#43 A Delta full of flamingos, rice fields, and a desert

December 21-23, 2021: Delta de l'Ebre

J. We spent three days in the Delta de l'Ebre. The Ebre Delta is a large area with a lot of water and many nature reserves, so many birds can be observed. The many birds were really impressive. We saw colonies of several hundred flamingos standing in the shallow lakes, searching for food, sleeping, and occasionally flying. Flying flamingos look quite funny with their long legs, long necks, and relatively short wings. But we also saw quite large grey herons, many cormorants, some little egrets, cattle egrets, and other herons, many duck-like birds, and many, many other birds whose names we couldn't find even after research. Unfortunately, the lens of my camera is too short for photographing animals and we didn't have binoculars with us (but of course I still took photos 😉). Also, we had pretty bad weather: especially one day was gray, hazy, and quite chilly, classic German November weather. We hadn't experienced that this year yet. The many birds were still very impressive.

We walked through salt marshes, around lakes, through flooded fields, along the river, and through dunes. The landscape reminded us of the German North Sea coast, but also of Southeast Asia. Not only the style of the houses is somewhat similar here, but rice is also grown. At the moment, nothing is growing on the water-filled fields, but we could still watch a tractor at work and see its interesting tires that prevent it from getting stuck. Unlike the rice fields we saw in Southeast Asia, the rice fields here are not only cultivated by hand.

On the last day, we took a short hike through Catalonia's only desert. Yes, in the Delta de l'Ebre, there is not only a lot of water but also a small sand desert consisting of some dunes that extend partially up to the sea on a beach. At some spots, the sand was so soft that we sank far past our ankles.

Day 69 - Total tour 4,623 km

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