Enigmas of Valderredible: the hermitage of Cadalso

We change scenery and leaving behind the lavender fields, the excellence of its honey and the media-friendly picturesqueness of the towns of Alcarria, the compass of our traveling concerns once again points towards the misty North and its infinite mysteries.

Indeed, light-years away from the modern world and its innovative technological concerns, there are still places in Spain, anchored in such a disconcerting antiquity, that, in comparison, their vision can cause us an emotional shock, whose most immediate protagonists, are none other than perplexity and disbelief.

Valderredible is, possibly, one of the largest regions of Cantabria and by default, also one of the oldest, least populated and certainly anchored in the enigmas of a past, which still vibrates, with unusual strength, in the souls of its inhabitants.

We are talking about a region that, although it still shares territorial prominence with Palencia and the north of Burgos, continues to be characterized by the unequivocal presence of hermitism and associated rock art, which, from the Early Middle Ages to the present day, is still in force.

Seven kilometers from Polientes and a little more than a dozen from the spectacular settings that make up that imposing geographical feature known as the Ebro Canyons, a small village, named Cadalso, whose population census currently does not exceed the fingers of one hand, the traveler finds himself at the foot of the road, just beginning to cross the first houses, the first of those curious cave hermitages, whose cult, disconcertingly, is still valid today.

A hermitage, which, taking advantage of the metaphorical and compact quarry of a prominent rock, was laboriously pierced until it was converted into a small dwelling, destined to be the habitat, at first, of one of those hundreds of solitary people, romantics of God, who In my opinion, they were the hermits who, after the Muslim invasion, decided to withdraw from the world and follow the example of relevant figures of Christian saints, such as Saint Anthony and Saint Jerome and later, the parish church.

It makes a certain impression to see that, in addition to continuing to carry out its ecclesiastical activities in the 21st century, with flowers and objects of worship inside, visible through the small windows, the vision of the graves, excavated in the rock with its characteristic shape anthropomorphic, which one day housed the defenseless bodies of anonymous Christians, whose remains had long since been scattered by the wind and welcomed by the earth, continue to face east: towards that symbolic place where the sun is reborn every morning and by default , towards the place, furthermore, where the holiest city for Christianity is located, which is none other than Jerusalem.

Cadalso preserves, in addition, an old medieval tower, half hidden by the moss of the centuries and whose ashlars climb nettles and brambles at will, adding a note of romantic color to a past, which, perhaps, in its case, it was always better.

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NOTICE: Both the text, the accompanying photographs, as well as the video that illustrates it, are my exclusive intellectual property and are therefore subject to my Copyright.

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