Here you can see how happy Mr Lifecruiser is to go aboard! Ever since we arrived here to Sanlúcar de Barra meda, we´ve wanted to take the boat trip out on the river Guadalquivir.
The boat Real Fernando departures from Bajo de Guia, about 3 minutes from where we stay, but yesterday was our third try to make that trip, every time it has been good weather, it has been full booked.
The purpose with this trip was to see something of the National Park of Doñana, which they claim to be the largest marshlands (Marismas) in Europe. We have seen some of it from a car trip earlier.
One part of Doñana is the natural park which you´re allowed to enter and we have part of it just on the opposite of the river of us. You can take the ferry over the mouth of the Guadalquivir river at almost any time, but you´re only allowed to stay on the beach.
The other part is the national park which you´re only allowed to enter with special tours with guides with permissions and very briefly to not disturb the nature fauna.
We did only o two stops there, one of them were to see some original native houses in Doñana Pine forest. From the beginning it was a hunting place for the royal family, start at the 18th century already.
The few families that lived there were not allowed to bring any new materials there, which meant that they had to build their houses with what the nature could offer.
In this case it ment a special kind of reed as you can see on this, (not so good unfortunately) photo below.
It´s quite similar to the reed they call Ag they use as roofs at the island Gotland where we use to spend our summer, outside Sweden. Except that Ag seem to be thicker than this reed.
See also my old post about the Ag roof tradition party.
These kind of houses can stand for 50-60 years. There is only two families left that tries to maintain houses there, but they only visit there in the weekends now. Also they want some modern standards.
Since it´s only surrounded with salt water, they did have a dwell to get sweat water, that they could find on 1.5m deepth.
The other stop was at the Marismas (the marshlands), Los Salinas which only contains salt water. There is also some salt beds of course, to drain out salt from.
There is said to be a lot of migratory birds there, even though we didn´t see many of them. We could see some Eagles, Heron, Flamingoes, Spoonbills and Red-knobbed Coot on quite a distance.
Many birds from the whole of Europe comes here when it´s winter – and to breed too. Flamingoes from Alicante and Malaga comes here to breed too.
Even other bird species on the way to and from Africa stops here, taking the way over Gibraltar – just as we plan to do soon!
We didn´t go there to spot birds, so for us it was just a nice boat trip, but if you plan to go there for bird spotting I recommend to try the guided jeep tours from the Huelva area which we´ve heard of.
Read more about the guided tours in Doñana here:
Discovering Doñana
I´ve tried to update my Twitters at several occasions now and it says that it´s sent, but never shows up here in the sidebar, sorry for that my dear friends.
Update on my mother: she has stopped to drink too. Well, you can guess the outcome as well as I…
I´m very, very lucky to have such nice siblings taking good care of here the last days in her life. I can only send her peaceful thoughts on the way.
Knowing my Mom, I know she would have wanted me to enjoy the trip anyway, so I´m really trying too. Somehow it feels like she is with me.
I have heard beautiful things about that special Doñana place, Captain, glad you visited it and shared your tour here!!
My thoughts are with your mom…
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Donana seems like a nice park, though I’d love to see some more pictures, specially of the birds and your boat ride, other than Mr. Lifecruiser dancing…
My sympathies and prayers for your Mom.
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Sounds very interesting and beautiful to see ! Enjoy your holidays as much as you can, it’s sad for you but better for your mom. It’s only her heart still holding to this world. Her soul is gone already and she certainly will be more happy to see you enjoying your trip.
donana seems to be a beautiful place. My husband would like to visit South of Spain. So I will tuned to know all about your trip and read the posts I felt!
All my thoughts with your mother too…
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Looks like you are having such a wonderful time…the sun and a boat trip oh so lovely…..donana seems to be so charming and cultural.
I may just reccoment spain to my brothers who are longing for a trip to Europe! Thanks for bringing us along.
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First of all:
We are happy that you did make this trip and also very much applaude your reports.
Second: About your Mother. I know exactly what you mean. Mine is born in 1919. Head is clear, but she needs a rollator to walk. Hope she will be able tocome to our next family gathering on April 12 (haha 2 days after my B D)
btw. Hope you can make it Sept 20. So said Renny as well
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I´m sure your mom is with you! ♥
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I was in the park a couple of years ago for the Rocio (an annual pilgrimage across the park, made by people / pilgrims in Andalucian country carts – the women dress up in Andalucian dresses – and they sing a special sort of song called rocio, a bit like sevialla – there is, also, lots of sherry, tapas and great food).
You can only walk on foot or go on horse in the town. The party goes on through the night. Then the take the statue of the virgin of Rocio out of the Chuch and through the streets in the middle of the night.
It’s a very old tradition. Anyway it was fascinating and great fun.
Also, I was also in San Lucar (some friends of mine have a house there near the big castle / house on the hill). The sherry and the tapas / food there is great. They, also, have a well-known horse race on the beach there every year (another old tradition).
Anyway, enjoyed reading your blog a lot.
Saludos, Eamon.
Looks like a nice family trip.
What do the read houses look like on the inside?
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