It is not very clear whether Mariano went to the mountain first, or the other way around. A 53-year-old school teacher, his life has always been linked to nature. In addition to teaching his secrets to hundreds of children and adults and teaching at the Colegio Mayor de Toledo, he walked trails, climbed walls, immersed himself in ravines or climbed mountains.
His first stop was Ocejón, a 2,000 in Guadalajara, when he was 15 years old. Over the years and with a very long experience, he managed to climb the 6,542 peaks of the Sajama volcano in Bolivia with the people of the Torrijos Mountaineering Club, which did not leave him in bad times. Because Mariano Flores García has been fallow for two years: he replaced his canes and ice ax with crutches. Forced, of course, since a lymphoma in his left hip destroyed his acetabulum, forcing him to undergo three treatments and the last one, fortunately, worked. “It’s been a year and all the signs indicate that it worked,” said Torrijean, who suffered from unbearable pain and stopped walking because of an aggressive tumor that was eating away at a bone.
“Thank God we have social security,” he smiles, praising the work of the health professionals who treat him in Madrid and Toledo. “What luck!”, he exclaims a few seconds before realizing that he is ready “to enter the operating room”. And he’s been counting the days for a while until he gets a prosthetic and return to its natural habitat: the mountain.
Someone could connect this vital episode with “Scars of Toledo”, the title of the book that he will present this Friday in his town, Torrijos. But nothing could be further from the truth. “I had probably already thought about the title before, because I had this book on hold since 2001 and I took the opportunity to do something productive while I was recovering,” he explains without knowing how long it took. will still be absent.
For all audiences
There are 14 hiking routes and 10 mountain bike routes aimed at adults and children. Those for walking, between 6 and 15 kilometers distance; and those on bicycles, from approximately 20 to 60. However, what they have in common is that they follow human constructions, whether railway lines, old water mills, wells or castle roads. They also pass through the Castrejón and Cazalegas canals, which are still active.
There are unique routes, such as the Civil War bunkers in Alcaudete de la Jara, the castle ridge of Peñas Negras de Mora or the granite route through Las Ventas with Peña Aguilera. And you will also find that of the La Iglesuela airfield, a “cool zone”, since the mountain there is full of abandoned warehouses for anti-aircraft machine guns or aircraft bombs.
Mariano, who reached places reserved for mountain goats, took advantage of an orienteering race a few days ago to facilitate the departure. ‘Before, I couldn’t stand for that long,’ says man who will donate the profits from the first edition of his book Adelante, the regional association of people with ALS and their families. It is the same one who, while climbing the mountains of Huesca, rushed to succeed in the Heimlich maneuver to whom this is written because he had choked.
