March 6, 2012
BOUNCING across the dunes in a great big Mercedes Unimog 4x4 bus has to
be one of the most fun things we’ve done on this trip.
We’d booked a tour of the Coto Donana national park - the only way visitors are allowed to see most of it. Because the
marismas are unseasonably dry this year – with water levels closer to the norm
for July or August - we didn’t see as many birds as we’d hoped, but it was a
fascinating four hours.
Highlights included: a pair of Spanish imperial eagles sitting in a tree;
several wild boar, including babies; fallow and red deer, one with highly
impressive antlers; a couple of Audouin’s gulls and Kentish plover on the
beach; and lots of very busy little sanderling running about on the shoreline as
we drove 30km back along the sand into the sunset.
We were the only Brits on board, but our lovely Spanish driver, a highly
knowledgeable birdwatcher, translated everything for us in excellent English and
told us all about the involvement of British naturalists in the creation of the
national park and how it was linked to the founding of the World Wildlife Fund.
We’re still staying at El Rocio, and on the way back from the lakeside
bird observatory this morning I popped in to the church to see the statue of
the Virgin, which is reputed to work miracle cures and is paraded through the
streets in front of a million-strong crowd of pilgrims at Pentecost.
What a place of contrasts this is – teeming at the weekend for a mini-fiesta,
now with barely a soul in sight. In the small supermarket, I am very definitely
the only foreigner and I’m painfully aware of the poverty of my Spanish
vocabulary.
As we plod back to our campsite, hot, dusty and laden with groceries, a
lone rider is practising exquisite dressage moves on the rough ground where the
pilgrims camp. It’s littered with plastic and broken glass. I worry about the
dog’s paws as he scampers after a stick. How much more would I worry if I owned
a magnificent horse like that?
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