From the snow to a semi-desert……

So here we are, off on a new adventure, this time on the Atlantic coast of Europe (you’d think we got a taste for the rain last year… 🤔). After 5 months of almost being sedentary, it was high time to rediscover the thrill of adventure aboard Marvin! For these first stages, we left the snow-covered Andorran peaks (better late than never) to reach a desert, or more precisely, a semi-desert, on our way to the Atlantic…

We had to wait until March 15th for a bit of snow this year… Twenty centimeters left the peaks snow-covered on this Andorran national day. Enough to end the ski season in better conditions, no doubt. For us, it was a nice goodbye, to hit the road with stars in our eyes (it’s only the second time this season that we’ve seen so much snow!…).

So, back on the road, with the mission, for this first part of the adventure, to reach Bilbao by March 30th, so that a large ferry can take us to Ireland. From the snow-capped peaks of Andorra, we spent our first night among the blooming almond trees, very close to Lleida where the fields of fruit trees were already beginning to show all their colours. The storks were also there, just like the last time we passed through, as well as dozens of kites, buzzards, and other kestrels.

Our first stop probably won’t be the most glamorous of this adventure, but the location wasn’t bad either, on the banks of the Noguera River, among the rushes and poplars. Of course, when all this little world is covered in leaves, it must be a little more bucolic, but hey… we’re not going to complain either, the place was still very pleasant.

In this first stage, we must nevertheless point out a rather curious little setback. When we stopped to fill up with AdBlue, a jet of liquid started coming out of the pipe that allows you to fill the tank, as if something had bitten the pipe (like two canine holes). We first thought (a little disappointed) of going back home while waiting to take Marvin to Iveco, once again, on Monday… but then we changed our minds. We said to ourselves that after all, if this had happened to us in the middle of Ireland, we would not have gone back home, so… Let nothing stop the adventure (in any case, the tank was still 60% full)!…

Second day of adventure to reach our destination for the day, not without stopping at a gas station to test our makeshift repair of the AdBlue pipe (it’s incredible what you can do with duct tape…). We filled up with diesel, we filled up with AdBlue and, even if a few drops were still coming through the tape, we managed to fill the tank to 100%. Of course, it will have to be repaired, but it’s not an emergency that would have justified us coming back home before even leaving. So it was probably a good decision to continue…

From the snow to the desert…

Although it’s hard to believe when you see the landscapes of this region, just 300 years ago, the largest holm oak forest in Europe stood here. This is where its name comes from: the tops of the holm oaks, seen from afar, have a dark color, and the Monegros (Mons Negros or Black Mounts in Aragonese) were an immense forest mass that, seen from the outskirts, justified its name.

So what happened to make these same landscapes one of the 5 desert areas in Europe today? It all comes down to one name: Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea y Ponts de Mendoza, Count of Aranda (or Aranda, for short). This madman, appointed Minister Plenipotentiary by King Charles III, apparently had a problem with trees (or perhaps only with holm oaks), since as soon as he was appointed, he revoked the preferential right of the region’s inhabitants to the natural resources of the Monegros, privatised the forest and ordered its total deforestation, with the idea of ​​making room for fields.

But here’s the thing: Aranda was probably not a biologist, ecologist, or even a meteorologist. The Monegros area is an extremely arid land (hence the presence of holm oaks) and extremely windy. As a result, the areas deforested by Aranda could never be exploited for agriculture (until the construction of a complex irrigation system in the 1980s), and the oaks were never able to grow back due to the almost permanent wind. As a result, in a few decades, Aranda had transformed an immense oak forest into a desert area (or semi-desert, to be exact, given that it still rains a little, but generally very violently, which makes soil erosion even worse). The chronicle of an 18th-century ecocide, in a way (which just goes to show that it also happens close to home…).

Before entering the desert, we passed by the Sariñena Lagoon, one of the only remaining wetlands in the region, the others having dried up after becoming salinized, due to soil erosion caused by deforestation. We also passed by the Cartuja de las Fuentes, an imposing 6.000m² monastery, located in the middle of nowhere. The building has been under constant construction for years, and the task is enormous, given that there is not a single wall or ceiling that is not covered with a huge fresco.

The Monegros desert…

The Monegros region is today considered one of the five desert areas in Europe, where there are no longer any holm oaks, just a few stunted pines, scrubland grasses, and, above all, areas of completely bare earth, gullyed by water and cracked by drought. The most unique feature of the Monegros is the “tozal” (or “tozales” in plural), curious rock formations of multiple colors, sculpted by erosion over time. It isat the foot of one of these “tozales,” that we settled to spend a couple of nights.

As is typical of our adventures, we only had to arrive in the desert for the rain to start! And unlike in National Geographic documentaries, in the Monegros, after the rain, the desert isn’t covered in thousands of flowers of every colour… In the Monegros, after the rain… comes the fog! 🤬

A fog so thick that we couldn’t even see the Tozal at the foot of which we were parked, from Marvin’s window. Fortunately, it all dissipated relatively quickly, and by midday, we were treated to a bright sunny day that raised the temperature a bit (the story about the flowers, I don’t know if it’s true, but the fact that temperatures plummet during the night in a desert is true! 🥶)

So we toured the main Tozales in the area, a rather impressive landscape with these oddly shaped mini-mountains whose future depends solely on a flat stone, placed by chance at their summit, which reduces the effects of erosion in that spot. In fact, like the “fairy chimneys,” the Tozales are not mountains that have emerged from the earth, but remnants of uneroded terrain that have remained in their original position where, all around, the soil has eroded…

The other aspect of the Monegros is that one can follow George Orwell’s footsteps, since it was here that the famous author of Animal Farm and 1984 (and also Homage to Catalonia) came to fight alongside the Republican troops during the Spanish Civil War, before having to return to London after being shot in the neck. There would still be much to say about this surprising place (particularly the incredible views it offers over the Pyrenees, in the distance), and we left already wanting to return to enjoy it a little more…

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In the monegros desert, 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.