Roadmap of stone

It is a photographic journey through the eyes of David Francisco in the Nun's Valley.

As we descend towards the Nuns Valley we do not comprehend the size of the landscape that surrounds us until we reach the valley, close to the bottom we became conscious of our insignificance before the mountain ranges that surround it. It is the only point of the island where no one can see the sea, obliterated by walls of volcanic rock whose relief was excavated by the various forces of nature in constant conflict over millions of years. The passing of the man in these parts is recent, even when facing the almost insurmountable challenges of these mountain walls, life happened and it also was carved on the stone. Snaking through the landscape of this small town, we discover along its narrow paths, traces of an everyday perpetuated through time.

The caves emerge naturally in the crevices of the rock. Natural and affordable shelter for people and animals, limpets, as they are known by the locals, also home to the legends of the Nuns Valley. Tales are told in low voice of a lost indigenous people that lived here, better know as "grimas", that was persecuted and decimated by settlers who came later populate this site. Small creatures that walked on all fours and almost as if by magic could quickly climb the mountain and live on from what nature could provide, savages, the people said. If it existed or not, nobody knows for sure, what remains is a series of caves that you can visit and enjoy soly surrounded by lush greenery. There was however, one in particular that caught my attention because of the innumerable small holes dug in the rock where people put their feet to reach the cave. So they don't fall, they told me, they needed a big long staff, with a metal tip that poked into the soil and helped them not lose balance in order to get safely to the shelter. The question I asked is because they needed to be in a place so inhospitable in an island with no natural predators? The watch what? Or who?

The fact is that not only the nuns lived in Valley, hence the name. Throughout the twentieth century, runaway slaves, criminals and all sorts of people lived in these quiet and winding hills. Another of those vestiges of another era are the stone mills, very close to what appears to be an ancient village, the spindle was placed in a hole that pressed the chestnut grapes as they were called against the fund, which poured the nectar of the gods through a small hole just below. Incidentally, it is known that this was a wine cast that occurred over the chestnut tree still abound in the area, but which nevertheless disappeared by the introduction of new types of grape. If we do not have a watchful eye many of these eternal monuments of everyday almost fused with vegetation due to its disuse. But there is still a working stone mill that is used by the community, as its owner said. It's really a journey through time carved in stone. Forever.