.

In your thirties or mid-twenties? The fresh fish section, of course. 

It all may seem a bit silly, but we wouldn’t be surprised if pineapple sales go up exponentially in Spain and Mercadona’s turnover spikes as a result.

In fact, there are already videos circulating online of packed Mercadona supermarkets when the clock strikes seven. 

In completely different news but perhaps just as surreal, locals from the Galician village of O Hío in northwest Spain decided recently that the best way to protest against the volume of summer tourists they receive was by blocking zebra crossings. 

The idea involved choosing crossings where pedestrians always have right of way (no traffic lights), so several dozen locals simply walked up and down them for 37 minutes, causing a total traffic gridlock.

“Traffic problems are already common, but this year they have tripled at least. It’s an avalanche of cars that not only pollutes but also affects everyone’s lives because they park wherever they want,” O Hío resident Mercedes Villar told local daily La Voz de Galicia.

“We have the right to live too”.

People from this small coastal village in Pontevedra province say they’re not against tourists, but that authorities have to find a way for holidaymakers and residents to “coexist”.

Locals’ driveways are being blocked, yellow lines are ignored and traffic accidents are more common.

“The protest was meant to raise awareness and sound the alarm,” another villager told La Voz.

“We want people to be civil and understanding and if they see that there is no parking space, to leave, as we all have to do in any city”. 

2024 is proving to be the year of Spain’s rebellion against mass tourism and the effect it’s having on property prices, rents and standard of living for residents. 

From Cantabria in the north to Málaga in the south, more and more places in Spain are asking for local, regional and national governments to fix a tourism model that no longer works for them.

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INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: The rubbish police and Costa Blanca’s worst drought in 33 years

In this week’s Inside Spain we look at how a growing number of cities are handing out fines to residents who don’t properly dispose of rubbish and how thousands of people on the Costa Blanca cannot drink tap water due to severe drought.

Published: 24 August 2024 11:05 CEST
Inside Spain: The rubbish police and Costa Blanca's worst drought in 33 years

In 2022, the Spanish government passed a law aimed at dissuading people from littering and not recycling properly, with fines of up to €2,001 for those who left cardboard boxes outside of the correct dumpster. 

In Madrid alone, 299 people have been fined that eye-watering amount since the legislation passed, in most cases because they couldn’t get the Amazon cardboard boxes (with their name and address on them) to fit inside the paper rubbish containers.

READ ALSO: What are the recycling rules in Spain?

This has shocked many people across the country, but the truth is that most town halls in Spain have their own rules in place to prevent people from leaving furniture lying in the street, rubbish bags festering outside or putting litter in the wrong recycling bins.

Under the current approach of getting tough on those who disregard health and environmental concerns, many cities and towns are carrying out more inspections than ever.

The glitzy city of Marbella is among them, having already opened disciplinary action against 128 residents so far this year. Police officers in civilian clothing are patrolling the streets in greater numbers in a bid to catch unsuspecting offenders. Fines range from €90 to €3,000 depending on the severity. 

In Cádiz, undercover cops are also keeping a close eye on rubbish bins. In Cabo de Gata in Almería, €700 fines have been handed out to those leaving rubbish at the beach. 

In Burgos in northern Spain, €300 penalties for leaving a mattress leaning next to a dumpster. 

In Torrevieja in Alicante, new fines range from €150 for minor offences such as chucking cigarette butts on the ground to a whopping €500,000 for serious environmental hazards.

Every town and city sets its own amounts but what’s clear is that there are dozens of recent news stories from every region showcasing how littering is being treated and policed far more seriously than it once was.

In other news, Spain may have managed to avoid a nationwide drought this summer due to some welcome rain over the last eight months, but there are still places where the lack of water is causing serious consequences.

In several towns along the Costa Blanca, people have been warned not to drink tap water as a severe drought has made it saline and undrinkable. 

Teulada, Benitachell and Moraira are among them. Here tourists and locals are queuing up to fill up bottles of drinkable H20 in the midst of a sweltering summer. 

Water usage soars in the Marina Alta area, where there are 38,000 pools, one for every five inhabitants.

The northern part of Alicante province had half the average amount of rain in 2023 and only 10 percent of normal levels so far in 2024.

Copernicus, the EU’s Earth observation agency, on Friday shared a satellite image of Alicante as its photo of the day to highlight the “severe drought” the region is experiencing.

The Valencian Community declared the state of “extreme drought” last March, the worst in 33 years after an extremely hot 2023 which sapped aquifer reserves. Overdevelopment and mass tourism are also contributing enormously to the scarcity. 

There have been restrictions in numerous municipalities across the region since, but some town halls have flouted the advice and continued to allow people to fill up their pools and water their gardens.

What’s clear is that Spain’s fight against drought will never really have an end point, however full the country’s reservoirs become after a period of ‘normal’ rainfall (currently 43 percent full nationwide). 

According to scientists, Spain has the “perfect” conditions for desertification to occur: climate change, overdevelopment, huge volumes of people. From the south, to the east, to the northeast, 73 percent of Spain is at risk of becoming a desert.

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