Over seas, over mountains: the skyline. A writing about a singular photo

The line of the sky gives us a great lesson in adaptability: whether on the immense plains or on deep cliffs and ravines, whether by day or at night, or at dusk; whether on the immense plain of water that is the sea or on the petrified waves that form the mountains; whether on the sweetness with which some small rivers run or on the violent flow of lava that flows from volcanoes.... Above all that populates the world, be it beautiful or frightful, kind or evil, the line of heaven is lengthened... Reminding us that our place is Earth.

The Earth... This beautiful home that we are destroying. Destroying the legacy that corresponds to us to deliver, in the best conditions. The reality is that, more and more, lines of the sky extend over vast dead territories, deserts and landscapes.
where life disappeared, open-air cemeteries where the remains of valuable natural resources which it has taken millions of years to produce and which are consumed without criteria, without thinking about the serious damage we do and what we "do" to ourselves.

They are reflections that occur to me when I look at this photo I took some time ago, trying to pick up the beauty of a sunrise at the Picacho de Galipán, 1,900 meters above sea level, which in this case is the Caribbean Sea, to the north, very close, at the very foot of the mountain. The Picacho de Galipán is a great outcrop that falls, almost perpendicularly to the coast that the Caribbean waters wet. It is a mass of granite barely covered by a thin layer of vegetation.

To have been able to take this photo was a privilege... We did not know it but, apparently, in the area where we camped that night it is not allowed to spend the night since a telecommunications repeater antenna is located on the summit. As we did not find anyone who told us and there are no signs, we simply had the joy of sleeping on the summit of the Picacho de Galipán. And to see some of the most fabulous dawns and sunsets that I have been able to ecstatic with in my life. The blue Caribbean sea at the base of the abyss, the rest of the peaks of the national park, located in the Cordillera de la Costa and the blue sky in all its splendor, give the view a character of picturesque spectacularity.

This photo represents a very singular vision of the beautiful Waraira Repano National Park, which extends just north of cities such as Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, Guarenas, Guatire and Caucagua, and south of the Caribbean coast. She offers us a synthetic snapshot of what the Park is:

On the sky line we can see, on the right, the blue lights of the Teleférico terminal station that goes up from Caracas. Next to it, like a thorn, stands the circular and panoramic tower of the Humboldt Hotel. What we see next is amazing: compact in a single mass, towards the east, we see the four highest peaks of the park and the central region of Venezuela: the Ávila, the Occidental and the Oriental of the Silla de Caracas, and the Naiguatá peak, the highest, with its 2,764 meters above sea level. Then, to the left, we see the dazzling colors of a sunset over the clouds that prepare to sleep in the calm of the Caribbean Sea.

Under the line of the sky the darkness already reigns. But man has light at his whim. For this reason, on the right, the northern slope of the Ávila peak is decorated with dots of light: these are the houses that make up the town of Galipán, formed by rural hamlets and tourist and gastronomic centers that extend along the road that goes down to the vicinity of the La Guaria Port after climbing from Caracas. Thus we see, to the left, the lights of the coastal town of Macuto. Above it the clouds seem to burn.

Geographically, the photo therefore includes two contexts, the mountain and the sea. And two thermal floors: the xerophyte, characteristic of the coastal region, and the sub-moor, characteristic of the high mountain.