Apr 1st to 10th: El Rocio

El Rocio looks and feels like a cowboy film set. All the pavements- sorry, sidewalks- have hitchrails, and the streets are wide and dusty. No tarmac, just compacted sand. It’s also mainly closed up, a little livelier at the weekend in the commercial area, but not many of the dwellings are inhabited, street after street of empty, shuttered houses. A few ridden horses and carriages occasionally appear. The photo below has that same Tex-Mex feel: it’s like they’re waiting for Billy the Kid to ride into town.

So what’s going on? It all goes back to the 13th century, so the story goes, when a hunter found a statue of the Virgin Mary in a hollow tree. The location of this hollow tree is now marked by the church in El Rocio, which features the statue in a magnificent gold alterpiece setting, See below:

The virgin is a source of individual pilgrimage, which accounts for most of the visitors at weekends, but there are also some special pilgrimages that go back hundreds of years organised by brotherhoods based in the local towns. There are now around 90 brotherhoods who all own houses and stables in El Rocio that are only occupied when these events occur. Hence the empty buildings. The biggest gathering is at Whitsun with around a million participants and spectators. A few too many for us!

This is El Rocio from across the lagoon, showing the pilgrimage church on the left. The flamingos in the foreground also reveal another aspect of the area: the Doñana National Park. It is one of the most important wetlands in Europe, with eagles, lynx and a host of smaller birds, mammals and reptiles. Entry is restricted to marked trails, but these are well laid out and cross the wetlands on raised walkways.

This particular area of marshland was full of nightingales, difficult to spot but entrancing to listen to. The habitat was more varied than expected, as the cork oak glade beneath shows. Cork stripping was a main source of income in the past, but sadly most of the oaks are gone, leaving the stripping exclusively to the beaches 10 miles away.

The visitor centre is a former Palace, really a magnificent hunting lodge. It contained an exhibition detailing the former way of life in the park that has practically disappeared. It was all very well laid out and organised, so we were impressed. The walks were especially beautiful with lots of birds- but no lynx (should have taken a tin of cat food with us).