The Siberian steppes…

Week 4

Still on our way, we are about to enter the northern half of the Iberian Peninsula, but first, this week, some little pigs, some Roman mosaics, a trip through Siberia and four great bustards…

We started the week in Extremadura (where we stayed almost the entire week). If the “pata negra” ham is the star product of the region, it must be said that Extremadura has much more to offer than typical landscapes of holm oak forests with little black pigs. It actually took us quite a while to get to see said little pigs, and I think we’ve seen more sheep and cows than anything else in all our wanderings around the region… 🤔

Let it be said, however, we tried to spend our first night in Extremadura in an oak forest, close (but not too close either 🤢) to a “pasture”dehesa“, these picture-perfect farms where little black pigs spend their days eating acorns under oak trees on a carpet of green grass… Before this, our first stop was Jerez de los Caballeros, a large white town perched on a hill and surrounded by oak and olive trees, just 18 kilometres away from Portugal. Jerez de los Caballeros is above all a town with an impressive heritage, inherited from the fact that, a long time ago, the town was offered to the Templars by King Ferdinand III of Castile. This is also where the name of the town comes from (“de los Caballeros” = of the (templar) knights…).

In terms of heritage, however, our next stop would leave us even more impressed. In the year 25 BC, the Roman emperor Augustus offered the veteran soldiers of his V (Alaudae) and X (Gemina) legions, both sent to Gaul to defeat Vercingetorix, a place to rest from their good and loyal service. He built a city with all the modern amenities of the time (running water, sewage, public and private baths, etc.). This city for “emeritus” soldiers received the name Augusta Emerita and would become one of the most important cities in Roman Hispania and the capital of the province of Lusitania.

To say that today’s Mérida is a “monumental city” is an understatement. It is one of those places where you just have to scratch the ground a little to discover a mosaic or a Roman temple, a Christian tomb or an Arab fortification. All the great stages of Spanish history seem to come together here, in different overlaid strata. Apart from its Alcazaba (Arab fortification) and its church of Santa Eulalia (Catholic martyr burned by the Romans buried there and partially preserved in a glass jar), Mérida’s most impressive heritage, by far, is its Roman remains, which include a theatre and an amphitheatre, an aqueduct almost 30m high with 3 superimposed arches, the famous Temple of Diana and dozens of stone or marble columns, a triumphal arch, thermal baths, etc., etc. It’s a bit like walking through Rome, but with a more… provincial touch! 😁

After a whole day wandering among columns and mosaics, we went back south a little to settle near the town of Alange (also known for its Roman baths, although these have since then been transformed into a luxury spa by a local businessman little concerned with the public character of historical heritage). In addition to its thermal baths, Alange also has a reservoir surrounded by almost fluorescent green meadows. There we found (without having to look too hard) dozens of wild geese, cormorants, ducks of all kinds (including a couple of whistling ducks), as well as a spoonbill and a small group of terns, probably on their way to the ocean… Enough to spend 2 days enjoying all this without moving! 😜

There is a part of Extremadura where five ecosystems coincide, in addition to vultures, storks and sheep that share the same color: black… In the past, this region was called “Los Montes y los Lagos” (Mounts and Lakes), until a Spanish ambassador who knew the steppes of the Tsars said that these lands of Badajoz reminded him those of Russia. People liked the comparison and it stayed since then. Extremadura’s Siberia has these surprising steppe landscapes and above all, Cerro Masatrigo, next to which we spent a night, on the banks of the La Serena reservoir.

On a local scale, Cerro Masatrigo is a mountain… If we want to be picky, we should probably say it is a kind of hill whose peculiarity is its perfectly conical shape, which emerges from the water in such a geometric way that one could almost doubt its “naturalness”. And yet, the hand of Man has not intervened in any way here, and the cone of Cerro Masatrigo is only the masterwork of Mother Nature. Well, okay, the fact that it arises from the water is, indeed, due to the hand of Man… if Franco had not had a whole series of reservoirs built in the region (making it the area of Spain with the longest inland coastline), Cerro Masatrigo would not emerge from the water like a Venus on top of its seashell… With the road that surrounds it at its base, Cerro Masatrigo is, in fact, the largest roundabout in Spain, with 1,3 km in diameter…

In this multicolored Siberia we also find black merino sheep (the head is black… the wool is not… 🤓) and the hometown of the Extremaduran Giant, Agustín Luengo, who at 2,35 m was the second tallest Spaniard in history, and the highest of his time (1849-1875), to the point that the Museum of Anthropology of Madrid paid him an annuity throughout his life in exchange for getting his skeleton, once he died…

To change from reservoirs a bit, we crossed all of Extremadura’s Siberia (and here, no Trans-Siberian Express…) to go pay a little visit to the Mother of all Spains… Just that!

