Living in a mountainous country implies enjoying its slopes. Not feeling that the climbs are bothersome or that there is danger in the descents. It is not necessary to reach the summits to look far away, there are elevations everywhere from which to stop and scan. The flat lands were civilized, limited and ordered by agriculture many millennia ago. But many mountain lands remain intact. Perhaps their vegetation has been touched by livestock and wildlife, shepherds and walkers have traced paths, or a stone perched on another stone indicates that others were grazing this horizon before us. But you discover that breathing from each elevation has a different perfume that nature has elaborated exclusively for you. We imagine that the plains also have their magic and charms, but only in the mountains do we discover that our legs, half asleep and atrophied from being accustomed to the accelerator and armchairs, are still a set of bones, muscles, tendons, and joy that will always take us higher.
Living in a country so full of mountains is also living in a country full of different rivers. The clouds, which are usually very lazy, get stuck at the top of the mountain ranges and turn into liquid water, storms, fog, or dew. From the heights, threads of water, streams, small rivers of tumultuous and always crystal-clear water flow down.
Those who get used to this landscape, those who inhabit these horizons do not forget them. They can go far away, migrate, build other lives, grow old elsewhere. But they always come back, perhaps they never left. They dream frequently of their mountains and return as soon as they can, with any excuse or pretext, just to look and breathe, to touch the rocks and walk towards some summit.
“The blue mountains of Castile,” the Palentina mountain, is one of those places. The Alto Carrión and Arauz rivers maintain their freedom and purity. It is difficult to walk along their banks and not want to keep climbing, not stop, reach the source of these rivers, leave the boot print next to the footprint of the bear, wolf, or deer. Caress the lichen of the rock. Remember other mountains, all those we climbed and have in our memory. Understand the privilege of living in the second most mountainous country in Europe and the first that has more different rivers.
Ramón J. Soria
| Season 3. Chapter 16 | Montaña palentina |
| Recording date | May 2021 |
| Duration | 1:29 minutes |
| Date of issue | August 4, 2021 |
| Location | Norte de Palencia. España |
| Image and sound | Ernesto Cardoso, Daniel Agut |
| Edition | Ernesto Cardoso |
| Opusculum | Ramon J. Soria |
| Music | Sonnik |
| Song | Sonnik 7.07 |
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