Sticks and chains may tax my brains

“You can’t do as much as you approach 70,” people trying to be kind like to tell me, “as when you’re approaching 17.”

Well, I suppose that’s consoling. But only insofar as it’s a consolation to be reminded that 70 is nearly upon me, and 17 a remote past (however vividly still remembered). Some years back – possibly decades – I heard someone saying, “it was a shock to discover that my glorious future was all behind me”. 

It’s worse for me. It isn’t even a shock anymore.

This all came to mind on Sunday, when we went for a walk with a local hiking group, for 16 kilometres (ten miles if you prefer). When I was seventeen, I used to walk with teams of my colleagues for 20 to 30 miles in a day and once, memorably, 35 miles overnight. Sadly, Sunday’s effort left me about as tired as the 35 miles did. 

Still, at least we were in the mountains on Sunday. That’s my excuse.

These mountains were down at the southern end of the Valencian Community, the region around the Spanish city of Valencia. We were walking near the town of Alcoy, in the province of Alicante. One of the first places we saw was the ‘Seven Moons Bridge’. You might wonder whether this was a case of locals thinking that “one moon is good, so why not have seven?”. The reality’s more prosaic. It’s just that the bridge runs over seven arches.

The Seven Moons bridge stretching across the valley by Alcoy

It’s a fine structure and now part of a well-maintained cycling and walking route. On the other hand, you might wonder whether a viaduct 46 metres high and 230 metres long is overkill for a leisure path. Originally, it was designed to carry a railway, and though the line was completed, including the tunnels and the viaducts, the plan was eventually dropped. No train ever ran across it.

Remember Boris Johnson’s plan to build a garden bridge in London when he was Mayor? It was a bit like that. Probably even more expensive, though I’d never want to belittle Johnson’s capacity for wasting public funds on failed prestige projects.

Cataract and pool where we stopped for lunch

We had lunch by a stream flowing from some cataracts. A lovely sight. But the scene, alas, of a senior moment for me. 

I’m useless at Nordic Walking but I still often take sticks with me on this kind of outing. Sadly, however, I left them near where we had lunch. Fortunately, I noticed pretty soon and shot back to collect them. 

This is a fine bunch of people to walk with, and four of them decided they’d wait for me so that I wouldn’t be left alone struggling to catch up with the main group. Unfortunately, however, although it only took me ten minutes to collect the sticks and get back to the others, that was enough for the rest to have struck off down a side path we decided, mistakenly, not to follow when we reached the turning.

The result? The five of us spent the next hour adding a kilometre or two climbing up the valley in completely the wrong direction, struggling to maintain some form of communication with our guide on crackly and broken calls in the patchy cell phone coverage up there. 

To my amazement, and underlining what great friends they are, the four who’d stayed with me and the main group all claimed repeatedly and loudly that the fault was theirs. I’m not quite sure how it could have been, since I was obviously the one who’d forgotten the sticks. My apologies, however, were simply brushed aside.

The lesson I learned was that it’s all about sticks and stones. Forget your sticks, and you’ll be walking over a lot more stones. Or, to put it differently, if you take sticks, then stick with them, or get stuck with more miles.

Getting seriously stuck is what might have happened after we caught up with the main group. We had to make our way along a cliff face along a river pool. The local council had thoughtfully hung a chain along the cliff, to cling to as we sidled across.

Clinging to the chain and my rescued sticks,
and surrounded by three of the walkers who stuck with me

I have to say that, as it was pretty hot, there was a temptation to let go of the chain and fall into the water just to cool off a little, but I suppose the walk back when soaking wet might not have been much fun.

The best thing about the chains was that there wasn’t just one set. Soon after the pool, we found another lot helping us climb up a cliff. With apologies to Rousseau, and only a small distortion of his words, I couldn’t help feeling that “man is born free, but around here he’s dangling from chains”. 

The second chain. For the uphill climb

We have mountains closer to our home too. They’re called the Sierra Calderona. There’s a much-repeated story, retold by our guide on Sunday, according to which María Inés de Calderón, known as la Calderona, was a seventeenth-century Madrid actress who was married at sixteen only to become the mistress first of a duke and then of the king himself. She gave birth to the only illegitimate son (of many illegitimate children he had) that the king recognised (though to this day we don’t know whether he was the duke’s). 

His habit once the king decided he’d had enough of a mistress was to send her off to a convent. The tale has her escaping from hers and holing up for the rest of her life with a bunch of bandits in the mountains near Valencia. The legacy of her life of crime is that the name ‘Calderona’ has stuck to mountains, as a memorial to her, ever since.

La Calderona.
In her days as an actress and mistress to the powerful

It’s a fine story, so I wouldn’t try to spoil it by pointing out there is a far less interesting one, based on boring things like documentary evidence. It suggests that after the birth of her son, removed from her by the ghastly king, la Calderona spent fourteen years in her convent, before rising to the rank of abbess. She ran the place for the next two years before dying.

That’s dying in the convent, not the mountains. Surrounded by nuns. Not bandits.

That’s a much less uplifting story, isn’t it? And how would it explain the name of our closest mountains? The other story must be the true one.

Just not correct, perhaps, in terms of dull facts.