There is a geography of words that seduces with the same intensity as maps and stories that open suitcases and close prejudices. It is a geography of resounding and enigmatic names, of words that inevitably attract you before you even place them in a world ball. It has nothing to do with the distance, Well, the kilometers that separate you from them are just a nuance without relevance, Like that small print that we don't even bother to read.
Patagonia. Tierra de Fuego. Cape of Good Hope. Kilimanjaro. Carpathian. The geography of words is a world of yearnings and pending tasks, a
universe of afanes that never just satisfied. One fine day, When you are about to settle outstanding accounts with almost all the words that have been handled over the years you think, naive of you, that will not happen again, that no other will pierce your heart, A curse for any restless spirit at close to meekness. But that, fortunately, It never happens. Because, irremediably, You listen to new ones without even looking for them.
The geography of words is a world of yearnings and pending tasks, A universe of Afares that never just satisfied
Okavango. Lobo River Canyon. Yosemite. Samarkand. They are words that you cannot resist and your list grows without remedy. Buck. Sarajevo. Dead Sea. Northern Cape. That geography of the words begins to be drawn sharply in the first children's readings and, Once it begins to populate from cities, mares, rivers and mountains, It is already part of you and accompanies you a lifetime. And while you keep a gram of force -that for which the great sighs in his agony Joseph Thomson to put on the boots again and return to Africa-, You will not stop traveling it while inside you resonate those names swollen by the wind of the determination.
How not to think about the attraction that words exercise when you walk in the direction of blue lakes located at the foot of the hell? A few years have passed, But I still remember the fascination that caused me to hear for the first time the name of that mountain, A succession of peaks above 3.000 meters that justify the plural, that in this case included accentua and toponymic magnetism.
How not to think about the attraction that words exercise when you walk in the direction of blue lakes located at the foot of the hell?
The geography of the words had thrown their nets on me and it was only a matter of time that one day I saw the world from the top of The hell. This happened a few years later, When by this same route that is now on the way -which starts in front of the endearing Belío house, an old sentimental totem of the spa of Panticosa– I sat next to my friend Charly about the very stones of hell. As close to heaven how could you imagine.
This time the objective is not the same, but to enter my seven -year -old son in that fascinating geography of words. Because the climb to hell on this route is a succession of reservoirs and ibones (Mountain lakes) worthy deserving of that universe. Before crossing the first ravine, next to a counter -desk, The road bifurca. To the right, Continue towards the Ibones de Brazato. In the opposite direction, The path rises without interruption (With Sirgas that do the role of handrails in some more exposed sections), leaving behind the friar waterfall, until lower reservoir of Bachimaña.
I still remember the fascination that caused me to hear for the first time the name of that mountain
After an hour and 45 minutes of uninterrupted rise, We rest 15 minutes to eat something. Now the road continues on the left of the reservoir, already touching the 2.200 meters, winning height at the beginning and with continuous slides. Time is good, But you don't have to trust because they have announced rains in the afternoon.
In just fifteen minutes, The Upper bachimaña. The path loses height and heads towards its shore to, A meanders zone reached, resume ascension on the other side of the ravine. However, On the left there is another path marked with stones that does not descend so much and that is what we end up choosing. The visual reference is a containment dam on our heads, They now look at the sky continuously, increasingly pregnant black clouds. The Blue Ibones. First, The lower (An hour from the Bachimaña reservoir and three from the Panticosa spa) and, after, After a short but pronounced stony rise, The superior.
The hell look majestic as sovereign of this rock circus where the blue sleeps
A quarter of an hour more and we walk through the upper blue (2.380 meters and 720 of unevenness from the spa). We have walked three and a quarter to get here, At the foot of the hell, that look majestic as sovereign of this rock circus. His north face still accumulates enough snow even though we are in the middle of August.
Lowering will cost us just over two and a half hours, persecuted by the threat of rain, But now, While we eat something in the solitude of the mountain, I show my son the route that leads to the top of hell, First for a pronounced Barranco and, after, by the air crest that is cut on the horizon. And while I pronounce your name, The hell, I have no doubt that the geography of the words is displaying, as before in mine, All his magic in his fertile child imagination.
