Castillo de Peracense 2/3

 Back in the olden days, there WAS a drawbridge!

 Inside the first ring of fortifications you can see the walls of the second ring.

 It's hard to realize just how far you can see in all four directions from this photo, but if you click on it to enlarge it, you can see that these rounded outcroppings are actually very tall rock formations rising from a deep valley below.

 The red sandstone is covered with a soft green lichen.

This is the entry into the next level of fortifications, overlooking the valley. The wind was so strong, I was mildly terrified the whole time.

Our day trip to La Laguna de Cañizar in Teruel

Between the villages of Villarquemado and Cella is an area that was a shallow lake until it was drained 300 years ago, for agriculture. A geologist, working with the mayors of the two towns, managed to get community support for a project to return some of this land to its natural state, despite the fears of some farmers. As of last year, the Laguna de Cañizar is now once again a "humedal" or marshy fresh-water lake. Thousands of cranes have arrived to overwinter, and dozens of other species of wildlife have returned or become more visible, including wading birds, ducks, swallows, raptors, frogs and toads, snakes, fish, otters, badgers, and other creatures. Because the canes can grow so quickly, an experiment with a few water buffalo is being conducted to see if  they do well through the winter, and if their grazing will help keep the growth under control.

We had a wonderful walk, windy and cold, but with gorgeous clouds. Our lunch in Villarquemado was excellent. We went on to other adventures (a castle!) later in the day, but that's for another post.

This place is a birder's paradise. The most impressive sight for us were the clouds of cranes. My photos hardly give an idea of how many there were, or how loud they were!

Here's one TV clip that shows the water buffalo (which we didn't see) and some of the many bird species that have returned to the area.

This video gives more of an idea of the cranes we saw.

!Teruel existe!

Caution EARWORM alert!
I share with you a video that was sent by email from a friend who has this bumper sticker on his car: !Teruel existe! It's a parody of the cover of "Rivers of Babylon" as done by Boney M. which I have now discovered, thanks to this incredibly thorough article in Wikipedia, to be one of the most popular musical "acts" in the world: x (whose first hit, Daddy Cool, is forever engraved on my brain because I was living in France in 1976 when it was a massive, monotonous, inexplicable hit.)


Chicóoo!

Updated: this is a clip from a satirical TV program that gives an insider's perspective on life in Aragón ("Oregon"), Spain. You can watch clips from the programs online, now in its second season Oregontelevision.com.