Motorhome News from Europe 8

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Motorhome News from Europe 8.

Spain 30th October 2004
Heading south from Extremadura into Andalucia.



Yesterday’s rain provided a welcome boost to the many local reservoirs, quenching for a brief moment the unstoppable thirst of the Costas to the south. The blue skies of morning were peppered with fluffy clouds as we left Merida and the Monfrague National Park. Our road rose from the cork and holm oak slopes of the river valley to fertile groves on top hat hillsides and beyond to the open plains. A wide panorama of Fenland proportions, rolling like the swell of a heavy sea in a chequered display of olives, vines, fruit trees and maize stubble grazed by black pigs; vast fields stretching seemingly a hundred miles to the mountains, a misty purple in the autumn sunshine.



A stop at Villa Franca de los Barros brought commission free American Express exchange amid a maze of streets hiding their shops along residential streets of terraced white homes bordering the road. How would the Brits live here with no garden, back or front, and little evidence of even a back yard between the grid of streets? For all of that, the streets are clean, tidy and well cared for. Our site that night just west of Aracena was somewhat rustic, amidst acres of sweet chestnut trees dripping with huge clusters of prickly husks, bursting with bronzed nuts. Within minutes an open fire was lit and supper began with the sweet smell of roasting chestnuts rising through the trees on a windless balmy evening. A bottle of Tinto Castello de Monfrague 2001 added to the occasion!. We try all of the local wines where we can - but don’t expect to find this one on the shelf at Tescos.





Saturday was to be a special day for Smiley. After seven weeks of continuous work, we gave him (or is Smiley a her?) a day off, and walked from our camp-site into the village of Fuenteheridos, expecting a handful of houses and one small shop with three cans of sardines. This seemingly insignificant village, tucked away in the crease of the map is home to several thousand people and it’s buzzing on Saturday. It nestles here amongst the chestnut groves, its white walled terraces of tiny houses crowding the narrow cobbled streets from the church with the stork’s nest in the tower, down to the busy market square where we ‘people watched’ from under red umbrellas outside the corner café over coffee. Here, in this clean and tidy village, renowned local ham is served with tomato, cheese and oil on toast for breakfast; and locals, smartly dressed as if waiting to be presented to the Mayor, abandon their cars in the middle of the road to visit the ‘supermercados’, just coming to life at 11.30 to greet its’customers. Daughter, Sonia's friends, Tony and Irena, told us of their love for this area of Andalucia and we could be tempted to explore some more.



This was to be a day of rest for us too; we lunched beside Smiley in the shade of the chestnuts trees and watched the grass turn green around us in the gentle warmth of the afternoon sun amidst falling chestnuts like prickly hand grenades, bouncing off the ground in all directions. Newton would have had a field day here - or perhaps just a very sore head.
We fell for the charm and warmth of these small knots of the community, perched on hillsides and swathed in white beneath the church and castle. Almonaster la Real is one of those rare gems, high on its fortified hilltop, white as a cluster of diamonds; engulfed by the clear sparkling air scented with Jasmine and captivated by a hypnotic stillness. In the valley below the fort the steady rhythm of far-off goat bells breaks the silence, a farm dog barks at the gate, the cockerel crows; late again, and traditional high-volume Spanish voices echo through the trees as the church bell rings 13 at 12.30 on this spring like morning. Above the square, the blue and white chequered church tower topped by the nest of the lucky stork, now home to squatting sparrows for the winter, and, in the shade of leafy planes a group of contented old men do what they do every day; mardling, whilst the brown dog sleeps with one eye open.

Cortegana, a few miles to the west, bears similar characteristics though it is larger and bears the scars of a lesser quality of respect and pride. Higher into the Parque Natural de Aracena do Picos to the north, the sallow green hillsides in a long line waiting to be counted, lay heavy with cistus (rock-rose) for as many miles as the eye could see. What a picture this must be in the spring!
Autumn has been following us since we left the Dordogne, and now at last, the bracken has turned to copper and the poplars shimmer gold along the valley applauding the welcome breeze. We were so close to Portugal at one time that we could have reached out of the window and touched its warm shoulder. We have fond memories of our days along the Algarve many years ago.




We have all heard of the giant RTZ, but we previously had no knowledge of the scale of mining in the Rio Tinto valley a few miles south of Aracena. Here is a craterous moonscape of Texan proportions, stepped like an upturned jelly mould deep to the dark pools hundreds of feet below, reflecting grey skies pattering with rain, and wide as the jaws of Moby Dick. This is a spectacle as great as any Guy Fawkes night, ribbed as a paint box, rich with ochres, umbers, greys and creams: the source of copper, silver and iron. The last of the hills to the south gave way to the bright green tops of stone pines standing like guardsmen in green bearskins on Horseguards’ Parade, and the first sighting of vast orange and lemon orchards, fig plantations and grape vines and fields of black plastic heralding a spring harvest of strawberries for Sainsbury’s shelves. The afternoon brought with it brighter skies and an afternoon of ‘birding’ on the marshes near Ayamonte where the river once again divides Spain from Portugal. (White Stork, Great grey Shrike, Avocet, Black winged Stilt, Common-tern, stunningly pink Flamingos, etc.) We watched the sun set as we walked, short sleeved along the beach near our site at Isla Cristina. The moon shone on the water as the lights of Portugal twinkled like warm stars west of the long sandy shore.

Like golf, birding is often an excuse for a good walk, but there the similarity ends. Birding for us is perhaps more akin to fishing; where it doesn’t matter if you catch anything or not: there is the satisfaction of having tried - or, at the very least, been exposed to the risk of some success. A misty start to Tuesday heralded sunshine before eleven, and we headed for the Donana National Park which runs alongside the coast to the east of Huelva (as soon as Smiley was washed and spruced up after so many weeks on the road). This is Europe’s most important wetland, and a paradise for birds throughout the seasons. It lies beyond a 35km ridge of magnificent sand dunes stretching several km inland, stabilised by stone pine, ericas and cistus, to the inland horizon. There are military establishments providing protection for this stretch, but we did find access along a well-maintained boardwalk, 1.5 km to the shore. As we were to discover later, there has clearly been a big investment locally to limit access, and control this very special environment, doubtless funded by World Heritage money. By mid-afternoon we were at the Park Information Centre, a beautiful building with details of walks and limited access, and boardwalks through the lagoons. Here we met a few Brits; conspicuous with binoculars and scopes, and enjoyed a short stay in the hides. Suffice to say it was a good day, the highlight; three Purple Gallinule (swamp hens in some books), a truly magnificent bird which we have only seen once before; in Australia.



Before going into our site at El Rocio, we briefly visited the town, seen on the horizon as a dazzling white row of church towers and low-level houses. It is indeed a surprising and wondrous spectacle. This is the one-horse town of all good cowboy films; a grid of long rows of houses, cafes and bars and the white church with the bell at the top, set astride wide dirt roads. And as Smiley entered the ‘high street’ at a trot, a rider crossed the road ahead and vanished behind the church. I’ll swear to my dying day it was John Wayne. Let’s go see if we can find him.





David and Janice
The Grey Haired Nomads

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Photos

Andalucia
hillsides swathed in green

Fuenteheridos
...contented old men, mardling, whilst the brown dog sleeps

Fuenteheridos
camping in the chestnut groves

RTZ
, stepped like an upturned jelly mould deep to the dark pools hundreds of feet below

Donana dunes
Donana National Park

El Rocio
a dazzling white row of church towers and low-level houses

Olive groves
..and yet more olive groves