Going Westbound

Deep Blue – Chronicles of an Atlantic crossing

2012-01-20T21:37:00.003Z

I crossed the Atlantic. An old dream, arecent craving, now a lived reality which I already remember with profoundnostalgia, the nostalgia of that deep blue that took me pitching and rollingfrom a Lisboa’s sunny autumn day to the torrid and humid heat of the tropicallands of Ecuador. Many were the emotions, the moments, the surprises that myold friend the sea had me live from the first to the last of the 21 days passedon board the 'BBC Ganges', the cargo ship with a presageful name with which Imade the crossing to a new world of emotions and discoveries. Having steppedfirm land once more, it is now time to share some of the emotions lived onboard, the most vivid, the most striking, those which give me the biggest pleasure in sharing. The strongest ofthem all, however, I will not be able to share, as it is impossible to describethe tone of blue of the ocean I sailed, that deep blue which I will alwaysremember as the most vivid memory of the days I spent crossing the Atlantic.

Departure:until the other end of the sea

At 6pm of the 13^th October 2011departed from Lisboa, more specifically from the Beato docks, the cargo ship 'BBC Ganges'. Within the varied cargo carried, as is its purpose and duty, the 'BBC Ganges' carried one of the least usual items in its many trips across theglobe: me. If any doubt subsisted that a passenger was a rare thing aroundhere, the facial expression of the cadet that was guarding the ship when Iarrived cleared them all, lost between the awe of seeing two backpacks with aman attached wanting to board the ship and the need to advise his superiors ofthe arrival of the passenger who was going to cross the Atlantic. In a shortwhile, however, the Chief Mate arrived to welcome me on board and guide me towhat was about to become my cabin. My impression when first walking the ship’scorridors was that of having receded in time, arriving suddenly to the 70s or80s, or maybe of having entered an old Chinese restaurant with walls coveredwith pine boards and paintings of rice field landscapes. When entering mycabin, however, that first impression was lost, as I felt strangely at home,maybe welcomed by the presence of a comfortable bed and sofa and by theexistence of two windows to look at the sea during my days on board. Soon afterthe Captain came down from the bridge to get to know who I was, giving mepermission to dive back in the Portuguese capital for a few more hours, timeused to say goodbye to a hefty duck rice plate, to the nice Portuguese bica espresso coffee, to the pastel de nata (Portuguese custard pie), and finallyto my family, nostalgias I left behind until de day of my return. Still slightly dazed by the novelty of it all and thefew hours slept in the short week I had to prepare my trip, I boarded the shiponce more, now for good, now until the other end of the sea. At 5pm, and withthe duck still floating around my stomach, I ran through dinner, engulfing inone go whatever I was given so I could climb up to the bridge on time fordeparture, the last contact with firm land before reaching the other shore ofthe Ocean. The clock marked the 6pm of the 13^th October 2011 when departedfrom Lisboa, more specifically from the Beato docks, the cargo ship 'BBC Ganges',leaving behind the wharf to slide languidly along the hills of Lisboa,absorbing from its houses the ochre tainted light the sun emanated from afar,from the west to which I’m indefinitely bound. Balancing us on favor of itscurrent, the Tejo River showed me Lisboa’s Castle, its Alfama neighborhoodsuspended above the river, its Sé cathedral peaking over the Terreiro doPaço square so it could watch the orange cacilheiro boats stroll to theother bank of the river, the Bairro Alto neighborhood toasting from above tomy swift return, Lisboa’s waterfront accompanying me until the bridge, untilthe Crist Redeemer gave me a last hug to wish me a good trip. Little by littleI felt Lisboa letting me go, while the Intanfe D. Henrique took the honor ofwaiving me a last goodbye from the forecastle of his caravel, wishful of hisown departure and nostalgic of the days when the seas were his to discover. Isaw also myself, near the tower of Belem, looking at the ships that sailed awayand thinking of when it would be my turn to go. While the Bugio and Cascais' Guia lighthouses were throwing me a last farewell with the first swingof the waves, I saw Sintra from afar and the intense light that blinks from theRoca cape, where the sea begins according to the poet Luis de Camões, sights whichaccompanied my first hours at sea. Nostalgic of my presence, Portugal stared atme for long hours, like a parent who looks at his son departing while wishingfor a swift return. I stared at him as well, petrified, watching my countrybecome smaller until a huge red moon broke the horizon to crown Lisboa’s skywith the nostalgia I will carry along my path, a moment made eternal in thatpicture I could take only with my own eyes. Finally I left Lisboa, invaded by thecontradictory sensation that while setting sail to foreign lands I found in theplace where I come from the beauty I expect to discover along my way, butembraced by the certainty I belong here even if I depart once and again. At 6pmof the 13^th October 2011 departed from Lisboa, more specificallyfrom the Beato docks, the cargo ship 'BBC Ganges', headed to the other end of thesea, and I departed with him.

Atlantic Ocean, October 2011

Destiny

2011-11-06T22:21:00.001Z

I followed my destiny. The road was invitingme for long, craving for my return. Silently she told me she missed my feet runningover her, my sweat dripping on her under the scorching sun and the weight of mybackpack, my curious stare resting on the horizon she draws afar, indifferent, randomly.I missed her as well, the crackling sound of gravel and sand pressed under myfeet, the warm tar melting gently at mypassage, the countless kilometers going by while inebriating my nose withunknown scents and smells, the joyful dance of chance and destiny unfolding my path,slowly, languidly. The sea, however, was the one who took me. The road was leftfor later, overcome by the magnetic vastness of the ocean, who will rock me lazilyacross the expanse of water that tookthe Portuguese of elder days to unknown destinations, as my own, which I willdiscover little by little, westbound. I’m going, departing from Lisboa, takenby the sea, traveling once more, fulfilling my destiny, each day.

Lisboa, Portugal, October 2011

Yet again the north

2011-02-17T19:08:00.010Z

I started my journey back home, which yet again takes me north, as if this was always and in the end my final destination. Drawn by the polar magnetism, I trail more kilometers or black tar which I consume as an unconditional addict, a devourer of diverse paths and directions which I insist in making my own in a constant and endless journey. Heading towards Portugal I end up finding it too soon, in a ‘Portuguese city’ which is no more than a lost nostalgia I discover without any sorrow or regret. I wander its ancient streets but only for a short while, leaving rapidly the walls that contain them in search of what brought me here after all, those who live here, who welcome me while wondering what brought me to this place. Less used to tourists, I find them maybe friendlier than elsewhere, being maybe more curious of who I am rather than of what I bring with me, as the occasional traveler is not essential to their survival, being a mere stranger. Eventually I leave El Jadida behind, letting my voracious appetite for moving forward take control, after all I have a sort of set date to return and the time to wander around is a scarce asset. Maybe because of that I touch only lightly the enormous Casablanca, a city that repels me while attracting me in its cosmopolitanism, a trait I didn't run into lately. Wandering around, however, I find nothing but the will to move on, of getting closer to the strait that separates my own land from this one, the strait which will eventually bring me back to ‘my world’. But before reaching it I stop one last time, finding retreat in the suspended blue of the mountainous Chefchaouen, which makes me start travelling again, slowly, invaded by the laziness of strolling up and down its streets, of meeting new brothers of destiny, of just resting from the racing-around I’ve been doing in the last few days. But soon the calendar points the way and makes me move my feet, this time towards the strait’s margin, that frontier limiting the illusion of many, the canal of so many wars, so many journeys, so many centuries-old dreams which I observe from a distance, contemplative, questioning so many things, so many uncertain certainties, so much water, too much border, too many people surrounding me in the bubbly Tangier which tries to sell me everything I don’t need, because what I need cannot be sold, only lived, because what I live cannot be sold, only savored. The bitter-sweet taste of this journey coming to an end makes me nostalgic, of here and home, lost in a limbo that does not exist, as this canal, an illusion transformed in difference, a division made of water and stupidity, imaginary line where so many try to balance themselves and where I now wander while waiting for my ride to my side of the world. Taking only a step I cross the canal, even though he tries to prevent my crossing, in an attempt to chain me to this primordial continent, land where I meet my own self, where I reinvigorate myself, where I at the same time feel disgusted with so many differences, so many errors from the past, with so many mistakes from the present, all heritage of a history that keeps haunting me. The huge waves seem to sink me in the canal, showing it is not an easy task to cross it. As so many others I must pay my toll, even if only in the price of a light seasickness, even if only in the price of a lost thought, lucky in any case not to have to pay with my own life as many others who are simply fighting for their right to dream, as I do, dreaming a life that does not exist and making it real step by step. Unlike many others I luckily am to able to dream, taste this freedom I live in, and that’s all I wanted everyone to experience, without any exception, but my power is so limited, I feel barely capable of unrolling my own road, that same road which is now rocking me to sleep already on my side of the strait, the original trail where everything started and which eventually brings me to a path I use to walk home, feeling my backpack go weightless as my bed is so near and that warm homely embrace is only a smile away to remember me that returning home is after all part of the journey. Deep inside, however, I know this is not my home anymore, that I belong to nowhere, that the road is my address, even when I’m not wandering it, even if some day I lose my strengths and can only travel the roads of my memories and of those of others. I belong to nowhere, but the whole world is mine and I will not stop discovering it while there is a span of road to overcome, a new stage to run, an unknown path to unravel, a new dream to be turned into reality. Despite knowing I will stop for a while now, I do it conscious that resting is just the beginning, the dawn of a new day which at some point will make me travel again, whatever direction I may take, whatever destination I may be bound for.

