Tag: el-rocio

Portugal & Southern Spain – Day 10 Monday 19th May – The beach & Donana National Park ( again!)

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As we were only 10 miles from the coast we decided not to leave the area without at least taking a look. So we headed out of town, not by saddling up our horses!!, but in our 4 wheeled chariot, named Nissan!!!! We headed for Matalascanas. This is a purposed built seaside town, very popular with the Spanish. It is built in a compartmentalised fashion. This reminded us a little of Milton Keynes in layout. We found a non-paying parking space and walked to the sea front… a strangely angled concrete structure seemed to be a focal point of some interest….a bus load of Spaniards seemed intent on having their photo taken in front of it….so we did the same….!!!

It was very blowy so we decided not to frequent the beach and instead decided to investigate the town. Every compartment had a roundabout with a left turn into the area. These areas were named hotel, commercial, residential. Each roundabout had a great sculpture on it…

We retraced our steps back to El Rocio. After a little debate on how and which petrol to put in our chariot we succeeded in filling up for €71 ….petrols about the same price as in UK…but we are hybrid so using less. On returning to the hotel we were flabbergasted at what a difference a day makes….we had seen the town as bustling but on a Monday lunch time all the shops were shut. Walking down on to the square there were no horses or carts at all and only 2 of the street restaurants/cafes were open. We selected the one we had, had the rubber frisbee in rather than the one we had, had ham biltong in !!!!! We both went for paella because it would be soft and my gums are suffering from the hard inedible food. I’d stuck to yogurt and a banana for breakfast, so by now I was hungry. The paella arrived with two tiny shell on shrimps, a small strip of calamari, and quite a lot of chunks of meat which could have been goat, horse, cat!!! Who knows….but it was soft and that and the rice were very tasty.

Siesta time, the internet was down so we snoozed. At 4.00 pm we decided to take the car to the Parks Board office…there was no problem with parking as it really was a ghost town. The shops opposite the hotel had finally opened…

Having got to the Parks board office an hour early we had hoped our tickets would be number 1 giving us the first choice of seats on the bus…but alas they were No.7…. Never mind…. We waited out the hour before boarding the bus. We got a good window seat so we were happy. The bus was much bigger than yesterday’s , it was a 30 seater. Lucia gave us a warm welcome and off we went again. This time we saw far more cows grazing, prior to seeing a big herd of deer. We looked around the eucalyptus tree stumps for both rabbits, who evidently have their burrows there, and Linx, who evidently hunt the rabbits there…..but neither wanted to show them selves to us.

We disembarked at the same spot as yesterday. There was a marked difference in the bird species, in that we didn’t see any flamingo, but large flocks of spoonbills. They always make me laugh. We also saw some grebe, a pair of shovelers, a coot with their young and a lot of black/ glossy ibis.

The next stop was the visitors centre. Here we did see more flamingos, even more glossy Ibis and an array of waterfowl.

Before leaving the carpark we viewed the storks nest and thought we could see 3 chicks and the adult.

Our return trip to El Rocio was punctuated with lots of beautiful bird life…but alas the much desired viewing of a Linx eluded us. We thanked both the driver and Lucia for another great drive which concluded back at the Parks boards office at 9.00 pm. We then headed for a restaurant . The receptionist from the hotel had recommended an eatery near where we were and so we decided to give it a go. Wow…they were so helpful and tried with their English and Google translator. They brought us 5 different fish to choose from….the biggest was a sole so we went for that. The owner brought the scales to the table and weighed it and told us it would be €40 ….we gave him the thumbs up sign and off he went to cook it. Some 20 minutes later he returned with it cooked and proceeded to fillet it at the table. It may not have been very aesthetic but it tasted divine. They served it with frites and an onion and cold potato salad…. Wow it was good to finally eat something soft, tasty, delicious and we recognised what it was…. This was the best restaurant in town and really nice people who wanted to be helpful.

After supper we drove back to our hotel, with comfortably full tummies. Another lovely day…tomorrow we move on to Seville

Portugal & Southern Spain Trip – Day 9 – Sunday 18th May 2025- Donana National Park – El Rocio.

