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### From the salt battlement

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<center>https://i.imgur.com/Wno3IBT.jpg?1</center><center><sub>Own photo</sub></center>

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Greetings, friends of @ADSactly. 

In 2014, due to my love of photography and my attraction to certain spaces, during a visit to the Araya Castle (Sucre State, Venezuela), I took a set of photos of this monument mistreated not only by the weather and the years, but also by negligence and ignorance. I have made a very tight selection of these photographs to show them around here, and not to abuse the space.

The Araya Castle, whose name is Real Fortaleza de Santiago de Arroyo de Araya, is located on the Araya Peninsula, and was built between 1623 and 1630. It is known that it was built by the Spaniards for the defense of the Salinas de Araya, and that it used blocks of mortar and materials of marine origin. For more quick and simple information you can visit this [link](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castillo_de_Araya); for more information, there you will find a wide bibliography.

I wanted to use, in the title of my modest post, the metaphor "almena de sal", created by the Cumanian writer Gustavo Luis Carrera for the original title of a story about Araya's life, his salt mines and his buried history (later he will take up that almost mythical story in his novel *Reverse journey*, which I highly recommend). I thus pay a well-deserved tribute to one of our most brilliant narrators, essayists and researchers of Venezuelan literature, today a little forgotten. I take some fragments and phrases from his story to accompany the photos.

(All photos are from Araya Castle (Sucre State, Venezuela).

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>He went towards the imposing fortress of yellowish stones as if he were sure to find something in those ruins from way back in time and anxiety. 

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<center>https://i.imgur.com/lpXn57G.jpg?3</center><center><sub>Own photo</sub></center>

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>#### <em>[…] was an overwhelming eminence, moving for a man only on his feet.</em>

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<center>https://i.imgur.com/dOSRZty.jpg?1</center><center><sub>Own photo</sub></center>

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<center>https://i.imgur.com/2hGYDmq.jpg?1</center><center><sub>Own photo</sub></center>

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<center>https://i.imgur.com/ezfEpEd.jpg?1</center><center><sub>Own photo</sub></center>

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>#### <em>I see the unknown castle, I feel the skin eaten up and strewn with madréporas of the stones […]</em>

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<center>https://i.imgur.com/GpmwWP3.jpg?1</center><center><sub>Own photo</sub></center>

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>#### <em>[…] I thought it was a lazy labyrinth of mysterious stories.</em>

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<center>https://i.imgur.com/JMX3Vsf.jpg?1</center><center><sub>Own photo</sub></center>

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<center>https://i.imgur.com/xLqdUxO.jpg?1</center>>center>Own photo</sub></center>

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>#### <em>I continued up to the highest point of the blown up castle, and I stopped in vilo: I will never forget the blinding vastness of the sunny, blue, greenish, pale sea in the foam intervals.</em>

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<center>https://i.imgur.com/Fp8DrTn.jpg?1</center><center><sub>Own photo</sub></center>

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# <center>![](https://i.imgur.com/JEuZRgC.png)

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(The photos were taken with my non-professional Kodak EasyShare CD82 camera)

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<center>Grateful>Grateful for your attention.</center>

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Written by @josemalavem