Somewhere between the Strait of Gibraltar and Loulé, December 2010

Found a window through where the wind blows poems

2011-02-03T01:18:00.012Z

I found a window through where the wind blows poems, brought from the sea by a gentle breeze which wraps them in a salty spray that splashes my face with words. Ignoring where they come from, I know only they came in herds, blown from the remote yet confining sea, the same sea which once brought us, Portuguese, to raise here this window through where poems rush today at the pace of ancient dreams of today and before. Simple poems, traveling dreams of long journeys walked and rocked by the waves that pushed us, that push us still, that push me and over and over bring me to unknown destinations, enchanted by the sweat chant of a mermaid called wander, the very same chant which some day had us sail around aimlessly. As a fisherman siting in the fort’s window, I only have to let the wind blow my pages to catch the poems in my web of paper and words, scribbled rapidly to uselessly try to catch them all. But it is impossible, there are too many poems, blown over my head to collide against the windows of the white houses that populate this place, against the blue of the boats that once and yet again leave the port only to be able to return, against the chant of the seagulls, immense cloud that populates the skies of this land once lost here only to be found again, one and many times, so that it can be lost again in the hope of finding it forever. A window, through where the wind blows dreams of an endless journey, promise of a world full of new dreams, strange nectar that inebriates me and makes me addict to this place from where I can’t escape, chained to the streets that slowly start to know me, to the people with whom I start to be mistaken, to the rocks where the sea arrives roughly, to the bay where the sea becomes tranquil, to the sun that sets every day, here as elsewhere, but which here unlike anywhere else suspends me in a never ending original sunset, fallen in love with the gentle caress of the sun touching in the water, suspended in this obvious and repetitive common-place called sunset but which here becomes unique every day, passionate, tormentingly beautiful. I found a window through where the wind blows poems, which origin I ignore, which destination is unknown, but I don’t really care, I just open my pages, my eyes, my nostrils, breathing in, breathing very much, filling my lungs with a new air that renews each day I spend here, languidly, forgotten here as this old window, hanging over the sea while waiting carelessly for it to bring me back home, someday.

A friend

I’m going to craft you with works, my friend, fill with letters every wrinkle of your face, while you gaze at the vague horizon as an old sailor counting the tides, waiting indefinitely for the boat that will never arrive to take you from here. I’m going to craft you with works, my friend, fill with dialogues these endless silences of ours, countless chats where our words where never lost in a translation that never existed, where I understood you better than many who mumble purposeless gibberish, lost in the illusion that by filling the world with words they will fill the void they carry inside. No, we didn’t need elaborate dictionaries, literate translators, or any strange magic enabling us to understand the unintelligible and learn in a second what many take a lifetime to learn. No, we didn’t need anything, just a simple and hidden smile, that smile you bring inside you, my friend, that smile you show to only a few but which you offer with you heart, that very same heart you touch countless times with your hard-worked hand, crafted by time and the harshness of your life. Yet you keep on, you survive the harshness with by offering your smile, expecting only the hug from a friend, like you, whom I’ll carry with me in the memory of this land, your land, in the memory of this strange country which will entrench in my soul more deeply than I can think of, and which I know I will remember as home when I’m lost somewhere, my friend, a home I’ll have here also because I found you. I’m going to craft you with works, my friend, even though they were not necessary for me to call today as a friend.

(in honor of Ahmed, restless doorman of Hostel El Pacha, simple person, best cook of Essaouira and, above all, a friend)

Essaouira, Morocco, November/December 2010

Dalí Painting

2011-01-20T01:21:00.008Z

I’m lying down in a Dalí painting. Inside everyone is asleep, but I’m wide awake, turned into insomnia by the intense star noise that dragged me out to this room, this immense room crowned by stars which is now my own, all mine, so big and all mine... Lying just outside the tent’s door I use my fingertips to touch the sky, timidly lit by a yellowish darksome white light that reflects from the fading moon in the horizon, and that fills with shadows this surreal painting of tones of a greyish dark blue where some random Dalí lost his brush one day. Hovering among the dunes and mountains that compose the horizon, the brush creates before my eyes strange animals with very long legs who, in the absence of elephants, are camels who wobble lazily in front of me, making my still body feel once more the bumpy road that brought me here. On both sides of this painting the brush decorates white tents that snore gently, while in the middle pops a faint red light, recent memory of the blaze around which Tuaregs danced wildly, like me, at the sound of their own rhythmic and joyful beat, consequence of the immense pride they feel in welcoming us their home, this huge sand-made home which is now my own as well. Inside everyone is asleep, but I am here, let alone in this house which is now also mine, just mine, even if only for a moment, even if only in the memory of this painting Dalí lost one day in the desert and which I was lucky enough to find.

Somewhere in the desert - Zagora, Morocco, October 2010

Round and round

2010-11-05T20:38:00.014Z

I feel my feet moving very rapidly, while marching slowly amongst the feet of others, of donkeys and mules, of bike and cart wheels, running away from exhaust pipes that blow warm air against my shins warming up further an already heated atmosphere. While I wander around random streets which way I ignore, I deviate from people who approach me, many sellers, friendly strangers who insist I come from Spain, France, even Argentina, ignoring my Lusitanian soul which I rarely disclose. “Closed!” More out of necessity than out of taste, I learn to ignore the overflow of useless information with which I am confronted, after someone tries to convince me for the fourteenth time the street I’m walking down has no exit, this one out of them all, one of the few I already know. I stop, resting my eyes for a jiffy in a bit of sky, returning rapidly to the narrow ground which I’m covering and that out of a sudden widens up in an immense opening, an enormous uncovered square, which unfortunately is covered today by a grayness which steals away the colors from moments I want orange, like the endless juices engorged by my faithful squire, or maybe of the intense blue wore by the Berber snake oil sellers, bearers of potions probably made from the enchanted snakes I find further down, or maybe from the monkeys who enchant the staring passerby. I stop again, staring myself at this claustrophobic expanse which engulfs and chokes me. And I run away fast, very fast, in a flash that takes me out of the immense mess into an oasis of tranquility, a small den among plants of a garden where my poorly slept mind finally manages to think for a bit, mostly about nothing, and where out of the blue I find the colors which I was missing, all gathered in this small nook someone planted someday. Enough. Invigorated once more I run back to the mess, now made of lights and smoke and more people and strange tastes and beheaded goats who, boiled, smile at me and more juices and new friends who continue insisting in mistaking my origin. I stop once more in the middle of the square, but now invaded by a sense of freedom while the whole world around me goes round and round, sensing my clothes absorb rare tastes and feeling my skin wrapped in travelling and in this Marrakesh that surrounds me and spins around like a crazy merry-go-round entrenched in the memories of old days but soaked in a mist of eternity. And yet again I run, just because, taken away by the sole yearn to run around endlessly.

Marrakesh, Morocco, October 2010

On the other side of the straight - interlude, or the restart of an endless journey

2010-10-28T02:16:00.008+01:00

Once more I feel the breeze of strange odors, unknown flavors that populate the savoring of miles of road that I devour again in an interlude of a bigger journey, my endless journey. Suspended in the memory of itinerant days that went by rapidly, I return once more to the road, this time southbound, on the other side of the straight. I land here abruptly, fallen from the sky, after going up and down in an instant that brought me from known land into medieval narrow streets that twist and turn and make me stray in the midst of times long gone and that I renew with each step. Lost inside a time machine, I ignore the path I trail after passing the blue gate which marks its entrance, letting the long narrow alley slowly dip me in a meander of people, spices, tapestry, animals, clothes, food, too much stuff all clogged up and sold in too little space. Stopping for a while I am engulfed by those who surround me, looking at them while they walk up and down, pushing and pulling me, trying to sell to me, looking at me, ignoring and hosting me, latticed in a slick and narrow thread made of people who walk around wrapped in rare garments and who, as myself, move around towards themselves, towards everyone, towards no one. A bit further down I hear the Mosque calling me to prayer, feeling in my body a reminiscence of what I must have been some day in lands of the western Al Gharb, the very same territory from where I come and which was long liberated from an ‘infidel’ enemy who in fact looks a lot like me. Without noticing I ended up taking little steps towards my past life, towards what I could be right now if that crusade older than the memory of my noble nation had never taken place. I walk a bit further, to get lost again, on purpose this time, but chance twists my intentions taking me away from time and into the comfort of my riad, that house which becomes my own at the speed of smiles from new friends who open their hearts to me. I’m feeling alive. From the top of the terrace the rare smell of spice fills yet again my nostrils, my mouth, my thoughts, while the calling of the imams invades the horizon of the sunset in Fez to renew the certainty of my presence in foreign land, distinct from my own even though the sky has the same tone of blue. I’m alive, eager to feel more, taste further, absorb it all, know everything, be mistaken, wander aimlessly, simply live. Feeling once more blood rushing through my veins, I know the road is my friend.

