Back in November the great greening of this landscape began as the first rains broke the long drought. Slowly and inexorably the land began to take the on the deep emerald green of an Andalucian winter.
In February, nature decided the time was ripe to add colour to this vast green canvas. At first it was the acid yellow of Oxalis catching the warmest pockets of the land, followed quickly by the snow like appearance of chamomile picking out long forgotten stream beds.
Now it is the time of Retama and this extravagant firework of a bush is perfuming the whole of this land with its deep sensuous honey scent. The Retama is a showman as well as a perfumer – its feather like self dances in time with the vagaries of the wind. But even these plants are just the harbingers of an even greater display. Soon it will be the turn of nature’s great exhibition of abstract expressionism on a scale that not even Jackson Pollack himself could conceive.
The wild flowers are coming on the edge of Retama’s perfume and already the bees are awake, weighed down with their sweet cargoes of honey. At the same time as these bees fly to their honeycombed refuges, their nemesis is approaching from over the great sand wastes of the Sahara. The Bee Eaters will soon circle this great canvas and these avian pierot troubadours will fill the air with songs of liquid amber while hawking for the nectar gatherers.
Layer upon layer is being added to this ecological palimpsest and the gallery of Andalucia is open and asks nothing more than we fully immerse ourselves in its natural riches.
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Neil Hill is one of Europe’s top outdoor, wilderness and survival coaches. He believes that our modern disconnect from nature has led to many of our personal, physical and social problems. He has led courses into some of the worlds most hostile and wild environments. His passion is to reconnect people with their aboriginal roots in nature, enabling them to have adventures and experiences that unlock their massive potential, Neil is the founder of Rewilding Bushcraft.
