A special place

When I was born in Caracas in the middle of the last century, the city was much smaller and the Ávila, the mountain that surrounds the city, was much larger.
Over time, things were reversed: the mountain became smaller and the city grew larger.

And it's not that the hill lost height due to some natural event, such as an earthquake or a landslide. No, fortunately that hasn't happened. But what did happen was that part of its greenery disappeared to make way for the color of cement and other building materials.

This process suffered by the majestic mountain was also suffered by all the hills in the great valley of Caracas. Some gave up all their space so that settlers from many parts of the country could settle there.

There was no respect for these natural spaces. No one thought that future generations also had the same right as mine to enjoy those beautiful hills. Fortunately, the main mountain, El Ávila, was protected at some point by the decision of a wise authority, and they prohibited further deforestation for housing construction.

I remember that as a child, my mother took us to visit a cousin who lived in a complex of buildings to the west of the city. In front of those buildings was a small hill with large eucalyptus and pine forests where my brother and I would go on little excursions while my mother visited. Thirty years after that moment in my childhood, the forest had completely disappeared. You could sense the presence of the hill by the unevenness of the terrain, but the entire space had been occupied by different types of housing.

During my childhood, I never knew that people climbed the Ávila hill; no one in my family talked about it. It was during my teenage years, while I was in high school, that I heard a friend talk enthusiastically about the climbs and camping trips he took with his friends to different parts of the hill. Those conversations filled me with excitement and left me wanting to be in the places they mentioned.

It took a lot of convincing to get my mother to let me go one day. I remember that since we had to leave very early, I stayed overnight at my friend's house.

Before sunrise, the group of four enthusiastic boys took the first bus that took us to the Cotiza sector, where one of the many routes to climb the mountain began.

For about four hours we climbed slowly. I was the weakest, the least trained, and the others took breaks to wait for me. But my slow pace was not only due to fatigue.

Every two or three steps, I stopped to contemplate any of the wonders along the way. Birds of all kinds, multicolored flowers, squirrels jumping from branch to branch as if they were flying, monkeys screaming in the treetops as if to encourage us on our way. In addition, I couldn't help but notice how the city was getting smaller and smaller as we climbed the mountain.

That excessive effort left me with muscle pain for several days, but every twinge I felt in my calves or thighs was well worth the pleasure that first climb had given me.

From that day on, climbing El Ávila became one of my favorite pastimes. I climbed the hill many, many times.

Even after I settled in Maracay, I kept up the habit of taking my children on excursions to Ávila. It has been twelve years since I last went to that mountain. On that occasion, we only walked a short distance and did the rest in a jeep I had at the time.

These days, I have been thinking about visiting the mountain again. I don't dare to do the whole journey on foot because I don't know if I have the strength for it. Most likely, I will take the cable car up and from there I will go on a few walks in the surrounding area. I am sure that after so many years, this encounter with the mountain will completely renew my spirit.

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Thanks for your time.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version).

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The photos, the digital edition and the Gifs are of my authorship.

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