The charm of fragrances... I think odors lead us to the animal. At least to me, to dreams. Your dog dreams? And the charms of beauty. Xarma, Carpinus betulus, is one of our most unknown trees. Some also call it ash. It is a fresh tree of Europe, large in the middle of the continent and lover of the high mountains – it is often said that it likes to live above 600 metres – it has entered the Pyrenees in the Basque Country. Throughout the Iberian Peninsula, the natural charms were found only in the Five Villas, in the setting of the hermitage of San Juan Xar, located on the communal grounds of Igantzi, on the same border with Arantza, and on the slopes of the Bidasoa River. Also in Gipuzkoa, the existence of a sketch of half a hundred individuals at an approximate height of 200 meters at the same point in the Arterreka Valley, in Alegia, which is peculiar, this species is not found further south or further west. It has become a rare species that, having led to the danger of extinction, has been declared a Nature Reserve for the maintenance of this forest relic of Navarra in 1987 and in the catalogue of Threatened Species of the CAPV is on the red list of “at risk of extinction”. No wonder, because its wood has been appreciated as much as for the fire for wood. Nor is it sold in France and has 6% of its forests. In Iparralde it is a little better known, at least beyond Uztaritze.

Although today we know it and have lost it, a long time ago, in the Lower Paleolithic, less than 150,000 years ago, the charm of this land was very abundant. It can be known from the tests of the pollen remnants of the excavations carried out in deposits of the time as the Irikaitz cave in Zestoa.

These are miraculous water sources that emit together with the hermitage of the cave of San Juan Xar, between Igantzi and Arantza.
The miracle is that the same charm still exists among us. Even if only in the vicinity of caves and graves...