GK Tours. Day 58 to 61
Tuesday 31st December to Friday 3rd January 2025.
Seville to El Rocio to Olhos de Agua, Portugal
Making our way to El Rocio was a bit bumpy, the road surface certainly had you clenching your teeth to make sure you didn’t lose them 
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Our ACSI campsite was just on the outskirts of town, just where the sandy roads start. It’s called: Camping La Aldea
It’s a great little campsite, really good sized pitches – lined with static caravans, some owned and some for rent.
After getting set up, we took a wander into this very unusual town. People say it’s like being in the middle of a Western, and they are correct. A proper Wild West aesthetic. Surreal is the other word that comes to mind!
We loved it.
As we walked towards the low rise buildings – none are more than 2 storeys high, you start to spot the guys on horseback. Then you hear bells jingling and a cart or carriage appears, drawn by mules or ponies.
It’s amazing! We have never seen anything like it. The riders don’t dress as cowboys, they look very smart in their livery, along with beautiful prancing horses, out to show off for the day.
I think we were very lucky to catch the town busy. Everyone was gathering for New Year celebrations with their families.
El Rocio is famous for a mass pilgrimage to the Lady of the Dew. The Madonna was spotted in the trunk of a tree by a member of a brotherhood many years ago here, and from that discovery, El Rocio grew.
The town is within the boundaries of the Donana national park, very important for its wildlife and marshland. If you are lucky you will see flamingoes on the water, they were celebrating New Year somewhere else this time as none were spotted on our visit.
The park is so well protected, you aren’t allowed free reign. You have to go in tour buses or with guides.
Anyway, the marshes abutt the town so you have wonderful views whichever way you look.
There is a large, whitewashed hermitage (church) sitting at the edge of the village housing the revered statue of the White Dove (Virgin of El Rocío), which, at Pentecost draws a million pilgrims from all over Spain and further if a brotherhood is in existence.
Most of the houses are named after the particular brotherhood or Hermandad that owns it. Though they look small from the front they are quite deep and are big enough to house the whole brotherhood when they come to the town.
What is special about this pilgrimage is that most people come on horseback or by drawn carts. It can take days for them to reach El Rocio and they either sleep in the carts or camp out.
Due to the many equine visitors and residents the streets have never been tarmaced. They are all sand, sometimes quite deep in places. This can make it very dusty on a busy day.
Most of the buildings here have hitching rails for tethering your horse or cart to, whether it’s a home or a bar/restaurant. It’s not unusual to see people on horse back drinking at the bar, or as we saw, drinks and food whilst on the carriage.
It was brilliant, everywhere we looked adults and children were riding round enjoying the new year’s eve sunshine.
Down in the square, in front of the church, children were having rides on Shetland ponies and others taking tours in carriages.
I’ll let the photos do the rest of the talking .
The sunset was amazing as we made our way back to the van. I had bought a very long candle from one of the shops and popped into the church to place it and light it for our special people that have passed away, but they have replaced real candles with electronic ones, so instead I deposited some euros.
Posing for a picture for Gareth with the sunset behind me, I couldn’t believe it when I looked at it in the morning as it looks as if I’ve lit the setting sun with the candle 
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A couple more drinks back at the vans and we were in bed by 10.30.
But we weren’t asleep as the fireworks from the town entertained us for most of the night and early hours .
We only had one problem with that and that was our poor little Meg, absolutely terrified until she was tucked up in bed with us.
New Year’s Day arrived and we thought we’d take another walk to the town but explore the parts we didn’t get to see yesterday.
As soon as we got into town, fireworks went off, Meg dived under a parked car and after finally coaxing her out, we made a slow return to the van. The ad-hoc fireworks continued for most of the day so there was no chance of another visit.
Nevermind, we have some work to do de-sensitising her, bless her little heart, but anything we can do will help her cope the next time she hears a loud bang.
We had our last dinner with Andrew and Jane, a lovely spaghetti bolognese cooked by Andrew 
and on Thursday morning bade them a fond farewell. They have to return to the UK, while we have a couple of weeks left to explore.
It was lovely to spend Christmas and New Year with them and Marley, I’m sure Meg will miss them all as well we, but we’ll see them again soon enough.
We stayed another night at the campsite to straighten out the van and do some washing etc.
Today, Friday 3rd January we have moved into Portugal. We have stopped for the night at Olhos de Agua before moving onto Carvoeiro to visit some friends.
Hope you all had an amazing New Year, whether you partied or slept , we wish you all a healthy 2025.
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