Virgins, there are quite a few (especially in Spain)… Virgins who appeared one fine morning to a shepherd, a peasant or a girl who was going to fetch water, there are also quite a few. But Virgins who facilitated the discovery of America and thus became THE virgin of an entire continent (not to say an empire), we must admit that they are not something common…

Well, it was also in Extremadura where said Virgin appeared, one fine day, to a peasant, leading to the construction of a hermitage (first) and then, under the direction of the king of that time, a basilica flanked by a Jerome Monastery that would later be given to the Franciscans, after expulsing of the former tenents. We are talking about the Royal Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The monastery is “royal” because all the kings of Spain, without exception, must pass through here at least once during their mandate as king, and above all because it is there where the Catholic Monarchs came to spend part of their time, received their guests, and dedicated themselves to their royal occupations of the time (long before Baqueira, Mallorca and Dubai…). For the record, a lot of illustrious people have passed through the Guadalupe monastery, but one of them came there three times. It was here that Christopher Columbus convinced the kings of Spain of the validity of his fantasies of open seas. It was here that on a certain day of April 1492 (exactly the 30th), after having received Columbus for the second time in the monastery, the Catholic Monarchs sent a Royal Provision “addressed to certain neighbours of Palos (de la Frontera) to deliver two caravels to Christopher Columbus.” And it was also here that, in 1493, Columbus returned victorious, in accordance with the promise written in his logbook to give thanks for the discovery of America. On 29 July 1496, the American Indians transferred to the old continent as servants were baptised here, converting at the same time the Virgin of Guadalupe into the one who had allowed Columbus to discover America, opening the door to the conversion (not always voluntary) of the local natives, and making Guadalupe the Virgin of the entire American continent or, at least, of its entire Spanish-speaking part (hence her title of Virgin of all Spains)…

The visit of the monastery is undoubtedly a bit “religious” and “under close surveillance” (photos prohibited, among other things), but it is still worth seeing the cloister and the reliquary where the bones and remains of dozens of martyrs are kept, in addition to three crowns of the Virgin of Guadalupe that, alone, at the current price of the diamonds and other precious stones they contain, would be enough to pay the debt of a few poor countries. Among the donations made by individuals to the monastery, we even found 2 Rubens and 1 Goya… Being the Mother of all Spains is undoubtedly worth it…

After so much holiness, we decided to spend a night in the Llanos de Cáceres, on the edge of the Monfragüe National Park. This is great bustard territory, and with our binoculars and a glass of wine on Marvin’s terrace, we were super prepared to scan the surroundings and take the bustard roll call…

Result: 4 great bustards (3 males and one female)!… Well, true, they were quite far away, but still!… We even had the opportunity to see one of these Starlink satellite cohorts that crossed the sky in front of us. It’s like seeing a little train lit up in the sky, with the satellites disappearing one by one as they leave the cone of sunlight…

Bustards or not, it was starting to get a little hot in the plains, so we decided to head back up to some altitude to get some fresh air, if only for a night or two. We took a leap of almost 200 kilometres north to reach the Sierra de Gredos, about fifty kilometres from Ávila. This is where we left Extremadura to make a brief foray into Castilla-La Mancha before returning to Castilla-Leon along a road with the best views of the still snow-capped peaks of the Sierra de Gredos. After a break in Arenas de San Pedro, a small town at the foot of the mountain, we passed Puerto del Pico (1.352 m) and settled on the edge of a pine forest, with views of the snow-capped peaks and with nothing up to 10 km around! Here we will end this fourth week of the trip, after discovering the difference between a “waterfall” (when water falls from a rock) and a “chorrera” (when the rock is less inclined and the water only slides over it) …

Next week, we continue through Castilla -Leon and… maybe even a little further north!…

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In Sierra de Gredos, At least as much as anywhere else, LEAVE NO TRACE!

– Always travel on public ways and respect the signs.
– Limit noise and interfere as little as possible with wildlife.
– Respect the other users.
– Leave rocks, plants and other natural features as you found them and respect historic sites.
– Take your waste with you and throw it into the appropriate containers, in the nearest village.
– Do not camp inside protected areas and do not make any fires.