Fez, Morocco, October 2010

Half World, World in half

2010-02-08T18:27:00.005Z

Ecuador, the World’s half... I’m going up this country towards the line that divides the planet in two without knowing yet what I’ll find in this mythical place. But what’s there after all, in the World’s halfway? In the World’s halfway there is above all bananas, many, never-ending forests of countless banana trees that feed the whole World with this scrumptious fruit, a present genetic memory of our primate past. There is also heat, a humid heat that dampens my body while I walk the streets of Guayaquil hunting for fish and refreshment, which I always seem to find near the river where I like to rest my eyes. There is also people, many, of variable friendliness, maybe due to the natural human shyness, maybe not, after all in these latitudes this personality trait seems to vary according to the altitude you’re at. I verify that when I climb up to Cuenca, Andean village of affable people but somewhat calmer and quieter, a place crammed with streets narrower and darker than the ones near the coast. This is a sort of Spanish Andalusia or Extremadura countryside village lost by chance in the Andes. I do not stay here long, after all I’m on my way to the equator and that line is further ahead. I keep going north through the Andean inland, surrounded by valleys and volcanoes in a greener landscape than the one found in the southern Andes, nevertheless rugged, restless, similar. Listening to the roaring motor of the bus that faces the turns linking Riobamba and Quito, I start to remember many other turns and straight roads, paved or made of dirty and sand which I wandered since January, since Brazil where this adventure started. I remember each day, each hour, each bump of the way, each splash in the water, each smile and friend I made, each strong hug I gave, each sunset and aurora, each music heard and sang, each nostalgia I lived, old and new, each sun beam, raindrop and snowflake. I remember each minute passed and lived in company, human or non-human, in my own company most of the time, the whole time after all. A little smile starts to pop from the corner of my mouth despite the weight of my legs being too heavy already. Quito also pops up in between thoughts, little by little, along the valley. In the city centre I see some of the most beautiful churches and building as I lose myself in its cobblestone streets, but at the same time I feel I’m walking around a sort of zombie city, where many wander the streets clearly with little in their pockets, less in their bellies and too many ideas on their minds. There is something wrong about this country of too much oil and bananas and too little money and food, but in the end it is just one more, this country is not alone, this is not only found here. All this I find in the World’s middle, at least here in the country that bears the name of the magical line where South meets North. I also arrive to the middle. If the end of the World was not the end of my trip, the middle is not the end either, while being an end at the same time. It is a midpoint, one of the halves of my bigger journey. I reach the globe’s half-point and in it I find the time to stop, to rest. It is time to start drowning my ‘saudade’ (nostalgia) every day in the drawings of a Portuguese cobblestone street, in the eyes of a sardine which overlooks a glass of wine while it is grilled, in an ‘bica’ (espresso) which flirts with a ‘pastel de nata’ (Portuguese custard pie), in the chat of a Portuguese guy who complains about life during football’s half-time, in a hug given by old friends and family. It is, after all, the time to breathe again the Portuguese salty air of my homeland Algarve. Looking at the magical line I think of all the land to roam ahead, but I do not cross it, not now, not yet. With the ticket in my hand and the backpack on my shoulders I head towards the plane that will take me across the ocean, always with a wee smile on the corner of my mouth, after all I crossed half World already and the end is no more than a pause, a deep breath I take before starting all over again.

Quito, Ecuador, October 2009

Dune

2010-02-08T18:26:00.003Z

Still. Finally still. I live inside a dune, under its white sand that is constantly blown by the light breeze and pushed, moistened by this sea of constant and vigorous waves, not too many or too strong, just perfect. Like a crab, I dig my way to the sea, dipping my body in its water, letting me float lightly, weightlessly, wrapped in a sense of freshness that counters the sun, who insists in warming my body, gladly. My eyes are shut. The light-filled reddish darkness I see hurts my eyes, hallucinating my blood, which is boiled by the sun and by the whole road wandered in the last nine months. Dipping my head, I hear the sea whispering softly to me the shells that come and go, the tide and waves moving, the cadenced dives of fishermen with wings, who fish uninterruptedly, as if the world ended tomorrow. The sea whispers to me its whole bottom, softly, as if I was one more fish, an old friend who returns after a long time. And I am. If doubts subsisted I lose them as I open my eyes and see an old seal floating, swimming next to me, looking at me, joining me in this aquatic moment. Shy, he winks at me and dives when he sees I noticed his presence, going away, throughout the sea. I lose him in the waves, but it does not matter. Instead I just stay here, still, forgotten, looking at the sun who wants also to be a part of this sea, sinking slowly into it, while my body sinks as well as it returns to the dune. My shut eyes listen to the sea rocking my sleep from a distance. I know I am in paradise. I breathe it slowly, once and again, without any sort of rush of breathing it all at once. There is no rush at all, I live inside a dune, still, shackled to the freedom of living paradise.

Vichayito - Mancora, Peru, October 2009

Further ahead, in the north

2010-01-30T18:18:00.005Z

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

Static

2010-01-11T16:38:00.003Z

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

Through where the Incas wander

2009-11-27T04:47:00.004Z

When I wake up my mouth is as dry as if I had been chewing newspaper the whole night. The bus glasses are moist out of the humidity produced by 40 bodies breathing and snoring the whole night. Together with my also moist eyes, the bus glasses barely let me see through to the street where the still dark walls are slowly waking up with the rest of the city. I’m not even sure about where I am, it could be Cuzco or Beijing, it all looks the same after a night of light sleep woken up suddenly by an undesired and scarce breakfast. We arrive and I walk out the bus station. The backpack’s weight is trebled by the altitude, but each of my steps, already used to the height by many weeks lived with my hands touching the clouds, is slow and steady. After all there’s no rush. Walking up to the centre without still realising where I am, I suddenly bump for the first time into the perfectly aligned puzzle of a smoothly flattened and asymmetrically symmetrical Inca wall. I look at it amazed and amaze myself when I see that on top of this wall there is a church, one more church out of the many my Spanish neighbours planted here as they passed by. While I rub my eyes to check if I’m well awake a sudden ‘Didn’t they have anywhere else to build a church’ slips out of my mouth, but I instantly fall into my senses and remember this is no more than the need to demonstrate subjugation, in order to complete the destruction of an entire civilization in the name of pure greed for the silver and gold of these lands. I walk a bit further up and see more of the same, whole buildings, complete streets of aligned rocks that are used as foundations for many other buildings that do not belong here despite being stupidly beautiful. I walk up a long and narrow alley and feel myself go back in time while starting to see Incas walking by. These are people other than those who walk here now and who I can’t even imagine because for each step I take looking at the pavement one other is taken looking in front, and the buildings above do not let me go back in time for more than brief instants, short seconds of an inability to imagine other times that passed by too fast while the invader buried centuries of misunderstood evolution under rocks, buildings erected in the name of a greed masked as faith and that God himself knocked down once and again in successive earthquakes, which invariably left standing only the rocks underneath, the only ones that should be here. I move on, while thinking as a Portuguese that we did the same, maybe in a different way and in a different place, but basically the same and I feel bad about it. I zigzag in between the tourists and sellers, walk up and down streets, go in and out churches, cross looks with people who welcomes and distrusts me at once, take a couple of photos and, in spite of being in one of the most beautiful cities I’ve seen during this journey, I think to myself: ‘Enough!’. I’m wandering the imperial Cuzco, through where the Incas still wander in the shadow of their own rocks, and it hurts it has to be like this.

