This work is dedicated to my father. He always felt very close to nature; even as a young man he was a mountaineer, and later, when he married and had us, his four children, he sought a place where he could enjoy it to the fullest. That's how he built a mountain refuge with his own hands, nestled in the Ormakio Valley in Gipuzkoa.

 

I spent countless hours there, enjoying the mountains and the forests; I planted many trees with him and watched them grow. His love for those trees, the nights he spent contemplating the sky and its stars, is a part of me as well. That's why this novel is for him.

 

Nature looms as the absolute protagonist. This magical world we live in could be exhausted, life within it could become very hostile; we are responsible for the enormous change that is taking place. Everything on this planet is not meant to be exploited, it is not "ours." We have lost respect for our environment, and we must not forget that we are part of it. The world and the life within it existed long before we appeared. We are not its owners, we are its tenants, just another tenant, in symbiosis with it and with the other creatures that inhabit it.