West of Aracena in Huelva Province stretches one of Andalucía's
most surprisingly beautiful landscapes, a sometimes lush, sometimes
severe hill-country region dotted with old stone villages where
time still passes at a donkey's pace. Throughout this area there
are vast expanses of dehesa - evergreen oak woodlands - where the
region's famed black (or dark brown) Iberian pigs forage for the
acorns which constitute most of their diet.
Some of the villages flanking the dehesa go back a long time,
but others owe their existence to a Castilian re-population drive
after they had pushed out the Portuguese in the 13th century. Most
villages grew up around fortress like churches or hilltop castles
constructed to deter the Portuguese.
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