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A fitful nights sleep was had in our cupboard…too hot without the aircon and too cold with it, even set to 21…. So it was a very rude awakening, having finally gone into a deep sleep around 4.30 am, when the alarm invaded my musical snoring chorus at 6.40 am….does this time really exist ….cant believe that I used to be on my way to work at this time 7+ years ago….But needs must….I quickly showered and dragged on some suitable clothing whilst cursing John for being so awake and jolly at this unearthly time!!!!!
Breakfast was hard rolls which you toast to make them even harder, with nice cheese, ham, Salami, yoghurts, fruit, cereal and some fairly decent strong black coffee. By 7.15 we were ready to go in search of the National Parks office……back along the deep sand road we’d walked the previous evening. It was only about a 10 minutes walk. We queued to get to the ticket desk where we handed over our voucher. We thought we had paid at the hotel but the really nice English speaking parks board receptionists explained we had paid €24 to the hotel for the convenience of them booking it and now we pay €54 for the actual trip….ummm we’ll see if we’ve been ripped off when the Mastercard bill arrives…but we felt this was genuine so we handed over the Euros…cash only…and we were given a ticket stating Lucia 5, and told Lucia would call us to her bus….so we waited outside with the other eager visitors.

Sure enough at 8.00 am a couple of drivers arrived and shouted out their names. They were taken to the 24 seater 4×4 high tyred buses. Then a nice young lady came and shouted Lucia and we hurried after her to another identical bus. The number on the ticket was the number you were allowed to board the bus and choose which seat you want. We selected two seats next to a sliding window which we could open, so that John could stick his camera out of it…….

Lucia gave the commentary in Italian, Spanish and, thankfully, English. She told us the town of El Rocio had 1000 residents. In June they have a religious week/ festival which involves over 1 million visitors and 100,000 horses….Wow, unimaginable. She informed us a lot about the National Park. For the first time in 15 years the heavy rains had filled the marshes and the horses and some birds had retreated into the forest section of the park because the water was so high in the marshes. We saw a heron nesting in the wooded area, which she said was unheard of. We soon came across a couple of groups of deer browsing in the forest. There seemed a lot of excitement about seeing rabbits…they evidently are the bottom of the food chain for foxes and lynx to survive. But the rabbits survival had been threatened by the eucalyptus trees which drain the moisture out of the soil and prevent the natural undergrowth, which rabbits feed on, from growing. So the eucalyptus trees had been felled with only two remaining. Their stumps were moved to another area where the dead stumps were placed as a memorial to the trees and a good breeding ground for the rabbits. Lucia pointed out many species of birds including the black kite and the many storks, herons etc.

Before continuing into the wetlands Lucia explained that farmers were allowed to graze cattle and sheep etc and that they belonged to farmers where as the horses were just wild. The horses were managed by the parks board. We continued along a causeway which the farmers had built, across the marsh land, to make access to their cattle easier.
We stopped and stretched our legs on the causeway. There were dozens of different species of birds, flamingos, ibises, little and greater egrets, several types of heron, loads of different ducks like the poacher, teal, coot, moorhen , grebes, plovers and even the endangered Marbled teal……an ornithologists’ paradise.

We continued along the track to a visitors centre. This had toilets……but take your own paper!! ….. a coffee shop and a huge glass viewing area overlooking some Lakeland. We learnt there were over 4000 nesting birds in this area alone. Lucia set up her telescope and I managed to get a picture through it of a couple of flamingos….

There were plenty more pictures taken to capture the moment

On walking back to the bus we noticed not only the vibrant flora but also a stork nesting on an electricity pylon. There was a chick in the nest.

We were just about to re-board the bus when we heard the thunder of many hooves….it was a “Round-Up” with “Gouchos “ driving them along the road….there must have been 200+ horses and 4 herdsmen. We followed them down the road and they were driven into a corral through some water. Evidently they will be divided up into different areas from there.

On our return to El Rocio Lucia told us that the cork tree was now protected, not least because the Lynx often have their cubs in holes in the cork tree because it helps regulate their temperature. She told us there were several hundred Lynx in the park…she had seen one the day before.
At the end of our 3 hour tour we went back into the office and booked the 5.00 pm tour the following day with Lucia again. It had been a splendid experience. We wandered back to our hotel along the lake shores promenade which was a lot easier than trudging through the deep sand. The square in front of the hotel was again buzzing…a hive of activity…

We had a bite of lunch …a hamburger or so it was described but a rubber frisbee would have been a more accurate description. We wandered back to our cool, quiet hotel stopping on the way to chat to a very pleasant Australian couple who had been on the same bus as us……they are visiting Kruger South Africa at the same time we are later in the year…perhaps we’ll run into them again. After siesta on the terrace and a few games of cards we went in search of an earlish evening meal. We ordered grilled chicken which came with fries….unfortunately it was very tough and my gums are struggling with all the hard food and also the lack of vegetables…but hey Ho….a huge horse rode in behind John and breathed down his neck while his well manicured very smart rider had a fantastic brought to her.