Cuzco, Peru, August 2009

In Arequipa

2009-11-10T10:52:00.003Z

I’m wandering. Once more I wander the white volcanic rock streets that make this beautiful city, one glued to the other, an endless amount of streets. House after house, church after church, one street crossing leads to the next and I feel as if I am wandering a labyrinth made of straight streets with perfect exists that I cannot reach. I run fast but I can’t reach them, although step after step I see them all at an arm-reach distance. I fell like the city does not want to let me go away, but maybe it’s just me who does not want to go, maybe it’s just me realizing I’ll never leave this place again, this city where I lived some of the most beautiful moments of this journey. Stopping in the main square I see in the background the black volcano that decorates one of the square’s corners, my corner, where I spent many minutes turned into days, always hearing a music that despite being repetitive never got me tired while I waited for a look, the look of your eyes that will have me bound to this place forever. I look at the volcano and wish he can spit out what this other volcano inside me cannot, but the dark mountain invariably stares at me inert, inhospitable, black. I run very fast but the ground seems to escape under my feet and I stumble and fall. I get back on my feet and stumble again, but I keep getting back on my feet one time after the other. I want to reach my corner of the square, but each rock on the ground seems to lift to prevent me from getting there. I fall one last time, when I’m already reaching the middle of the square, and my head bangs heavily against the hard pavement making me lose my senses while I feel my body starting to float in the air. When up high in the sky I start hearing a music in the distance, which is not the same monotonous music I’ve always listened to. It’s just the beat of my heart that saw yours and started to sing like this:

“Llego por la calle que dibuja el corazón,
Entro por la puerta de un mundo de pasión,
Abro la sonrisa al encontrar el callejón,
Donde estás parada escuchando mi canción.

Siento dentro mí una suave explosión,
Como un dulce trueno que me aplasta el corazón,
Veo en tu mirada la belleza de un marrón
Que no existe, es tan lindo, debe ser una ilusión.

Quiero ya besarte y no sé cómo es posible
Que me sienta así, recién te veo, es increíble
Pero no hay control eres un sueño que yo vivo
Aquí en vivo y que lindo, no quiero más despertar.

Eres la hermosura que encontré en mi camino
Eres una magia que me llena de cariño,
Eres dulce amor una sonrisa que me atrapa
Desde que te encontré.

En Arequipa, encontré el calor de una mirada,
La sonrisa de una chica enamorada,
En sus labios la dulzura que me llena el corazón.

Ciudad bonita, donde me crucé con la más linda nena,
Que me abraza con su suave piel morena,
Despertando con su ser dentro de mí la gran pasión,
Elena”

My lips sing this music dictated by each beat of my heart, but it’s not enough, they’re not enough. I see your eyes look at mine one last time, giving me a fleeting glance that both hugs me and tells me to go. I wander once more, but the white of these streets is not the same and the black tar of the pavement ends up pointing the way once more. I wander, once more, but I know I found my way and it points in the opposite direction of the one the road draws in the distant horizon.

Arequipa, Peru, August 2009

The Sun's birthplace

2009-11-10T10:51:00.007Z

I breathe in. The rare oxygen is rapidly absorbed by every tired cell of my body, each of them invariably panting after the many uphill and downhill slopes walked under the scorching sun of this island that shares its name with this heavenly body. This is the same place the Incas believed to be their supreme sun-god’s birthplace. Sitting on top of the hill that tops the island I look around at the famous lake Titicaca, embedded in the foothills of the even taller mountains that surround it and fit it in between the rocks and the sky, making this lake more of a mirror of what surrounds it and of the World. I close my eyes and feel like a little giant sitting on the World’s peak. I imagine my legs long enough to reach the shore with a small jump, as if I was seated in a little rock inside a puddle. I feel my arms long enough to reach the boats that sail this lake, as if I was just a child playing with them in a random Summer afternoon. I stand up and manage to touch the sky, blow around the few clouds on it, burn my fingertips when I touch this little star that lights my way and burns my skin. Opening my eyes and feeling the sun burning the back of my head, I realize while looking around why the Incas knew this place was the Sun’s birthplace. I breathe out, it’s time to move on.

Island of the Sun - Lake Titicaca, Bolivia, August 2009

A village

2009-10-26T03:01:00.004Z

A village. A big one, but a village. Packed with cars and buildings, with the most modern of modernity, with big brands’ stores, with rich and exclusive neighborhoods. But still a village, filled with simple people who wander the streets of this big city indifferent to its size, living as if they were in just another Andean village, with the same clothes and simple habits lived for centuries, with only the occasional cell phone breaking the slow walk that prevents them from drowning in the lack of oxygen caused by altitude. A village of markets and churches and streets filled with people and colors and houses hanging from the walls of the valley that surrounds it, houses piled on top of each other, village over village, the many villages that constitute this big village of simple people. Village also filled with tourists, many of them strangers to it, living inside bubbles of westernization, from which they only come out when it’s time to leave, leaving without ever experiencing the true taste of this village, of its people, the true essence of La Paz. A village, where my rushed walk leaves me breathless, maybe because I let myself be fooled by its big city look, forgetting that after all I’m in a village, and in villages there is no reason to rush...

La Paz, Bolivia, August 2009

Parade

2009-10-26T02:19:00.004Z

Looking at the parade that celebrates Bolivia’s independence, with Evo Morales waiving from the balcony at the people looking at him down from the street, I dream. I dream of the day when at the parade that celebrates a country there are no military or weapons. Let march the people, normal people, people that makes the country. Let march clowns and shoemakers, maestros, other musicians, carpenters and bricklayers, bankers and lottery sellers. Let march poets and writers, ironmasters and entrepreneurs, those who study and those who don’t, housewives and their sons, fishermen and farmers, doormen and taxi drivers, referees and sportsmen. Let march architects, engineers, patients, doctors and nurses, firefighters and truck drivers. Let march the crazy and the insane, without them there’s no parade, let march politicians as well, don’t let them stick to the stands, let the military join the people, all of us who were made equal, because not only with weapons and wars are arsenals filled with. Let march the country, the whole country, made by people that fills it and builds it, in each day’s struggle for living and being happy. Let's show the World the whole country, everything contained in it, not just the gun that keeps frontiers as they are. Let's show all that makes that country unique, its arts, its struggle, its work, all the blood and sweat spilled each day, the proud of being human, and love, yes!, love. Why show hatred or rancor or racism or stupidity? Shall the national embrace the foreigner, as the distinguished guest he is, shall the doors be opened to those who want to know who we are. Enough of hatred and fighting, of stupid borders and wars, enough of all those limitations and prisons that take away our freedom. The World is ours, of us all! Let’s celebrate the country as the culture it is, not as some damn birdcage involved in barbwire. I dream of the day when at the parade that celebrates a country there are no military or weapons. I dream, but when will the day arrive in which I will not have to dream about it anymore?

Sucre, Bolivia, August 2009

The miners of Potosi

2009-10-18T22:38:00.002+01:00

I can’t write. Words can’t come out of my mouth, I can’t chain thoughts, ideas or images, nothing comes out. I just lived one of the most beautiful experiences of my journey and still I can’t describe what I felt and lived. People, simple people, more hard working than what I ever was or will ever be, because they live all their lives dedicated or chained to an intense work inside a mine that practically gave birth to them, which gives birth to them one day after the other. People that inhales smoke and dusk, living in darkness to earn the close to nothing given by this sacred and dirty mountain, dilapidated by centuries of greed. People who have close to nothing, who once a year celebrate the luck of none of them having disappeared, asking once more to Mother-Earth not to swallow them. People who forget about everything else this day, doing nothing but smiling. People who do not know me, who I am, where I’m from, where I’m heading to, but still open the door of their house and welcome me as a brother, that long lost brother who has been away all their lives and who comes back to be welcomed as a king. ‘What are they waiting for in return?’, is asked by anyone whose mind has been soiled by our daily greedy living. They do not wait for nothing in return but smiles, wanting us only to share their joy, their drinks, the meat of the llamas they sacrificed to PachaMama, their music, their dances, their home. They wait for us to leave their place with the same smile they have, so we can return someday to smile together once more. I leave the place speechless and my writing doesn’t come out because I look around, I look back at the world and at my life and I feel dirty, unworthy of all this. I feel this world of ours has a lot to re-learn, that each day we step further and further away from what’s worthy, from what really matters. We’re forgetting each day that life for love and smiles can exist if we want it to exist, although we prefer each day to attach ourselves to material things, to so much stuff that distracts us and pushes us away from ourselves. And I’m not saying we should stop the progress of things, which brings us all so many worthy advancements and tools. I’m only questioning if we are taking the right path and the answer is so obvious that I feel like crying. We are destroying our world. More than our planet, which can take care of itself and will, eventually, eliminate us if we continue this destructive path, in the name of progress we are destroying human relations, the capacity to love, to give ourselves to one another, to trust each other. And it does not have to be like this, there are other ways of progressing fully, in every sense, without having to sacrifice mankind for a simple X% extra profit. And this endless greed is not new, it has been around for ages. Maybe due to our human nature some may say, or because of our inability of being totally free. But once and again it is in the presence of simple people who welcome me in their houses with arms wide open that I realize human nature cannot be used as an excuse. There’s still many of us in the world who, even without having a lot, give out everything they have for a simple smile. There’s still hope, but when will things change? What do we have to do, what can we do each day to change and improve the life of every single one of us? I look down at the paper once more and don’t know what to say, maybe because I lost my speech when I felt the strong hug and simple smile of the miners from Potosi that
stole the words from my mouth and swept my feet of the ground.

