Sonia Téllez, the Climbing Instructor from Marbella and Nordic Walking Champion

At the beginning of the month, Sonia Téllez undertook her last climb in Kyrgyzstan. She set out to summit Lenin Peak, at 7,134 meters, one of the peaks of the Asian country isolated by its mountainous geography and a crossroads on the Silk Road route. Bad weather prevented her final assault on the summit. Around the same time, on another mountain in Kyrgyzstan, Pobeda Peak at 7,439 meters - part of the five highest peaks of the former Soviet Union, which awarded the Snow Leopard prize to those who summited them - a Russian climber broke her leg during the descent and could not be rescued. One of her expedition teammates, who tried to assist her, died after suffering cerebral edema and frostbite.

-I have missed my life, we have gone through hardships, but I am very happy with what I have achieved.

So that you are proud of your Cabrilla, she wrote to her family from the mountain, the climbing teacher from the Vicente Aleixandre school in Marbella.

I do it because I feel free, for me it is a challenge, a call to be there. It's a need to climb. I do not rule out doing other seven-thousanders, as long as they do not technically pose a risk to me. And the possibility of something happening is always there, an accident can happen in any aspect of life.

Since she was a child, Sonia took up sports. She was a youth soccer player in one of Marbella's first women's teams. She switched from a Telecommunications Engineering degree to Physical Education, which led her to become a teacher of physical education, early childhood education, or mathematics. She has summited two six-thousand-meter peaks, three five-thousand-meter peaks, and countless four-thousand-meter peaks, was runner-up with the Spain team in Nordic Walking and twice won the Andalusian Cup in this endurance sport.

-At five years old, my mother enrolled me in rhythmic gymnastics and then in flamenco and embroidery classes. Embroidery came in very handy at university, it was very useful in the Plastic Arts class, where I had to do macramé. I put a lot of heart into dancing, the same when dancing bulerías as a malagueña. Dressed as gypsies, they took us to the Don Miguel hotel to clap for foreign tourists. And there we were, as well as at all the tablao shows at the Marbella fairs.

Hidden among the flamenco dance clothes at the Paquita de Jesús academy, Sonia carried her soccer gear to play on the town's team. Her passion for this sport came from her father and her brother. However, her parents did not approve of a girl playing a sport more typical of boys.

-From the allowance they gave me, I was saving a part until I had enough to buy myself a pair of soccer cleats at Moñi's store.

In COU (university preparation course), I obtained honors, I was a very good student and was advised at school to pursue some form of engineering. I enrolled in telecommunications but did not like that environment. "Next door was the sports hall of the Physical Education degree, and I saw them when they had practical classes in the pool or on the athletics track. I watched what they did. That's where I want to be, I thought. I spent a semester in Telecommunications until I canceled my enrollment and left, it wasn't for me. My father was very angry with me and stopped talking to me for a while, he thought I would never go back to university.

I continued playing indoor soccer during my university years, then during my years of applying for a teaching position I started taking diving and climbing courses. Many climbs and caving with diving, and more advanced climbing courses. In Sierra Nevada, I participated in three-thousand-meter marathons, canyoning, climbs, and the mountain ultra trail league.

I took aerobics, step, gym classes, and taught as a teacher in private schools, I worked in schools in Seville and Almería, continued doing mountain activities, six years until I managed to pass the teaching exams and return to Marbella.

-Whenever I saw Sierra Blanca when traveling in the car with my parents, I would say: I want to climb the face of the reclining man, that's how I saw the mountain. At fifteen or sixteen, I would go hiking in the Puerto Rico area and return home with scratches from the brambles. Or I would go to sleep in a sleeping bag in the mountains. The trails in the sierra were then closed, there were no paths. Getting from Puerto Rico to Juanar was an odyssey. At seventeen, I climbed the sierra alone, when I was at the top a couple there scolded me: What are you doing here, alone!