What a surreal place this is…very busy, but an experience we wouldn’t have missed for the world…. Looking forward to tomorrows venture and fingers crossed for a sighting of a Linx.

Portugal & Southern Spain trip – Day 8- Saturday 17th May 2025 – Leaving Portugal and travelling back in time to “The Wild West”.

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We were packed up and ready to go by 9.56 precisely!! We bid a fond farewell to our lovely apartment and headed out of town to the N125 then took the A20 to the A22. It was strange watching all the place names on the signs with the last name in capitals- Espanha…Spain…that was where we were heading. We didn’t actually realise that we were in Spain until my phone bleeped and we had gained an hour. We also went over a fairly spectacular bridge so we thought this was probably the two countries land boarders……The road also changed names from the A22 to the A49…..So Spain here we are !!!!

We were fascinated by the storks nests at the top of virtually every pylon. We continued on until junction 50 when we turned onto the A483. The roads were all good, dual carriage ways. We suddenly dropped to a two way road and taking the sign to El Rocio we immediately started driving on quite deep sand. ……wow, wow, wow all the white buildings had wooden rails outside for tethering your horse. We found what we thought was the main Square and stopped to ask the way….we were sent in completely the wrong direction… and had to stop and ask again ….we were sent back to where we had come from…..we found a parking one of the much queued for limited spaces ….but we still couldn’t see our hotel. I went in a saddlery shop and the lady took me outside and said 3 doors down….it was a horse only road….so we left the car where it was and walked the short distance. Sure enough there was our hotel….Hospederia El Cazadero Real.
Checking in was a drawn out process, because, although we later found out most the guests were English speaking, the receptionist didn’t speak any English…..anyway after paying the €260 for 3 nights we were shown to our room. I had requested ground floor and had been told it was an inside room, I had asked if it had a window and was told the window had a buildings view…….ummmm If the window had opened, which it didn’t, it was boarded up, it would have looked at the breakfast serving area. There was a small double bed with about a foot of room each side so you had to walk sideways to get into bed. There was a chair at the bottom of the bed then the very bijou bathroom and shower. To be quite honest the shower was bigger than the rest of the bathroom and almost big enough to sleep in….to say we were disappointed was an understatement….weve not had a room this small before and I can assure you we won’t be having one again !!! But C’est la vive……there was a nice communal outside terrace overlooking the lake/ marshlands and the square where horse rides, and horse and cart trips take place.

All along the street there were Spanish dress shops and traditional riding dress shop, lots of leather wear…the flamenco style dresses were magnificent in all vibrant colours.

We decide to take a wander, to lift our spirits after the shock of our room…my dad would call it a Kyle room- very petite but with everything in the right place!!!!…… only trouble was it didn’t have anything in the right place!!! So we took off on foot, walked around to where the horses were and paid €20 each for a 20 minute horse and cart ride. The driver didn’t speak any English and insisted on smacking and playing loud music on his phone…. But we did see the town of El Rocio in a traditional way.

Our driver seemed to know how to ask for a tip, which we refused. We ate a plate of ham, which was a bit like biltong in the square for lunch. We then walked up to the church. Inside it was extremely ornate, very beautiful.

We decided not to siesta but took a rest on our hotels roof terrace. As supper approached we googled the restaurant the receptionist had given us and off we went…..it may have said 6 minutes walk but in that deep sand it seemed far further. We got there at 7.00 pm to be told it didn’t open until 8.00 pm…..so we walked all the way back and settled for a restaurant near our hotel adjacent to the church. It also didn’t open until 8.00 pm so we sat having a Coke Zero whilst watching the beautifully dressed ladies, in traditional Spanish Flamenco dresses, and their husbands in their boater type hats, coming and going to church. The restaurant owner was very kind and although he spoke no English he happily typed into my Google translator and hey presto we had lightly grilled tuna steaks with chips, followed by cake…..

What an amazing place this is…a real living throw back in time, it has refused to be modernised and their traditional way of life strongly lives on….we feel privileged to be here.