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Walking in Andalusia
Seeing with my eyes more than with my lens
I froze on the spot.
Luckily, they hadn’t seen me. But, could they smell me? First, it was one of the adults at the front that moved from one side of the path to the other, followed by four babies, and another adult at the rear.
I remembered the advice I’d been given if I ever came across a wild boar. Stay calm and move away in the opposite direction as carefully and cautiously as you can.
No need to do so this time, though, because the animals were roughly twenty or thirty yards away from me. Still, they were close enough that I could admire the male’s tusks and its stocky build.
Only when I found my way back to the main path did I realise that at no point I had thought of pulling my mobile out in order to snap the sounder (the collective noun for a group of wild swine). Call it a generational phenomenon and I know that I’m making a sweeping statement but I find that people my age are more interested in the places we visit than taking pictures of them. My children’s generation on the other hand are keener on leaving photographic evidence of their adventures, often with themselves in the frame.
