Driving north across the plains of Extremadura I ran into an army of dust devils. Whipped up by the cold winds of spring, they rushed bowing and whirling across the flat landscape. In the vast fields the tiny figures of Extremaduran farmers, digging and hoeing in timeless labour, hardly bothered to look up as the spirals of dust and last year’s holm oak leaves sped by them.
Groves of crusty-barked cork trees, orchards foaming with pink and white blossom, rows of stumpy vines pruned hard back to the dark earth, brimming ditches lined with thrashing reed beds and whistling willows – these signs of a fruitful land were suddenly extinguished by a slate-grey curtain of rain marching in from the low dark sierras on the western horizon. All was blotted out. Five minutes later Extremadura re-emerged, arched over by a superb double rainbow in front of which flew a leisurely line of cranes, their ragged wings taking them north to their boggy breeding grounds thousands of miles from Spain. Rain, cranes, sharp winds and labouring farmers – all was exactly as my friend Frank Caňada, born-and-bred Extremaduran exiled to Britain, had described when he urged me to spend a few days of early spring in his native village of Navalvillar de Pela.
Spring and autumn bring the rains that turn the soil rich and the grass green, and they also see birds by the million on migration. Yet the regional name of Extremadura (‘extremely tough’) has been hard earned. This is a place that bakes in 40o of heat in summer and freezes in sub-zero temperatures when winter strikes. And tough describes its people, often forced by poverty to emigrate, fiercely proud of their traditions, conservative to the backbone.
Ten minutes after knocking at the door of Frank’s parents, Antonio and Petra Caňada, I was sitting at their dining table, eating Petra’s home-killed pork and drinking tiny tumblers of Antonio’s home-made wine, with my rain-chilled feet perched to warm on the rim of a giant bowl of glowing embers. This was central heating, Navalvillar de Pela style, and I couldn’t get enough of it.
Conversation spat and sparked as my Spanish phrase book took a battering. Antonio smiled ferociously at me from under his brows, an expression I well remembered from my previous visit to Navalvillar. That had been on a frosty January night, on the occasion of the village’s horse-centred Festival of San Anton. A confirmed and cowardly non-rider, I had found myself galloping recklessly between bonfires through the town’s narrow streets, under a starry sky. It was Antonio who had grasped me by collar and waistband and thrown me bodily up onto the horse before I could demur. Now, recalling my terror on that distant night, he smacked his legs and roared with laughter.
I lodged in the Casa Rural La Lozana in a back lane of Navalvillar – one of those splendid Spanish rural guesthouses that for neatness, stylishness and sense of welcome put most British B&Bs to shame – and spent every waking hour with the Caňada family. One day we picnicked by a lake in the Sierra de Pela, and I climbed with Antonio to a peak jewelled with violets and daisies. On Sunday, a beautiful cold day of blue sky, we went to church among flocks of black-clad crones, and I recognised the priest as the one who had stood with holy water on the Feast of San Anton to bless the cattle, horses, dogs, hamsters, cats and goldfish brought to the church by members of his congregation.
One day I spent on my own, venturing north through another rainstorm to the Monastery of Santa Maria at Guadalupe. This is arguably Spain’s most famous place of veneration. The huge walled monastery contains glittering treasure – paintings by El Greco and Goya, embroidered altar cloths, jewelled crosses; also an ivory Crucifixion, said to have been carved by Michelangelo, whose miniature Christ I saw kissed with great reverence by a young, black-clad woman. The monastery is also the setting for a tiny statue of our Lady of Guadalupe, so reverenced in medieval Spain that the Virgin of Guadalupe became patron saint of all Spain’s territories in the Americas. Dwarfed by angels, saints and pinnacles in her fabulously elaborate altarpiece, the Virgin stares serenely over the heads of tourists, guides and worshippers alike.
On a cold, cloudless morning I left Navalvillar and drove north. Fertile fields gave way to the harsher rock of the Sierra Brava. Snow capped the peaks, and the stone walls of the city of Trujillo shone pale on their high saddle of ground. Here I met up with Martin Kelsey, an expatriate Englishman who runs the Birding Extremadura company. Martin, I’d heard, might be able to get me within sight of that giant elusive bird of the open grasslands, the great bustard. Ever since learning in childhood of the extinction of Britain’s great bustards – hunted to non-existence on Salisbury Plain by 1832 – I had longed to catch sight of the big turkey-like birds with their handsome chestnut breasts and flashing white wings. The wide grassy plains of Extremadura, where male great bustards meet in spring to ‘lek’ (join in communal display) and mate with the rather drab females of their species, seemed my best bet, especially under the expert tutelage of a guide as experienced and passionate as Martin.
First, though, we took a swing through the city of Trujillo. It is just the right size to walk around in half a day, an evocative jumble of medieval houses and tight, steep lanes centred round a square where Francesco Pizarro stands a-triumph in statue form. The ruthless conquistador, who with his 180 men suppressed the Inca nation in the 1530s, inspired others to grow rich on the blood of South American peoples. Trujillo owed its prosperity to Pizarro and his followers. Nowadays he poses in the town square, sword on hip, staring from beneath his coal-scuttle helmet at the snogging teenagers and hurrying housewives of Trujillo.
My day with Martin yielded ornithological wonders – hen harriers flapping over the pastures, a colony of storks in a clump of dead trees, golden-plumaged griffon vultures and a rare black stork in cliffs above the River Tagus. It was nearer Trujillo, out in the broad green expanses of the Belen plain, that we went looking for my dream birds.
‘These are steppes,’ Martin pointed out as we drove down a bumpy road, ‘grasslands that have never been irrigated or intensively managed. They’re full of flowers and insects, and therefore of birds. Great Bustards do very well here – I reckon there might be five or six thousand in Extremadura.’
A stunning view opened out towards the snowy mountains. On a grass ridge not far away, chestnut-coloured dots were moving. Five magnificent male great bustards paced the ridge with long, powerful strides. Their white underparts, glossy brown necks and fox-red backs showed up dramatically against the sunlit green of the grass. We watched through Martin’s telescope as two of the birds bowed to each other, fluffing up their chest plumage and flicking their wings upside down to display the brilliance of the white under-feathers.
‘They’re practising lekking,’ said Martin. ‘In a few weeks’ time the females will be here, and these boys will have their work cut out to make their mark.’
Spring seemed stirring all over the steppes and sierras of Extremadura. Breaking free of its winter chains, the hard land felt full of vigour, full of life. I stood holding my breath, watching the great bustards flick from white to chestnut and back to white, and marvelled at my luck.
TRAVEL: FACT FILE
Getting there: Easyjet (www.easyjet.com) fly to Madrid from London Gatwick, Luton, Bristol and Liverpool; Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) from East Midlands to Madrid and Granada, and London Stansted and Liverpool to Seville; Iberia (www.iberia.com) from Madrid to Badajoz
STAYING: Navalvillar de Pela – Casa Rural La Lozana, Calle Moreno Nogales 18, 06760 Navalvillar de Pela (Badajoz). Tel 00-34-924-824-291/924-860-428; www.lalozana.com. Dble B&B from around £42.
Trujillo – Casa Rural El Recuerdo (Martin and Claudia Kelsey), Pago de San Clemente, Apartado de Correos 28, 10200 Trujillo (Càceres). Tel 00-34-927-319-349; mobile 609-684-719/609-684-631; www.birdingextremadura.com. Dble B&B from £45; evening meal inc. wine £12.
BIRDING EXTREMADURA: www.birdingextremadura.com. Guided tour including packed lunch: £75 (1 person), £85 (2), £90 (3).
INFORMATION: www.spain.info