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image from Spanish Wikipedia: "Detalle de la localización de Portalrubio en el mapa del Reino de Aragón de Juan Bautista Labaña (1619)"
The weather was unexpectedly warm, warm enough to pull a table outside and eat in the winter sun. Black and green olives, cheese, bread, morcilla, fuet, omelettes (one with tuna and one with perejil from the garden). We strolled around the village admiring the various reconstruction projects. There was plenty of water at la fuente, the miracle of water bubbling up from an aquifer in spite of the lack of snow and rain over the last few decades; Rosemary's grandfather talks about how there used to be abundant snow every year and now it hardly snows at all, the knife edge of climate change.
On the way back home, we meandered along a back round through neighboring villages: Pancrudo, Cervera del Rincón,
We saw buitres leonados (Griffon vultures, or gyps fulvus), riding the thermal currents in a gorge where we were walking. There were maybe 15 or so, sailing, circling. Their wingspan (envergadura) can reach 2 meters. This endangered species is making a modest comeback.
We also say two groups of cabras montañesas or (capra pyrenaica, also called cabra montés, cabra hispánica or íbice ibérico) from the road. It was so unexpected to see them because they are almost invisible against the landscape, their coloring so like the rocky mountainside.
We didn't get as close as in this video, but we really enjoyed how they stared back at us before moving on:
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