Aracena: Una Gruta Maravillosa

Trip Start May 15, 2008
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Trip End Jul 24, 2008


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Flag of Spain and Canary Islands  , Andalusia,
Sunday, May 18, 2008

We drove through the Sierra de Aracena nature park, also in northern Huelva to reach the town of Aracena.  The region is famous for cured Ibérico hams and cork oak.  Aracena itself is a cute little white-washed town with only two main streets.  There were restaurants and shops that sold traditional ceramic pottery crafts of the region.  There were also ruins and a castle nearby.  We arrived at 1:30pm, ate our packed bocadillos (sandwiches), and then walked around the town for two hours.  Sheep were grazing up in the hills by the ruins, and all around we could see low mountains, fields, and farmland.  It gave us an idea of what Spain would have looked like centuries ago, which is much different than Sevilla with all of its modern high rise buildings.
After touring the town, we took a 3:45pm tour of the Gruta de las Maravillas (Cave of Marvels), a really cool underwater cave system with many caverns full of stalactites and stalagmites in cool patterns.  It reminded me a lot of the caves I visited in the Moravsky Kras region of the eastern Czech Republic.  The cave was especially neat because it was right below a town (Aracena, of course), instead of out in the wilderness like the caves I've been to in East Central Europe and the USA.
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