Donana National Park

Buenas Dias,

In this post I'll let the pictures tell the main part of my sightings over the 3 days in the national park. In general, this part of Andalusia is simply heavenly for nature lovers and adventurous runners. There is so much to see and I underestimated the size of this park - unfortunately you can't get far here without a car. However, the parking spaces are usually free and wonderfully restored and developed hiking and discovery trails start from there.

I'm here during rutting season, which is really cool because I could hear the deer at dusk. During my tour of the observatory at twilight, I also saw several deer and was able to watch them super close for a few minutes. I also went on a horseback riding tour through the town of El Rocío and through the national park and felt really comfortable on horseback again. I was on a dragonfly hunt and easily spent half an hour slowly stalking the dragonflies. It worked really well twice. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to see any wild Iberian lynxes, but I was able to observe two very old lynxes in the observatory. There were also a few owls around the campsite again and I listened carefully to their cries.

Funny story by the way: Some people might have been expecting it and just counting the posts until it happened. I'll be honest, I expected it, but it happened on my trip to the national park: I went to the wrong campsite. Once you didn't pay too much attention to the address planning and boom! - Driven the wrong direction for 1 hour.

On the first day I took a few hikes to the visitor centers and observed the original way of life in exhibitions.

Unfortunately, the majority of these birds are only seen during the rainy season. Unfortunately, during my visit all deltas and rivers had dried up. The region, like other parts of Spain, suffers from an acute water shortage.

The many pine trees donate enough shade on the wonderfully laid out paths so that it doesn't get too hot.

The colors in these forests are just gorgeous.

I walked this circular trail through an old growth forest made up of pine and old cork trees. It was wonderful to walk these paths in complete silence and accompanied by various birds.

In this visitor center I had a lively conversation with an employee and she was kind enough to organize a tour of the observatory for me two days later. It was such a nice gesture and the national park staff were all super friendly and always willing to help.

The next day I did a 2.5 hour horseback riding tour through the park and through the town of El Rocío. Since I was the only one there that day, I had the tour guide all to myself and riding a horse through this "desert city" was so much more fun than driving through it in a car.

Unfortunately, I couldn't take any photos from the horse, so I just drove briefly to the church and took a few photos to show you what this city looks like without asphalt. It is reminiscent of a western town and the majority of the villagers still get around on horses. There are posts everywhere in front of the houses and taverns to which the animals can be tied and I also had my first drink on horseback.

Since I really wanted to go to the Atlantic and at the same time wanted to wash the smell of horses off me, I then went on to a beach.

I spent an hour on this beach, 30 minutes of which I was skinny dipping and 30 minutes collecting shells. The advantage of the kilometer-long beaches here is that the distances between the people lying are so large that nudism is not an issue here. Besides, the Spanish are much more open on this topic anyway. I'm slowly becoming a fan of it, for the purely practical reason: no bikini, no wet stuff that has to be dried somehow and is lying around in the car for the time being.

The next morning and before we went to the city of Huelva, I had the tour at the observatory. I also had the finest fog that morning. He came very close to the fog in the Black Forest. I also broke the camera case on my phone again, which unfortunately doesn't improve the quality of the photos.

I can only recommend you all to pay a visit to this park. It's really beautiful here.

Happy reading to you all
Your Britta