Don Quixote and the Ruidera Lagoons

“Only Ruidera and her daughters and nieces are missing, who, crying out of the compassion that Merlin must have had, turned them into many other lagoons, which now in the world of the living and in the province of La Mancha are called the Ruidera lagoons” (El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de La Mancha. Second Part. Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra).

Many centuries after the great pen of Cervantes brought Don Quixote to the Lagunas de Ruidera, the cradle of the Guadiana, the fourth river of old Iberia, another genius of our literature, José Martínez -Azorín-, a great promoter of the Generation of 98, wanted to tread in his own footsteps those quixotic paths for inspiration for his series of essays on the rural world; The Castilian Soul (1900), The Villages (1904) and Castile (1912). Azorín toured Criptana and El Toboso, the homeland of Dulcinea, from the Alcázar de San Juan railway station to Campo de Montiel to finally discover in amazement the beauty of the Lagunas de Ruidera and the famous cave of Montesinos, a kind of initiatory journey that allowed him to unravel the peasants of those lands that 'The one-armed man of Lepanto' immortalized forever in the most universal of our novels.

There is no doubt that landscapes where water is the law have always captivated the attention of humans, as have the embers of fire or the glow of the stars at night. The waves of the sea, the reflections of the forest on the stillness of the waters of a lake, the murmur of small waterfalls or the bubbling of a stream between the stones of its riverbed exert such a connection with our deepest genome that they are capable of taking us back to the most primitive of our essence and our origins as living beings. This fascinating spell, however, has not been enough to fully conserve water ecosystems that, from large oceans to small ponds, are suffering drastically from the effects of climate change, pollution, habitat destruction and the associated loss of wildlife.

At this disturbing crossroads are the unique Lagunas de Ruidera, a genuine lake system interconnected by small uneven terrain that constitutes one of the most precious jewels of nature in La Mancha. Its existence is aided by all the gifts of charm. Sculpted with the chisel of spectacular geology, they sit on terrains of calcareous tuffs, dolomites and gypsum marls that release carbonates into the waters, forming beautiful travertines that generate their small but irresistible marriages. Its vegetation treasures the charm of the native flora of the inland wetlands; dense ridges of reeds, reeds, farmhouses and bellows, crowning the tree stratum, thick cords of white poplars and poplars together with relict patches of holly oaks and junipers that once populated its primitive forests.

Red ducks, golden ducks, grebes and coots thrive in its lagoons and, under its waters, one of the richest lake ichthyofauna communities in all of Spain bustles. But without a doubt, the king of avifauna is the lagoon harrier, a species declared vulnerable in Castilla La Mancha and which finds the ideal habitat for nesting and breeding in the dense grassland of the riverbanks.

But the importance of Ruidera goes beyond the purely ecological or environmental aspect to become the cultural heritage of the lands of La Mancha, a landscape of belonging and collective roots that evoked in Cervantes the unparalleled beauty of nature and the simplicity of its people, because the greatest writer of Hispanic letters wanted to sow in them an allegory that would be eternal: their environment, their beauty, their legends, make the visitor dream and with his incomparable style he recreated that symbolism in the dreamlike fantasy of almost 100 hours that Don Quixote lived in The famous Montesinos Cave. “If kings knew about the beauty of these parts, they would trade their palaces for the lives of the locals,” journalist Julio Llamazares (2015) wrote about this magical place.

However, there will be those who still think that the conservation of a few lagoons in a remote area between Albacete and Ciudad Real is a minor matter. Today, wetlands constitute some of the most sensitive and threatened habitats on planet Earth. Their functions as carbon sinks and mitigators of global warming, their explosion of life in the form of wild flora and fauna, their importance as “kidneys” that filter and purify river basins and the unique beauty of their landscapes, must make us take extreme measures for their conservation and enjoyment. It is undoubtedly a centuries-old message that Cervantes wanted to send over time and that we must read between the lines to extract its true meaning.

The conservation of Ruidera and its splendid beauty, the birthplace of the Guadiana, are an injection of optimism to face with hope of success the great challenges that our existence poses to the sustainability of the planet. We owe it to Cervantes, to Don Quixote, to Sancho and to all the nymphs, fairies and elves that populate those lands.

To learn more:

• Green Guides — Lagunas de Ruidera. Susaeta Ediciones S.A.
• Ornithological catalog of the “Lagunas de Ruidera” Natural Park. Lopez Sanchez, M. (2006)
• Castile. José Rodríguez Azorín (1912)
• Lagunas de Ruidera Natural Park. Ecohabitat (1997)