…beloved up to ensure that the furrows are part of the own relief, roughness of the skin that covers us, protects us and puts us in contact with the outside world.
Returning to Campo de Montiel is returning to the own and beloved landscape, in which we can contemplate the mosaic of colors that makes up our land dotted with fallow land, planting, mulching, orchards, vineyards, olive groves and some other island of wastelands, “morras” (mounds) or mount sprouts. All is a harmonious whole that, when away from the harshness of the weather, it helps to maintain the serenity of the heart and the stillness of the mind.
In this landscape that is both hard and demanding there is a uniqueness that materializes in the Lagoons of Ruidera, gift of water and generous vegetation. Also, in this same attempt, the Guadalén river and other streams are present, but it is the Jabalón river the one that defines and goes across the corners of these lands. It is true that it has already been described as: “nor river nor creek, the chimera of water that struggle to keep alive among reeds and ponds which are slowing down its flow toward the other mirage, the Mid Guadiana River”, but it is a privileged witness, in its quiet flow through particular and unimaginable settings, in these parched lands. Rich in meanders that bloom each spring with a thousand and one colors in different tones, brushstrokes stolen to an endless rainbow, creating charming and charmed, nurseries of fauna and flora, oasis in charred lands. Their meadows are dotted with orchards, several crops and poplar groves, where the autumn leaves its mark in a more visible way. It runs next to ways and roads that cross it on multiple occasions, dotting it with useful bridges, silent or participatory witnesses of life, hopes and fears. Trails, that sometimes are hardly noticeable on the small summits, attempting for continuity by valleys and hillsides. Fields willing to be recipients of some seeds that will germinate, take root, be born, mature and give a new fruit in the annual cadence that is yearly renewed. Fresh green that will accompany that of the vines and the more grayish and stable of olives. Vivid landscapes.
All that is offered to the traveller who knows how to make a stop, who makes the journey, not an empty and utilitarian element, but part of himself, something essential of that life that develops gradually, step by step, in the daily walk with calm pace, because this is how it has to be travelled, intuited, discovered, beloved up to ensure that the furrows are part of the own relief, roughness of the skin that covers us, protects us and puts us in contact with the outside world.
