There’s a moment, somewhere between leaving the highway and stepping onto a dirt track, when you realize just how empty parts of Spain really are.
Not abandoned—just forgotten. Places where nature has been left to run its course, where the ghosts of old villages linger in the crumbling stone, and where, if you stand still long enough, you can almost hear the land exhaling, relieved to be left alone for once.
I’ve spent the past few months trying to wrap my head around Spain’s landscapes. Not the ones on postcards, not the famous coastline or the picturesque whitewashed villages, but the spaces in between—the ones people drive past without a second thought. And the more I see, the more I realize how little I knew about this country before I arrived.
A Land of Extremes
In a single day, I’ve driven from thick, pine-covered mountains to dry, cracked plains that wouldn’t look out of place in a spaghetti western. The contrast is staggering. Northern Spain, with its lush greenery, feels like it belongs in another climate zone entirely compared to the arid interior. The Dehesa, with its rolling cork oak savannas, could just as easily be in Africa. And then there’s the semi-desert of Almería, where the land itself looks like it’s been baked to the point of surrender.
I spent a few days hiking in the Montes de Toledo, an area where the Iberian lynx—a species I never thought I’d see outside of conservation reports—has been clawing its way back from the brink of extinction. It’s a place that shouldn’t feel wild. Too close to civilization, too accessible. And yet, at dawn, with only the wind and the sound of distant hoofbeats from wild deer, it felt more remote than some of the rainforests I’d worked in.
The Places We Left Behind
The thing about Spain is that much of its wilderness isn’t truly wild—it’s just reclaimed. Abandoned villages, long-forgotten farmhouses, empty roads that lead nowhere. Rural depopulation has hit hard over the last century, leaving whole swaths of the country to nature. It’s an eerie kind of conservation, an unintended rewilding project shaped by economic forces rather than ecological ones.
I visited a near-deserted village in Teruel, where the only sounds were the wind knocking against shutters and a few stray goats navigating the ruins. It made me wonder about the people who had once lived here, what their lives had been like, and whether they ever imagined that their home would one day belong to the hawks circling overhead.
The truth is, I’m still adjusting.
I came here thinking I’d document landscapes, track conservation efforts, maybe even do some consulting work. What I didn’t expect was how much time I’d spend on my own, trying to figure out what life looks like outside of fieldwork. In Guinea, my days were dictated by the movements of chimpanzees. Here, they’re dictated by… well, I’m not sure yet.
I’ve rented a small place in Madrid—a flat with just enough space to remind me I’m not living in a research tent anymore. I have a neighbour who smokes on his balcony and tries to teach me swear words in Spanish. I have a bar where the owner has stopped asking why I always sit in the same seat. It’s not a life, exactly, but it’s the beginnings of one.
Still, every time I find myself in places like the Montes de Toledo or the Pyrenees, I feel that pull—that itch to pack up and move somewhere quieter, somewhere wilder. Maybe I will, eventually. But for now, I have more landscapes to explore, more pieces of this country to piece together.
Spain, I’m starting to realize, isn’t just a country—it’s a series of passages, each leading to something unexpected. And I intend to follow them.