Photos: Karim BenBenai

Potosi, Bolivia, 1st of August 2009

p.s.: thank you very much Karim, for the photos and for guiding me into this experience.

The enchanted world of Uyuni

2009-10-08T00:31:00.014+01:00

To follow their route the four knights had to cross the enchanted salt desert of Uyuni, which was said to be guarded by magical creatures and enchanted by mysterious spells. Guided by their faithful squire, who was taking them in his metal horse, they entered the immense white flat. After a few hours they reached a cactus oasis where the squire had to stop to let the beast that was carrying them rest for a while. While the knights waited a friendly old man invited them to walk a bit through the desert while he charmed them with lovely tales. When inside the desert the old men transformed himself! He was a disguised wizard who told them: "You entered this desert without paying your respects to Pachamama, the Mother-Earth, and she is furious with you! Now you'll have to go to the iced mountain to honor her or your friend will keep shrinking until he disappears forever." And throwing a lightning bolt with his hands he transformed one of the knights in a tiny one-inch dwarf, vanishing afterwards. While the three big ones looked at each other confused and picked up the now little dwarf knight putting him in one of their pockets, their faithful squire appeared and took them back to the oasis. After getting to know what happened he said: "We have to reach the mountain before dawn, or he will vanish forever!" They quickly left the salt flats headed to the sacred mountain. But in order to be able to enter it they had to first collect the four elements that would enable them to break the spell. So they did, going firstly to the lagoon where the sacred flamingos lived. There they collected a feather with which they would pay respect to the air. After that they went to the desert where they found a tree made of stone from where they took a leaf to homage the earth. The last stop before the mountain was the pink lake from where they took some of its magical liquid with which they would show their respect for the water. When they finally reached the mountain they had to face the freezing temperatures of the mountain's dawn so they could pray to the Pachamama. In front of one of the puddles of boiling mud they offered the other three elements inside the fire that came from inside the mountain, thanking Mother-Earth for the beautiful adventure they had just lived. The spell was broken and the little dwarf started to go back to his normal size at the same time the morning sun slowly rose in the horizon. Already able to hug his friends he grabbed them to thank their help. And so the the five stood there looking at the sun that was rising through the mist.

Uyuni, Bolivia, July 2009

The sound of the desert

2009-09-26T04:17:00.003+01:00

“Close your eyes”, he said, “and listen to the sound of the desert.” Siting in a dune it was not difficult: I only had to, imagine, close my eyes and listen. In the beginning I heard a light whistle echoing in my ears. It was the sound of 30 years continuously spent hearing to exhaust pipes, people, music, jackhammers, screams, television, airplanes, dogs, lights, cellphones, discos, meaningless chatter, computers, guitars, walls, streets, roads and highways, factories, cities and countryside, a whole lot of noise, too much, all together, mixed in one single whistle. Little by little it disappeared. The noise of silence shut down the noise of millenniums of civilization, letting everything get involved by an immense calm and the soft wind that was blowing. I felt as if my brain was also shutting down and everything else stopped existing. No before, no after, nothing else but that moment that lasted a second but felt like centuries of rest. “Let’s go!”. It finished. As the group started to run down the dune the silence disappeared once more, replaced by the laughter of children that was produced also by adults. But in the end the silence remains forever, here in this desert and inside each of us. We only have to want to hear it.

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, July 2009

One last 'asado'

2009-09-26T04:06:00.005+01:00

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

I Feel

2009-09-26T03:56:00.003+01:00

I feel the earth, the ground, the smell of dryness and herbs I do not know. I feel the sky watching me from above, hardly reflected in the scarce water that runs far from here, in the bottom of the canyon, in that little yellow snake that can hardly be seen. I feel the wind, warm and cold, the tar and the sand, the air I breathe and the sun that burns my skin. I feel the friendly hug of a stranger that talks to me only to say hello. I feel the sound of nothingness, of the vastness, of this void filled with everything that surrounds and suffocates me. I feel, I feel, I feel... I feel until it is impossible to not feel anymore, until I get unconscious from feeling so much. I feel with my six senses, as if they were eight, ten, a single one. I close my eyes and breathe. The world could end right here, right now, I would not notice a thing.

Cafayate Canyon, Argentina, July 2009

A place

2009-09-03T23:59:00.004+01:00

What defines a place? Things? Objects? Light? Walls? Sun? Darkness? Sounds? Scents? Foods? Tastes? A dog crossing the street among many cars? A bottle of wine on a table while pies are eaten? Churches, many, built a long long time ago with a lot of sacrifice by some for the forgotten glory of only a few? A street filled with flowers and colors and shops and people? People, that's it, people, that's exactly what defines a place. I arrived and saw nothing but a small house painted white, I had no idea what it was. "Let's get inside", I was told. We did. We all got inside and what I saw had nothing to do with the outside. This place, a place, had a bit of everything, records, plates, bicycles, mannequins, other dolls, little light, tables, a lot of music, old clothes, little light, people, chatter, people, smiles, people... Friends. A place is only a place, what makes it unique is who we meet while there.

Cordoba, Argentina, July 2009

Le Tour of red

2009-09-03T06:27:00.003+01:00

As soon as we arrived I jumped on top of my bike. My companions have no idea that for me this is much more than a simple ride, that each time I sit behind the handlebars I am preparing for a race. Ah Ah!! The Mendoza wines' tour transforms into Tour de France, Giro de Italia and Volta a Portugal inside my legs. We take off and from the start I take the head of the group, dictating the pace. I will not be surprised, must be aware of anyone trying to escape this group of seven. In the middle of all this I look over my shoulder to control the distance and check my competitors' faces and, all of a sudden, I start to hear a whistling music that I know from long ago. As if by magic, instead of an Armstrong or Agostinho I start to feel now like the Piraña from Verano Azul (Blue Summer), followed by his friends in this case, the opposite of what usually happened in that Southern Spain TV show. My heart calms down, as well as my legs, I start to look around and to enjoy the scenery and the wind that blows lightly against my face. Winery number 1, the visit gets started, that's how we make it, that's how we keep it, that's how we drink it, and the little Indurain that was left inside me starts to transform himself at the pace that Bacchus takes over my body and inebriates this tour. 'Bodega' 2, one more Malbec, 'Bodega' 3, a Torrontez, 'Bodega' 4, InduWho? Piraña, that's who I am now, cycling lazily, but without the usual ice-cream in his hand, whistling in my head that music while the wheel keeps going, more or less straight, on its way to one more 'Bodega'...

Chacras de Coria - Mendoza, Argentina, July 2009

p.s: for those who forgot about it or for those who do not know yet this jewel of Spanish TV from the 80s, please follow the link to the intro video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epgyu_2QieE

Neruda's windows

2009-08-19T17:59:00.004+01:00

Pablo Neurda, the great Chilean poet, the great writer of global literature... Neruda a poet... Hell no! I also thought that, how innocent was I?, but now that I saw where he lived I know he was not a poet, neither a writer. He was probably a hand, a huge hand, a human pen that wrote endlessly. Now that I saw, felt, smelled, listened, tasted the windows where he lived I know Neruda was not a poet but a translator, a mere and simple scrivener of that immense sea, of the colors that pile up in the hills shaped as houses, of the smell of fresh fish and maybe warm bread, of the blue sky and the birds that fly around, of the people who walk hidden in the steep streets of this paradisiacal valley that embraces the sea, of the boats that undulate on it, of the mountains that contemplate it from a distance. He was a vehicle, a medium, a being through whom words drained to the paper, those words that entered through his eyes, through his nose, through each pore of his skin, through each wave of the restless billowy sea splashing strongly against the rocks, through each sunset he admired from his static boat in his black Isla, through each shell he collected, through his mouth, thought everywhere. Neruda could even be lazy if he wanted, as he woke up every day inside a painting painted by divine beings, not having to do anything, as the whole world entered through his bed in a heartbeat, in the form of a readymade poem. A hand he was! Pablo Neruda a poet... Neruda was not a poet, he was a poem, the poem of the windows in which he lived...