Sometimes climbing to Juanar I would fall asleep along the way. I have never been afraid. I would go to the countryside alone with my backpack, I have always been very adventurous. My group of friends did not dare to follow me, but that did not limit me. I understood that one has to do what one wants. I wanted to go there and I was excited. Each time I had more motivation to climb. My grandfather from Periana was very calm, when, at about eleven years old I went to visit him, I would go out with him to walk through the olive fields.

As a teacher, after my father's death, I gave up soccer, seeing that in the school matches the worst in each student came out. Sometimes they even resorted to violence. I realized that in the sport they looked up to, they felt as if they were playing in a Champions League team, playing like the players they admire, their idols. Once they asked me in class who my idol was. My parents, I answered. They were speechless.

By then, for me, all connection with a very complete sport, which I found lacking in values, had disappeared. That's why playing soccer was banned during school recess. Interestingly, this violence does not occur when other sports are practiced, such as basketball, for example. When I played soccer, there was also aggression from the people in the stands. They would pull my hair to stop me from moving forward with the ball, there were also kicks and ball hits.

For two years I was a throne bearer for Santa Marta (the innkeepers' brotherhood) and foreman of the brotherhood for another four years. On the throne carried by women, I spent a lot of time preparing, rehearsing the steps. I did it for my father, who for forty years had been a waiter at the Salduba bar and at the Los Martínez restaurant, which were on the main road, opposite the Alameda. He liked brotherhoods and tradition. As a child, he took me to watch the processions, we followed them from the staircase in front of the Ronda door, the poor's tribune. He was very religious, before sleeping he would touch all the saints he had at home and he instilled that in us. He had arrived in Marbella from a village in the Axarquía in the sixties, when tourism was beginning, because he did not want to stay to take care of the animals and olive trees. I keep the Santa Marta brotherhood medal that Count Rudi (factotum of the Marbella Club hotel) gave to my father.

In the brotherhood, there were no distinctions of social class, you were mixed with aristocrats. I participated because we went with our faces covered. I left because during Holy Week I couldn't, it always caught me at the end of the second trimester of the school year and the weekend with some sports competition.

-The mountain is my hobby, a way of life, after many years dedicated to mountaineering and mountain preparations in Sierra Nevada. Sometimes, summiting a four-thousand-meter peak is more difficult than a five-thousand-meter one, because it is more technical.

In 2016 I went on expeditions to Mont Blanc (4,810) and the following year I repeated with a mountain race to compete in climbing. In 2017, I took a Nordic walking course, I was good at it and I liked it. I was invited to a competition in Seville and we won. I balanced mountain activities with Nordic walking. I did this for three years until I suffered a severe injury in the mountains. I won the provincial ultra trail (ultra-endurance mountain race) and came fourth in the Ronda mountain ultra trail.

For four years, I traveled alone with my van to Benasque, in the Pyrenees, or to Chamonix, the base of Mont Blanc, on the border of France, Switzerland, and Italy. I went to practice mid-mountain, solo ascents of 4,000 meters. Two years ago, I took the van to the French town of Argentiere, about 1,900 kilometers from Marbella, to summit seven four-thousand-meter peaks of the Monte Rosa massif in the Alps. What I really always liked is running, high-performance climbing, physical training for strength, power, and endurance, mountain races. Any competitive sport is not healthy. I have been competing for a long time, I have run night races of 130 kilometers. I have put major competition in the background, I have a complete family life, I live in the countryside. I enjoy doing what I like. Nordic walking imposes a competition every fortnight, which involves being careful in case you get injured, many weekend trips, diet, training, and I also wanted to do mountaineering. I wanted to balance my life with high mountains to do what I want, like participating in the 101 kilometers of Ronda or the ultra trail of the Valle del Genal and have time to continue climbing. I do not rule out trying to do another seven-thousander.

She holds the title of instructor from the Mountain Racing School which qualifies her to teach children at the Marbella Climbing School, where in addition to being a trainer of the mountain race Rangers Sierra Blanca, she mainly tries to instill in them a love for nature.