Back on the road, I feel a strange hitch under my skin that makes me move from place to place, unsettled, on my way north, and south, towards all directions at the same time, I just can’t tell anymore... After a while I decide to follow my disorientation and leave the south, heading first towards the sea, after all I’ve always found its water relaxing. I drown my nostalgia in the winding earth’s boarder, drawn bellow by the sea, while the speeding bus contours the dunes, winding up the road. Along the way I stop. I stop here and there, in no men land, or in the land of men other than me. I stop in villages made of fish and boats, and in the land of the ‘Nazcas’ as well, where I find in their strange lines the answer to no question. I linger in the capital Lima, lady of all shades of grey, where I find the music, the noise, the mess, and from where the greyness of the sky expels me slowly, swiftly. I resume my way north, through the land of ‘Moches’ and 'Chimús', people of many tombs and pyramids built with mud and sand, lords of a land of too much dust and all shades of yellow, of scrumptious ‘ceviches’ and of more beach and more curves and more road. "Lambayeque, Lambayeque!", is shouted to exhaustion in the ‘combi’ that brings me to the eternally lord of the lands of Sipán, these lands I travel up languidly, on my way north, “What about the South?”, on my way to so many directions, too many, making me doubt if I’m still following any. In the end I’m following just one and I’m not sure where it is taking me... But I keep going up, heading up north. After all the weather gets warmer further ahead, in the north, and it feels good to have the sun burning my skin once more.
Chiclayo, Peru, September 2009
Sitting in a rock, static, motionless, I look around. But I look without seeing, with my eyes wide shut, looking around with all my senses, as if just one. And I can feel each rock, each hill, each house and ruin, each and every accident in the landscape of this lost and found place, sacred, magical, from a world other than ours, certainly. Crossing my legs like an Indian Sadu, I feel like levitating while my hands wander the mountains around me, left and right, from the mystical white peak of the Salkantay in the distance to the green mountains close by, on my side. My hands end up in the middle, outlining the face and the nose of the Inca who has been sleeping here for a long time, laying down here, watching over this place and waiting for the day he has to wake up from his hibernation of centuries, millenniums, probably not waiting for anything, certainly. A fresh breeze blows into my face. I breathe in and also fall in the Inca’s sleep, lighter than his, almost awake, but still asleep like him. I sleep and I feel each rock of the path to here, from Cuzco and beyond, the whole trip’s path, my whole life’s path. I feel the long and slender paths travelled by you before laying down here, Inca, as my own paths travelled throughout this world, as everyone else’s path. I feel the tiredness, the long nights with little sleep, the pain all over my body, the dusty roads, the rivers’ fresh water, the dark cold of the night spent climbing up to here. I feel the warm rock underneath my body, while I turn into rock as you did, Inca, laying down here forever, tied to this place by rock and heart, my heart which will stay here forever, rising from here, departing from here to wander around the world, to never leave this place again. A light rain starts to pour, bringing me back from this trance. I open my eyes, breathe in, get up, walk a few steps towards the way out and turn back for one last goodbye, but I’m still there, sitting, looking around, stuck in the landscape, stuck in this place. I see myself there, sitting, static, here, there, everywhere, static.
Machu Picchu, Peru, September 2009