Valparaiso/Isla Negra, Chile, June 2009

2009-08-17T01:16:00.003+01:00

Gosh, how I miss the sea... It has been too long since I last heard it, felt its salty smell, squeezed wet sand in my hands, looked at its floating horizon. I can't be too long away from the sea and it's been more than a month already... But I can almost feel it already. I left Valdivia a while ago, this road's relic has been moaning for too long, we must be arriving to the beach... It stopped. I get off the bus. There it is, the sea. Hmmmmm, what a wonderful smell. I stop by the cliff and hear nothing but the waves splashing against the many rocks that abound in the little bay, which today is grey. The wind blows strongly, bringing little water sprinkles that refresh my heart, he who is missing Portugal. I go down to the sand. A friend sees me from the distance, comes closer, little by little, curious about me, looking at me, questioning me, wondering who I am, this person that just invaded his deserted beach. But he doesn't mean me no harm, he does not even want to expel me from his beach, instead he stops by my side and gazes at the sea together with me. He also likes to watch and feel the sea water, feel the wet sand, be here listening to Neptune playing with the rocks. Suddenly a group a seagulls flies by and he leaves running like a rocket, jumping around, trying to catch them without success. I run with him, why not?, after all the beach is ours, deserted of people but with plenty of sea to enjoy. I stop, he continues. He comes back, once more he stops by my side looking at me. And this time it's me who decides to start running like crazy. He follows me, jumping after me this time, being more successful in catching me than the seagulls, as I only fly in the wings of the wind and the waves. I stop, it's time to go back. He stops as well, looking at me once more, as I do to him. We chat a little while, I turn back and start going up the ramp. He looks at me, gazes at the sea, the seagulls pass by once more and there he goes again... I keep going up. A friend, one more friend that I leave along the way, who will stay in my memory, as I will most certainly stay in his. And we'll both follow our paths, each one his own, happy for having met and richer for having lived this brief moment together. From up the cliff I look at the sea one last time and see him in the sand, ruling happily in his own kingdom, looking at me one last time as well, waving his tale. He was a dog, I was a man, it could have been the other way around, who cares... What matters is that we both watched the sea together, without expecting anything else from each other, just enjoying the beach, sharing this moment, simply living. And wouldn't it be beautiful if it was like this always? We have so much to learn from the animals...

Niebla beach - Valdivia, Chile, June 2009

1004

2009-08-06T22:12:00.008+01:00

I'm living in a postcard. The corners of my existence are not bound by the margins of any piece of cardboard but by the ones of the lake that fills my view. In this dynamic postcard in constant mutation the sun sets and rises up again, over and over, reflecting itself in this immense mirror of cold and crystalline water, which alternates between calm and revolting, as if it was a miniature sea, an ocean confined within mountains, of which I have a complete view, as if I was a giant who calmly observes the world. The postcard moves, falls asleep, wakes up, constantly in the same place, while everything around changes. This sort of frozen image contains in itself many people, moving very fast, as ants, although passing through very slowly. Its only the optical illusion caused by the slow pace at which everything moves inside this postcard, making that everything else seems disproportionately fast. I feeling good being here, while watching a movie which I direct, the movie that runs slowly on this postcard of a land that, despite not being my own, will always belong to me. I command the movie as its director, but I'm only the director of random events that occur all around me and to which outcomes I am complete stranger. Still, I feel like if I was seated in a chair, coordinating the movements of those who come and go, arriving and departing, without ever noticing that arrival and departure are nothing but a continuous movement, perpetual, a constant trip in which arrival and departure are only an illusion made up by us, equivalent to the illusion of memory or that of the future, the projected ideal of what will never happen. I live in a postcard, illustrated with colors, sounds, wonderful moments, people, friends, diverse flavors, places that exist here but belong somewhere else, to an old Europe that is on the other side of the ocean. I live in a postcard that contains a world hanging by its feet, or maybe the world on its feet in a planet itself upside down. I live. The postcard stays here, chained to this immense freedom it exhales. I do not stay here, instead I keep moving, free, chained to this place, but moving again, filled with the immense freedom that being here gives me. I will be back one day, and every day, even after leaving I will never move from here again...

Hostel 1004 - San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina, June 2009

Ice, a whole lot of ice...

2009-08-06T20:53:00.005+01:00

I should have listened to the guide... He told us specifically not to taste the glacier! Ice, cold, tongue, wet... Stubborn as I am I stuck my tongue in the glacier anyway and now I'm glued to it, freezing my ass off while hanging by my tongue... And I didn't have to fly so close to the glacier, couldn't I just have seen it from a distance? Now this living mountain of moaning frozen water pushes me down as well, taking me with it at the pace of millenniums, while slowly descending towards the margin where it will lean on some day. I look at the white and blue sky, so I don't feel the vertigo of the long distance that separates me from the water below my feet, which awaits for me patiently. Every now and then I feel the vibration that anticipates the deafening noise the breaking ice makes when falling heavily in the water. But I'm not afraid, instead I wait patiently for my turn, hanging by my tongue, closing my eyes so I can feel part of this mass that both freezes and fascinates me. And, suddenly... I feel the vibration close to me, ear the noise, and there I go, falling down helplessly, in slow motion, till I dive in the cold water. I was lucky, it could have taken longer... Now I just have to let the water sail me lazily down the lake and wait for the sun to melt the ice so I can have my tongue back. And in the end all this for nothing. After all the glacier tastes, who could imagine!?, like ice...

Perito Moreno glacier - El Calafate, Argentina, May 2009

Strait

2009-08-05T19:52:00.006+01:00

I look at the Strait. I'm imagining Magalhães with its beard flying with the Strait's strong wind while he looks at it, as I do now, with a curious look in his face, the curious look of the Portuguese of those times, who fearlessly sailed around the World. Looking for what? Fortune? Fame? Purely to overcome their own limits? I think they simply came because they had to. Magalhães came because he had a vision, because his instinct told him to come. And I think this especially because he refused to give up when the Portuguese King closed his doors to his ideas. Instead Magalhães looked for alternatives, knocking at the doors of his Spanish neighbors. He came because he had to. He didn't care about being mistaken, he knew being wrong was part of life, the act of living. And he came to give his name to the World, spoken nowadays in diverse ways and with pronunciations distinct from the correct Portuguese one, where difficult ães, ãos and ões abound, those sounds which non-Portuguese speaking noses can't pronounce properly. And he had to really want to come here... If it is difficult to be here today looking at the Strait in its cold wind, inside warm clothes of synthetic cloths that didn't exist back then, meters away from a warm and comfortable café... I imagine how much more difficult it was back then, with years spent on a boat too small for what it had inside and for the vastness of the sea outside its thin wooden walls, while meeting foreign and distant lands, with unknown climates, people, animals, plants. Death was the only certainty and glory nothing but a mere and distant possibility. But they came anyway, him, others, so many, discovering a World which had always existed but which they connected to the rest. I look at the rough Strait and ask myself where all the courage of those Portuguese has gone... Not the courage of conquering land, that doesn't matter, but the courage of conquering different worlds, those of their own fears, breaking their own barriers, overcoming the inertia so they can fight for their dreams. I look at the Strait and can't see that courage anymore... But I can see Magalhães and his courage makes me want to be like him. I look at the Strait and, gosh!, look how beautiful it is...

Punta Arenas, Chile, May 2009

Behold the end of the World!

2009-07-09T21:23:00.004+01:00

The skies do not open so that flaming fires fall of off them. There are no dragons flying around either, spitting the fire that Magellan saw one day in the distance. Infinity does not open in deep cracks and craters in the ground, ready to swallow us, and the sound of strident trumpets does not echo in the skies to warn us the end is near. I cannot even see people running around, scared, terrified, lost or found. From the sky little white snowflakes is the only thing that falls and the white dragons I can see are indifferently pecking the water. The fire, long ago extinguished by greedy conquerors, exists only in the name of this land and in the memory of the indigenous that once lived here. Instead of deep craters huge mountains elevate in the skies, making us feel small, swallowed by its beauty. And the calm sound of the Earth rotating around its own axis and around the sun is all but deafening. My calm steps follow those of who surrounds me, showing the Apocalypse did not arrive yet, or just that the end of the World is all but ugly, being wonderfully beautiful instead. But, just in case, I grab myself, turn around, and continue. It may even be the end of the World, but it is not the end of my journey just yet. There's still a lot of ground to cover, I just need to turn around and go.

Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, April 2009

Southbound Patagonia

2009-07-06T04:46:00.012+01:00

My head is trembling against the window, while my eyes follow this continuous straight line that points to infinity, the infinite way South I can see in the horizon. Tomorrow arrives equal to the present, arid, flat, of all shades of yellow and brown, resembling a calm sea this boat with wheels sails while gently undulating. Only the sky cuts through this pastel polychromy, a sky of an intense blue where white clouds show up once in a while, frosting the sky with a low-hanging cotton candy, low enough to be reached by a small jump or by a children's dream. This monotony of an intense and flat beauty is broken here and there by a small elevation, by little houses that show up timidly, by an abrupt sea view that reminds us the one we are sailing is fake. Along the way I stop many times, for days, weeks, hours, slowly, in the laziness of being here. I stop in Viedma, doorway to this vastness, as well as Las Grutas, deserted beach of a summertime which has already ended. I take my time in Puerto Madryn, where the sea watches me, where animals come on vacation, where I know the last two penguins out of the hundreds that have already headed somewhere else, where the whales will arrive very soon. I fly through Comodoro, the place where all the winds meet in their way to the end of the World, where they will turn back to blow again throughout the Earth. My head trembles against the window. I see the sun go down, falling asleep, disappearing lazily, shutting my eyes together with his. I have no idea if the line will be there when I open them again, continuing straight and endless. Maybe a new horizon will arrive, but who cares anyway... I only know the line will continue, more or less straight, and I'll continue with it.

