The Waterhole
The lizards cluster on the concrete below, brown and shining under the Spanish sun. Each day, their basking schedule is the same. They emerge after their morning feed, roughly between 11 and noon, where they arrange themselves in singular lines or in concentric clusters, the older and scalier surrounded by a gaggle of novices who twist round each other, opening and closing their mouths, exposing their chests and backsides to attract each others’ attention. It is the water source that draws them in, the perpetual lure that has sustained endless generations in the Serengeti, the Outback or other similarly inhospitable environments such as this.