Parque Nacional Doñana

This past weekend, I spent 2 days in Huelva, a region in southwestern Spain. The same hiking group that organized my trip to the caves of Aracena goes to the Doñana National Park every year to view the wildlife and museums there. Doñana is one of Europe's oldest national parks dedicated to conserving wildlife. The park features 4 distinct terrains: the famous marshes, huge rolling dunes, carefully tended pine forests, and the beach.

We started out at the Alba mansion in the area. The Alba family is one of the oldest noble families anywhere in Europe, and this palace has been converted into a museum telling the history of the park and its caretakers. It looked like a big country house, somewhere I could imagine a very wealthy family going for a summer retreat of hunting and enjoying the nearby lake.

On Saturday also we went to the beach. It was fun to think that I was seeing the Atlantic Ocean from the other side!! Usually my extended family rents houses in Salisbury for a week or so in August...and this could be the very same water. It was pretty chilly, but made for a relaxing afternoon. We stayed overnight in a RV camp that had little cabins as well. Again I was struck by the group setting and how everyone took meals together and shared their food. These trips have been excellent practice for my Spanish.

On Sunday, we started off at the village of el Rocio, a famous attraction for religious pilgrims throughout the centuries. El Rocio was an important conquest during the Reconquista, or the reconquest of Spain from the Muslims during the 1400's. The village boasts a beautiful little church known as Virgin del Rocio, or Our Lady of Rocio, as well as a great view into the marshlands, where flamingos and wild horses live side by side. The town also has tourist shops, though many offer horse-riding gear and fashion, which is very different from the tourist shops I've seen elsewhere. They also offer horse and pony rides or carriage rides. It was quite a nice way to start off the day.

After that, we went to the Parque Nacional itself. Like the Alba mansion, there were lots of wooden walkways to various lookouts into the marshes, and lots of different types of trees, flowers, and birds. I was reminded of my parents; I think they would enjoy this kind of excursion.

Finally came the crowning point of our journey: a 4-hour tour of the park in a overglorified Range Rover/bus! We drove 30km down the beach between Huelva and Cadiz, which was beautiful. There were very few people, since no vehicles other than these tour buses are allowed, and lots of seabirds, as well as a few black kites.

We turned inland when we reached the end of the coastline, where Spain's river the Guadalquivir runs into the ocean. (Side note: I learned today in my Islamic Culture class that Guadalquivir is from an Arabic root and means great river). From there we found a more forested area, and although it had been carefully logged to help the pine trees grow, it was full of various plants and animals. We saw some incredible vines at one point, and at another stopped and got out of the bus to see wild horses and deer across a field grazing peacefully together. We also saw wild boar.

In this part of the tour we stopped at this little monument of huts that people lived in right up through the 1900's as caretakers to the park. There were exhibits on how they were built and how the lean-to is similar to the materials they used. There were also thousands of little hermit crabs on the shore of the river near there!

The next part of the tour showed us marshland, starting with watery pools among the trees and changing slowly to huge fields of marshland. I believe this is the area that American scientists think the lost city of Atlantis could have been. We saw more birds throughout this area, and the Spaniards were especially excited over the sighting of an aguila, or eagle, sitting on the top of a tree some distance away.

I think we were lucky to have a good driver; although there were points that I was certain we would slide on the sandy ground, we never did, and he pointed out and explained some parts of the trip. We passed through some extreme mud and I thought of Dan and Megan and their golf carts; who said Spain doesn't have a mud season?? This would be a perfect job for Dan!

 The next leg of the trip absolutely wowed me. We drove into the dunes, and right over zillions of them. I had never seen real sand dunes before, and they were bigger than buildings. Whole forests were underneath them: literally. Apparently dunes shift away from the ocean over time with the sea winds, and they swallow up forests whole. We saw this several times, and it was so cool to think I could walk on some greenery midway up the dune, and it's actually the top of the forest, growing up through the sand.

Finally we were back on the beach to finish our loop of the park, and the group packed up and we headed home to Granada. I think God heard my prayers about my Iphone, which was running out of battery, because it survived the 6 hour ride home on less than 20% battery...and I was in the kiddie van!

Thanks for reading! My next post will be after spring break, also known as Semana Santa (the week before Easter).