Somewhere in Patagonia, RN3, Argentina, April 2009

Felt a Tango

2009-05-16T00:01:00.015+01:00

I walk down the street, watching the ground disappear under my feet, under each step, which I take slowly, languidly. This never-ending grey pavement flows continuous, endlessly, in a monotony broken only by a crossing street, an open whole in the ground, a kiosk, a terrace, by the many who cross my way making me zigzag every now and then. I'm walking and watching. I watch people, coffee houses, stores. I watch the sun going down in the distance, with its fading light, giving way for the night to arrive, little by little, only to keep on the mess that reigns during the day. I'm walking and looking at the horizon in front of me, at the end of this endless street of Buenos Aires, of this Buenos Aires of endless streets. I can't see pink palaces nor colourful tin-made houses. I can't see old buildings that line up continuously nor modern buildings in a port stolen from nature. I can't even see euphoric people making the stands tremble at the pace of emotion and goals, neither parks, large avenues, the river turned into sea, I can't see any of these things. The long hours spent walking are used to look at who's around, who passes by. Thinking, feeling. Feeling the thick air entering my nostrils, hearing the cars running in the streets, watching those who like myself walk continuously. I wonder what each passerby is thinking about, what each of them is feeling, but I immediately get lost in my own thoughts, in that smile that keeps coming to my mind, though I see it further and further away. I smile as well, thinking of friends, of how good it was to feel like family among them while sharing 'mates', 'asados', drinks, never-ending chats... But the same smile keeps coming to my mind, to remind me of other beautiful moments, lived now as well as before, lived in a heartbeat, which now slowly fade away, bringing the nostalgia of a present that rapidly turns into past, even though I kick and flounder. Instead I move on, walk through the night, kicking against the pavement, dancing with the unknown people that crosses my way, sharing with them this pavement, this city, this very moment. A distant and muffled sound drags my feet towards a music. I follow them. I let this sweet melody take control of me and the moment control my senses. My eyes dance in the feet and bodies that move slowly, passionately, twisting around each other, involving each other, falling in love with each other. I feel the sound with my fingertips and down my spine, through where slowly descends a tango that I taste with the nostalgia of a smile. I hear without knowing what I'm listening to, listening what I can't hear, listening to my heart instead that sings this way:

"Vos sos sonrisa en mi boca, la sonrisa que no está,
Vos sos la luz que ilumina mi Buenos Aires,
Sos la tristeza de un adiós que no quería,
El feo adiós de una sonrisa que se fue.

Sos el todo de una pasión, de un lindo sueño,
Vos sos un tango que bailó dentro de mi,
Sos ese tango que aun baila dentro de mi corazón,
Vos sos el tango que bailé pero se fue.

No te vayas de mi vida! Ya te fuiste...
No te olvides lo lindo que fue lo nuestro,
Ya me voy pero el dolor aquí se queda,
Porque tan solo tu sonrisa está en mi.

Vos sos el tango Argentino que bailó un Portugués,
Sos la nostalgia que cambió, vos sos saudade!
Serás, mi linda, para siempre una sonrisa,
Dulce pasión que me prendió a Buenos Aires."

My feet decide to move down the street once more and the pavement starts to unwind under them. The tenuous light follows the sound that is also fading, slowly, which I can hear further and further away, like a nostalgia that stays while I go away. I follow nothing but my own footsteps. Inside I am still dancing this tango that plays endlessly, although it is also fading away, little by little...

Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 2009

Any tale will do...

2009-05-03T21:47:00.018+01:00

While looking at the amazing amount of water that falls continuously in front of me I start to wonder about how everything started. The Guarani Indians have their own explanation about the waterfalls formation in a beautiful tale, which I could just jot down here. But I decide to write my own instead. I close my eyes, feel the water sprinkles in my face and let my imagination flow down the falls...

"Once upon a time, back in the days when gods still wandered the Earth, there was a little river. Well, it was more like a little stream, winding down through tree roots and rocks, with no rush or destination, just flowing. Especially because what he really loved was to feel every turn of his way, every place he passed by, delighting himself with the different temperatures and tastes of every rock, tree, grain of soil, of each animal that drank from his water. In fact he was so happy that he started sighing of joy, especially when he passed by his favourite place, a place where a pink rock made him feel different, very happy, a happiness he could not describe. The rock also loved feeling the little stream pass by, letting herself get involved by him, delighted with the freshness that cut through the forests' strong heat. One day without knowing how they fell in love. The stream ran faster just to meet the rock that responded anxiously with a sweet chant, hoping the stream would never loose his way to her.
Some day a random god heard the chant while wandering the Earth's surface. He stopped, investigated where the chant came from and found the little pink rock. The chant was so beautiful that he fell in love instantly. From then on he started to come everyday to hear the rock, staying each day longer and longer. He spent so much time listening that he realized the little rock didn't sing to him, but that chant and sigh were the same, the result of a passion that was not his own. Blinded by envy, the god decided to pull out the rock to take her with him, so that she could be exclusively his forever. As soon as he did that the little rock started to cry, out of so much pain and sadness, as she didn't feel her loved stream pass by anymore. Crying, she begged to be returned to her original place, as she could no longer live away from her little stream. Hearing this, and bewildered by anger of jealousy, the god shouted: "So you don't want to be mine and live forever in the glory of my eternal company and beauty? Then you won't be with anyone else either!" And clenching his fist he punched the rock against the ground, sinking her in the huge crater he opened, hiding her forever from her loved little stream.

Seeing all happening in front of him and unable to do anything about it, the little stream shouted loudly, a deep roar of immense pain heard all-around the place. And he also started to cry, crying, more and more, unable to stop. Hearing the roar and the intense crying his brothers, cousins, neighbours, all came to see what was happening. When they arrived the stream noticed he was getting stronger and that if more streams joined him maybe they could together excavate the bottom and find his loved pink rock. So they all roared together and called more and more streams and rivers, growing its flow, which going vertiginously down the cliff started to excavate the rock bed bellow.
To this day the then little stream still flows continuously, using his and his brothers strength in his endless search for his loved one. No-one knows for sure if they already met, but some say theyalready did, living happily under the bed of the Iguaçu, hidden behind the falls, while the great water applauds endlessly the sweet chant of the two lovers.

Iguaçu Falls, Brazil/Argentina, March 2009

São Paulo

2009-04-08T23:53:00.025+01:00

Here is the great São Paulo: building, after building, cement, more buildings, people, more people, too indifferent, running, in between the buildings, in between the cars, always running. I run also, not knowing why, without ever stopping. I see people, all over, from all over. I run and reach the park, where I finally breathe. I look the buildings reflected in the water and realize I don’t belong here... Instead I decide to move on, friends await for me, here and further away, still in São Paulo, but in the state’s countryside, on my way to Argentina that awaits for me as well. I stop for a while, to feel like home, then I move on. The road is calling for me again and I must go once more...

Presidente Prudente, Brazil, March 2009

"Olha que coisa mais linda..."

2009-04-08T23:53:00.017+01:00

I sit here in the bus terminal, waiting. It is time to finally leave Rio de Janeiro, after three intense weeks... It is tough to leave this city behind... Very much! It is very difficult to leave behind friends, intense memories, so much joy, strong and varied emotions. It is very difficult to leave behind Carnival ‘blocos’ (blocks), samba circles, joyful ‘botecos’ (pubs), endless parties, unique landscapes, nature, beach, the city and its huge mess, countless smiles. Maybe it is complicated to leave the Redeemer’s arms because I feel home here... Or maybe just because the city’s charm is really huge, exciting, unique. But for now it is time to move on. Leave Rio to come back some day, maybe in a very short term, maybe only in the wings of dream and 'saudade'. But the desire to come back lives inside me, in a very intense way...

Once uppon a time in the ‘bloco’...

Noise. In crescendo, as the crowd gathers. From time to time a threat of samba in the warm up of a tambourine, cuíca or bass-drum, slowly, without any sort of rush. The hubbub keeps growing as everyone gets happier and happier. A rabbit arrives accompained by the bearded Snow-White. The seven dwarfs didn’t come, or maybe they’re just lost in the crowd. Further away a group of ballet dancers is finishing, or maybe starting, to practice their silly choreography. A Gnome and a Smurf join in, as well as many more... Meanwhile a manly female-nurse helps those in need while a Arab runs after Uncle Sam throwing his show at him. When the music finally starts the crowd is already a compact mass of people, a sort of zoo of which not only animals are a part of. At the first chords joy arrives and this block painted by Dalí starts to move, dancing and jumping tirelessly, singing in unison old musics that are part of my childhood’s Carnivals in Loulé. Here people also look at ZéZé’s wig and Chiquita also dresses in a banana peel, most probably after insisting that 'cachaça' is water, ending up as the catwalk’s only star. But there are also new rhythms, many new only to me. Suddenly a group of misses shows up to wave with their hairy arms at this mass of very warm people. To refresh them a occasional outflow of water is thrown out the window, while cold beer refreshes them on the inside. Looking at this mess of clothing and colour one feels like looking for Wally. Ah! There he is! Is he a she? I decide to rub my eyes and focus, so that I’m sure it is really Wally. Nope, the heat is not taking me to a desert of mirages. I do seem him right there... Well, instead of staring I decide to fix the mini-skirt, the ears and bow in my head and continue looking for Mickey once more, or maybe just for a can of beer, as the heat is strong and the ‘bloco’ doesn’t stop...

