la albufera and the "gondolas" of valencia

An impromptu roadtrip led a couple of friends and I to the nearby nature reserve called La Albufera.  The small town it is located in is called El Palmar, and when we arrived after our 30 minute bus ride from the city, it seemed like we were the only living people there.  It was about 10 a.m, so we figured the inhabitants just liked to sleep in on a Saturday morning.  

Ernesto

The "thing" to do at La Albufera is to go on a boat ride through the lake/large pond that is the source for growing rice and raising eels.  There also seemed to be an unusually high population of ducks.  So after passing numerous signs telling us to go on "un paseo en barca," we chose one, which happened to be a boat tour with one of the more "well-known" boat drivers in Palmar.  His name was Ernesto (we even saw a sign with his name on it later) and he explained what the different areas of the water were used for and the churches or other small buildings along the shore.  He also seemed to really get a kick out of all the ducks, because whenever we saw one he would point and yell "patos! patos!" 

After the boat trip, it took about 15 minutes to make a complete circle around the town (which is like a little peninsula surrounded by the water), then we proceeded to try and figure out if and when our bus would show up again.  We walked around asking people, and were finally told that the bus stop sign had fallen onto the ground (who knows how long ago), but it was definitely still there.  I liked how everyone knew the sign was on the ground, but clearly there was no hurry to fix it.