Unlike Navalcarnero, in Catalonia you are either by the sea or you are in the mountains (well, there are also those in Cerdanya). In summer, some suffer from jellyfish and others from the summer plant: the perfidious blue tora, a very showy and wild but toxic flower – don’t get ideas, we know each other -, which shines on these dates from of 1,500 meters of altitude.
As was to be feared, a hiker is admitted to the Vall d’Hebron hospital in Barcelona – out of danger – after having ingested blue tora in the Vall de Núria this weekend, perhaps because it resembles wild celery (which is not born in supermarkets cut, clean and wrapped in plastic, as I thought until today). Already in 2018, a tragic case was registered: a man from the south of France died of poisoning after eating a salad with blue tora.
(Dear Jaume Collboni: don’t trust it if you receive a bouquet of showy blue-purple flowers with an affectionate note, style: “Congratulations and such a day will be a year!”, signed by Xavier Trias).
While those of the sea and the beach have a reputation for hangovers, vermouth drinkers and pot-bellied people, mountain lovers are credited with uprightness. Who would you leave money to first? To a gentleman who goes to Castelldefels on Sundays or to someone who jogs uphill along unpaved Pyrenean paths?
I hope that the intoxicated person recovers soon – the news is optimistic – and he can resume that contact with nature and the silence of which they speak so well. In case of mishaps, there is no color either. In the mountains, a professional comes to your aid, while on the beaches, curious people, Red Cross rescuers, word-of-mouth theorists and some teenagers come to record and viralize your breathing difficulties.
How can mountain climbers be warned of the risk? I think they should talk to the collective of boletaires, waiting for the Generalitat to approve a protocol. Protocols are oil in a lamp!
On the beach, there is no need: there is an abundance of good Samaritans – how bad were the rest? – who calls out a jellyfish 200 meters away, in order to intimidate everyone present. Sea or mountain Ways to die
