The Tagus river crosses the peninsula like a scar on the face, which, however, for millennia, adorned that land’s face with life. Today, not anymore. The scar is rotten, full of contaminated sediments, bleeding wealth to a few in exchange for its death and the annihilation of its tributaries. But these first capillaries still remain free and wild, some gorges and streams that continue to be a gem and paradise, a primordial forest and living water.
After the first lockdown, the first thing we did was take a long walk through the Jaranda Gorge, from its end to its source, already in the heat of June, with little water, but still clean and cold. It is a very, very fragile river because the snows and glaciers of Gredos no longer fall or hold as before, and agricultural thirst is slowly depleting its transparent blood.
There is only one thing more precious, for its value and beauty, than a river. Without it, a river is nothing. Without it, a river is not a river, just a canal with meadow, an irrigation ditch with a garden, a stream with weeds, water, and nothing. It has many names. They call it a riverside forest, gallery, riparian, channel, soto… I call it home, shade to dodge the June sun, refuge from March drizzles, a place to take a nap or watch the afternoon or close your eyes or walk without a path far away. I also call it “paradise” many times, but I only use that name, perhaps childish, maybe excessive, among those who know, understand, and lived with me in this place. Someone from the Ministry wrote that the riverside forest covers 252,000 hectares, representing 1.4% of the total forests in Spain. Considering the thousands and thousands of kilometers of rivers in the country, they seem like very few hectares to me. I look at the maps from a satellite or airplane or bird’s-eye view, and they are barely a thin, delicate, fragile green line on both sides of the water that has been thinning even more in recent decades, and depleting, adulterating, and exoticizing. I see how in all the rivers I walk through, this type of forest is more precarious every year. They have cut it down, plowed it, planted cloned poplars, traced paths, erected walls and fences…
In my “river forest” of Jaranda, there are alders, ash trees, poplars, elms, willows, heathers, elderberries, holly trees, also some oaks, cork oaks, kermes oaks, olive trees, several abandoned fig trees, brambles, hawthorns, roses, arraclanes, ferns of many kinds, mosses, rushes, liverworts, lichens, and a thousand other plants that care for the water and also for me. I like the big branch of the alder that crosses up to the middle of the deep pool, under the Seven Stones mill. To reach the imaginary fish, I have to hold onto its trunk, crouch down, step on the reddish roots that make a step under the water, and try with a small rolled cast to avoid snagging the lure. The branch is full of threads from those who didn’t know how to crouch down or embrace the trunk or dare to cast differently.
The first two days of freedom, after the forced lockdown of the pandemic, we walked many kilometers through this forest, up the gorge, fishing, swimming, drinking, admiring everything. Despite so many months of immobility, we did not get tired. Who gets tired of walking through a riparian area and a torrent like this?
Ramón J. Soria Breña
| Season 3. Chapter 2 | Garganta de Jaranda |
| Recording date | June 2020 |
| Duration | 3:28 minutes |
| Date of issue | January 22, 2021 |
| Location | Garganta de Jaranda, Cáceres. España |
| Image and sound | Ernesto Cardoso. Ramon J. Soria Breña |
| Edition | Ernesto Cardoso |
| Opusculum | Ramon J. Soria Breña |
| Music | Bendsound |
| Song | Beyond the line |
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