One last 'asado'

I follow my nose, which leads me throughout the house. The smell is coming from above so I go up the stairs. My feet are dragged by the smoke, almost floating over the tiles. I’m flying with my eyes closed and stop only when I feel the heat, knowing the charcoal is destined to a meet which is not my own. I open my eyes and among the mist I do not see a Rei Dom Sebastião (Portuguese king who disappeared in battle and who, according to the mythology, is expected return one day among the morning mist) but only one more of those meat feasts so common here. Uncertain if there are two or three cows laying over the grill, I’m sure only to comfort the friend taking care of cooking with an approval smile. I decide to sit down. Closing my eyes again, I feel myself go back the four months passed by since I first arrived to this country called Argentina. Once again I feel the astonishment I felt in the beginning, due more to that awesome water-made natural wonder shared with its brother country Brazil than to the first impression this land caused on me. I remember then the capital city, in which streets I got lost to then find myself in a tango. That same tango I later sang among friends while looking at a lake lost in the mountains, but not before I traveled through the dryness of the vast South. South, endless vastness that navigated me to and from an imaginary end of the world... I also remember the nostalgia when leaving the country and the joy of coming back once and again to this borrowed house of mine. Also fresh in my mind are these last few days, spent wandering through mountains and valleys, getting to know the effect of that strange drug called too much height and too little oxygen. Maybe this drug was the one making me see salt lakes, many mountains, deep canyons, rock-made rainbows, a vast, strange and beautiful nature, all difficult to describe. In each place I remember people, many and distinct, who will travel with me to where ever I may go. But soon the intense smell wakes me up from this trance. The meet is ready and right bellow my nose. One last ‘asado’ goes down my throat and esophagus, washed by red wine, perpetuating in my mouth during my farewell the great taste of being here, reminding me forever the need to come back.

Salta, Argentina, July 2009