Calle de Olid

The name recalls Cristóbal de Olid (c. 1487-1524), one of Hernán Cortés’s trusted captains in the conquest of Mexico, where he fought in the siege of Tenochtitlan. His story takes a turn in 1524. Cortés sends him by sea to conquer Honduras, but Olid stops in Cuba, strikes a deal with his commander’s sworn enemy, and rises up on his own account: he claims the land in the king’s name and governs it as if it were his. The gambit is his undoing. His own prisoners attack him, he escapes badly wounded, and he ends up beheaded in the square at Naco. The street opens onto the Plaza de Olavide, in the heart of Trafalgar, a short cobbled stretch running between Fuencarral and the square. It bears the surname of a man who died thousands of leagues away, with a price on his head set by the man who had been his chief.