The Donana - What park? Whose park?

We had already been frustrated in our attempts to explore the Donana wetlands last week, when the Sanlucar tourist information told us that it was not accessible by bike if we took the river ferry across the Guadalquivir.Donana Now we d moved to the north eastern end of the park as we had seen a visitor centre near El Rocina marked on a map. When we asked about cycling in the park at the campsite reception they repeated what the people at Sanlucar had said, that the place was only accessible by organised trips in 4x4s.

At least we could view the bird life on the lake beside El Rocio. At the end of the promenade the Spanish equivalent to the RSPA. had established a large ornithological centre with information and viewing platforms. We spent some time watching the flamingos feed. They do a little shuffling dance to disturb the lake bed, then stick their heads in the water and their arses in the air while they feed. This amused us for a while, as did the sweeping swifts, grazing spoonbills and the black glossy ibis wading about in the reeds. The centre is named after the naturalist Francisco Bernis, who at some personal risk petitioned General Franco in the mid 50s to intervene and protect the unique wetland environment, which at the time was at risk of being drained and developed for forestry. Not that the Generalissimo was a closet tree hugger; the wily Bernis played on the fascist bastard's love of shooting the defenceless, like trade unionists and wildfowl, and pointed out that whereas the former were somewhat rare in the aristocratically owned wetland, the place was teeming with ducks. And so the Donana was preserved for posterity.

The salt water lagoon next to the Fransico Bernis bird centre

A strange grey tufted species that Gill spotted from the hide

horses and flamingos - it's all El Rocio has, apart from miracles...

more flamingos

another horse,

the miraculous virgin

These fascinating insights into the history of the national park were gleaned from the large and completely deserted visitor centre based at the Palacios Acebrón. Like everything else about the park you got the sense that the ultimate aim was to eradicate visitors altogether, by keeping everything secret. After Gill tracked down a small asphalt road running into the park a kilometre or two south of the campsite we set off to see how far we were able to cycle around the Donana independently. After passing one visitor centre that appeared to be locked next to some rather grand gates we cycled on for 5 or 6 kms without passing a soul. The landscape was a mix of open scrubland and wooded areas of pine and white broom. Every so often we would pass over a stream bed and area of wetland, here the trees and plants were more varied - willow and cork oak, and areas of reed beds.

Suddenly a big white house appeared among trees. Gill has has been reading some Gothic short stories by Elizabeth Gaskell. The loneliness of the scene, the gleaming white neo-classical pile, the way it appeared among the trees without warning surprising the two lone travellers, the open front door....all seemed stock-in-trade tropes of the Gothic. However, we were not greeted by a sinister old butler, wizened old woman with magical powers or the Grim Reaper, but by a young woman wearing a Donana National Park sweatshirt. The former hunting lodge had been turned into a visitor centre with an extensive exhibition explaining the landscape, history and culture of the area.

a woodland walk near the Palacios Acebron visitor centre

lakeside causeways

where you can admire the many reed beds...

fairly magnificent as visitor centres go

It was excellently done, taking up the large rooms on the first and second floor. Afterwards I began to understand why the Donana was a controlled access area. It seemed to me that it had as much to do with political history as conservation. The area had been maintained in a semi wilderness state as a game reserve for the Dukes of Medina Sidonia. The only people living on the area were a few peasants scraping a living from fishing and forestry, and the Duke's gamekeepers, there to police the area and catch poachers.

The Palacios Acebròn itself is living proof of how the aristocratic 'guardianship' of the Donana prevailed until recent times. I guessed the palacios was a late nineteenth century pastiche of a neo classical hunting lodge. In fact it was built in 1965. It is a startling reminder of how Franco's 40 year fascist regime insulated Spain from modernity and preserved it's highly reactionary coalition of aristocratic conservatism, military dictatorship and Catholic orthodoxy. In truth the Donana has never been an open access area. It first was closed by aristocratic privilege; when the WWF, and then the Spanish state acquired the area over the past half century, achieving UNESCO World Heritage status in 1988, most of it remained closed, now conservation was cited as the reason.

back through the deserted park

back to El Rocio

to admire the horses (look at the foal....aaah)

This all seems a bit strange to we Brits, for in the UK the establishment of National Parks are partly rooted in concerted popularist attempts to challenge restricted access, through the Kinder mass trespass and the like. The only mass trespass tolerated in the Donana is the annual spring invasion by a million pilgrims for the El Rocio Romeria, and that involves a strange mixture of Marian cult devotion and Dionysian revelry, utterly incomprehensible to the Anglo Saxon psyche.