Cabárceno

Up at eight, breakfast at nine, away by ten, we’ve finally acclimated to Spanish time. We plan to spend the whole day at Cabárceno, officially called Parque de la Naturaleza Cabárceno, which we have visited on our first trip to Spain in 2008 and always wanted to see again. It’s situated in a green valley and used to be a mine site, but you could not tell by looking at it. It’s 750 ha and 20 km of roads of spacious enclosures for large reptiles. I honestly cannot understand much of their website (only available in Spanish), so I have no idea about its history and how they participate in helping endangered species, we can only enjoy the views.

Since the park is on the edge of the valley, the terrain is pretty steep, with large blocks of inaccessible karst formations which often form the natural borders of the animal enclosures. You have to drive from one enclosure to the next, park your car and then walk to the different viewing points, often five or so meters above the enclosures. Regardless of the joy of observing the animals, I also enjoy the views of the karst formations, the valley beyond and the mountains in the back. I have my Canon reflex camera with the f2.8 200 mm lens, ideal for these circumstances, and take about 250 pictures. It’s mostly cloudy and we get a few vagrant rain drops, but it’s warm enough for a t-shirt.

We see the birds of prey demo at one pm, do the cable car tour right after and then break for lunch around two. It takes a real effort, master map reading skills and quite some determination, but we manage to see every single animal enclosure in the park and ride out fifteen minutes before it closes.

We’re back at the hotel around six and hang out until it’s time for a small dinner in (another) local bar. I sort my pictures (bring it down to 96) and write my journal, while Arne reads his book.