The other day we were coming back from the south and decided to take a new, still undiscovered scenic road when I saw this beautiful mountain and stopped the car in awe. Such a perfect work of nature! The weather was kind of dark, and it was really windy and cold, not at all pleasant, so my friend called the mountain – Mordor.
It really fit the mood. I couldn’t find peace, was drawn there by some incomprehensible force, found its location on Google Earth, explored the possible ways up, and hit the road. Normally, when I’m on a discovery mission, l prefer to go alone to have the liberty of making decisions as I feel fit and also because l don’t want to drag people into possibly dangerous or otherwise strange situations.
That day, it was cloudy and windy again. There’s an easy hiking trail leading up, but it makes a turn down to another valley before reaching the top. Maybe at that point, I should have turned back, but the peak was there, and it looked reachable and tempting; I know I’m not always making the best decisions. It was pretty wild, a bit exposed, cloudy and darkish up there, the whole package. Mountain without a name, thank you. I’m at peace.
EDIT: Approximately a year after this hike and writing a post, I learned the mountain actually has a name – Montaña Melindraga. With 18 Mio years of age, it’s one of the oldest mountains in Fuerteventura (which is approximately 20 Mio years old). For aborigines, it represented one of the island’s three ‘holy mountains’, the other two being Tindaya and Montaña Cardón. Although I was not aware at the time of the hike, there are some important (although – hard to be spotted with an untrained eye) archeological remains still there – the 12 x 9 meters big ellipsoidal stone structure at the summit (the biggest of it sort on Fuerteventura and Lanzarote) and rock engravings with podomorphic features among them.
