From the “egg yolk” of Barcelona to the littoral Catalonia – pure excitement and mutual learning in our 3rd semester
This beautiful day in April 2018 began with a certain delay in exiting the city, as a result of the difficulties that the coach found to stop at the assigned place in the heart of Barcelona (the “egg yolk”).
Once on the brand new coach, we started fighting against the city's own traffic at rush hour and running freeways south, towards the Ebro Delta!
The first stop, once arrived at the Delta, was at the headquarters of Monnatura, where we were explained about the operation of this entity aimed at enhancing the natural attractions of the area. The main attraction was to observe the birds of nearby environments. At this point, and after a breakfast where the ham sandwiches and the potato omelette triumphed, the undisputed protagonists were the flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus), the neck-green ducks (Anas platyrhynchos), the waders (Himantopus himantopus) and coots (Fulica atra).
We then tried to visit the Trabucador beach, but how could we do that? A newly-built coach on a beach so muddy, as a result of the rains in recent days? Was it possible?
Behind the explanation of not getting off the coach for not filling it with mud when we got back in, the real reason was hiding – the road line was so narrow and so sandy, that some of the participants were more afraid about the possibility that the coach would be stuck in the sand rather than go outside. Fortunately there was nothing of it: the number of vehicles passing through the Trabucador is so great that the sand is very compacted! From the coach, all participants were able to get an idea of what the beach is like, because apart from what they saw, we had an explanation from experts that told us about the problems of that place. One of the anecdotes explained to us - before it was prohibited, there was a time that the beach was so crowded with motorhomes and campers that they were able to count hundreds of them parking there.
The next visit confirmed that the Delta is not a good place to go with large coaches. Ours was unable to make a turn, under the risk of falling to a drying irrigation channel. The driver chose to leave us a little further from the planned point, but this did not change the visit of the purification lagoons, where we also had the explanation of its operation by the experts.
Given the difficulties we could encounter with the coach, luckily the last visit, after a lunch with a spectacular paella, was on board a boat. This led us to the mouth of the Delta, a relaxing trip to see the territory from an unusual point of view while we were digesting the food.
Conclusion - in a territory like the Delta, it is important to adapt our mobility to the most suitable vehicles in each case! And that is its charm! As we could see, in the Delta, the most natural is to ride a bicycle (also electric ones) or go by boat: ecotourism in the Delta.