Foto: Erika Tambke

"Brilha Portela...
...das trevas renasce o amor..." Two hours passed by and here I am, seated, still awake, still hearing this samba, indifferent to the immense tiredness I’m feeling, unable to sleep. The 4 days without stopping, from Carnival block to Carnival block, with too little sleep and too much tiredness, can’t outweigh the emotion that keeps me awake. I was dancing samba in the World’s biggest stage for only 30 minutes but I did feel like a star, glowing very up in the sky. Maybe just because I was parading with a school with the same name as mine, repeated and sung to exhaustion during those 30 minutes that felt like 5. When I entered the avenue my name echoed loudly, sung in the hearts of the many that cheered with the vibrant and intense drumbeat, the allegories dancing in the feet of Rio’s most beautiful people, with the different wings like mine that danced running or ran dancing. I can only remember entering the avenue and seeing an immense light, smiles, people waving in the middle of the contagious joy that came down the stands. As the sound echoed I gained wings, starting to fly over the sambodromo, forgetting about who I was, feeling free like a falling star or a comet crossing the skies. The Portela shined up high, I didn’t shine as much as she did, but for those few moments I was also a start going down the avenue.

Foto: Erika Tambke

Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, Março 2009

Bus

2009-04-06T23:10:00.003+01:00

I woke up sweating, soaked wet. My mouth is dry and my body feels numb. I can hardly feel anything from my waist down. My swollen legs are a reflection of too many hours semi-seated while heading South down this endless road. Destination this time: Carnival. The bus is asleep, snoring deeply, probably inebriated by the opaque stench that fills at least the back of the bus, where I sit. The loud motor roar, coming from underneath my seat, is not loud enough to suffocate the snore this half-person sitting next to me produces. Coiled like a baby, this XXS sized person has been sleeping for hours, lying down comfortably where I can hardly sit. A mix of hatred and desire to be as little as him invades my soul. The impetus of waking him up, out of pure evilness, does not flow into action and the intent to throw him out the window stumbles on the inexistence of the smallest of windows, through where he would certainly fit. Instead I decide to drink some water and lay on top the other buttock. There must certainly be a more comfortable position to lay down... There you go! Now I only have to ignore this awful odor and this sort of soup that soaks my clothes so I can relax and let my tiredness take me to Morpheus arms. I imagine myself as a sailor on Cabral’s carrack, the one that for the first time arrived to the port I just left a few hours ago, assured that what awaits for me at my destination compensates the discomfort of the journey. At least in the carrack I sail now the the scurvy exists only in the putrid stench and rats sleep coiled, snoring like babies...

BR101 somewhere between Porto Seguro and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, February 2009

Earthquake

2009-04-01T01:31:00.002+01:00

My plate, crammed with an abundant Moqueca, started to tremble. Just slightly in the beginning. Then increasing in intensity, at the pace the vibration that comes down the street penetrates the restaurant’s windows, walls and floor. My heart also starts to beat faster, following the rhythm that starts to take me over at the pace this earthquake’s intensity is magnified by the drums’ frenetic beat. I’m almost deaf. My untamed heart decides to leave my chest, flying around at its own will, following the beat that invaded him. The earthquake is no longer on the outside, it is now inside me. I can hear nothing but the Olodum, which makes me fly above my own self. I’m not sitting at the table anymore and the Moqueca is just a colorful dot hardly seen down there, in one of Salvador’s streets I fly over in the wings of this ‘alien’ beat. I fly away, looking at the blue sky reflected in this bay’s waters, the very same bay that embraces this city. I see streets crowded with color, baianas on street-corners selling acarajé, frantic capoeira circles, loads of people filling-up the Pelourinho. I can see boats arriving, an old slave boat coming from Africa, way too crowded with slaves. They seem lost, secluded from themselves, from their roots, with their eyes filled with fear and anger at the same time. They are taken to a market, chained to the walls, beaten, sold, their muscles stressed to inhuman limits... But they resist, they prevail, they have Africa inside their hearts, the strength and the will to survive, the rhythm that gives them life, which gives life to this city as well, to this country, today as always. The very same rhythm that now makes this earthquake alive, which I experience side by side with this Moqueca plate. The plate looks at me impassively while it gets colder, indifferent to this rhythm, the rhythm of which Salvador is made of. The drumbeats slowly fade away without ever leaving the room. Looks like the Olodum passed by but decided to stay inside me for ever.

Salvador, Brazil, February 2009

After Jeri...

2009-03-31T05:53:00.002+01:00

Sand, road, bumps, more road, a lot, too much. Casual stops, loose sleep, eyes that cross each other, more road ahead. A change of plans, a tortuous trip to simply keep traveling with whom I didn’t want to leave behind, a night half-dreamed half-lived, a sudden wake-up call, a glare, a kiss good-bye with a taste of see-you-soon... A Three-wise-men Fort (Forte dos Reis Magos), only image of Natal through where I flew rapidly, to quickly keep on, following the road South again. Olinda, church in, church out, Carnival is coming, but takes too long to come... Days go by running, I run as well, through the living market Recife is, on my way South again. More road comes my way, a lot, moving slow, very slow, bit by bit, at the rhythm of closing eyes, one after the other, quietly, with no hurry, without the rush to arrive, because there was no rush to leave either...

Salvador, Brazil, February 2009

Simply Jeri...

2009-03-31T03:56:00.004+01:00

Once upon a time there was a bay... No! Once upon a time there was a magical enchanted land... That’s not good either... It’s very difficult to start, talk about, describe, write about this place. And that’s due to several reasons... The obvious one: I’m talking about a gorgeous place, a beach planted in a marvelous bay made of clear blue water and sand dunes that blend into each other. In one of the ends coconut trees hide this enchanted place’s houses, where time is lost, slowly, unhurriedly, at the hamocks’ swing pace, flowing with the wind, following the undulating sand dunes, diluting itself with the sun or the moon that sets over the waters, loosing itself in the thoughts that come and go. Jeri is a little piece of heaven that no words or photos can accurately describe, mostly because this is a place to be experienced, known, lived. But to me Jeri is even harder to describe because I don’t think I can truthfully express what I lived there and because I am both afraid and conscious that this description, by being so personal, can inflate the reader’s expectations about this place. The last think I want to do is frustrate the reader’s future visit to Jericoacoara, or Jeri, the way I should call this place, showing the care and affection one gives to an old friend.
I arrived to Jeri very tired, secluded from myself, due more to mental than to physical fatigue. When I got there I found curious eyes, arms wide open, smiles that opened up at the speed I opened my own, at the speed friendship grew. Food and caipirinha seasoned this ancient recipe I seemed to have forgotten about, or that I insisted in forgetting about... The friends I made in Jeri will forever be in my heart and mind because of the huge saudade that Jeri means. While in Jeri I tried fruitlessly to explain this Portuguese word, but saudade simply means Jeri, this feeling of wanting to be somewhere, having been there, knowing we will forever be there inside our hearts, with the same people, even if we never go back to that place again. Saudade is this certainty of forever being in a magical place and smiling just because we can remember about it, with a slight feeling of sadness because we cannot stay there forever.
That’s what Jeri is, or at least that’s what it was to me: a huge mix of feelings intermingled with caipirinhas, frenetic capoeira circles, magical moments on the dune watching the moon set, endless hours discovering myself and one of the most marvelous groups of people that ever crossed my way. Because of all this, to me Jeri is and will always be simply Jeri.

Somewhere in the Northeast, Brazil, February 2009

Rollercoaster

2009-03-31T02:11:00.005+01:00

A never-ending up and down takes me along the Brazilian Northeastern coast. Here sand-dunes and lagoons create a landscape the 4x4 sails like an ancient sailboat, like an everlasting rollercoaster of rocks and sand. My travel companions are not tourists like me, instead they complete this journey once and again. This ride is a constant in their lives maybe because destiny decided to put them in this ‘no-man-land’ where roads were forgotten, or maybe just because they wouldn’t know how to live far from the beauty that surrounds them. Paulino Neves, where a gigantic sand-dune is the main attraction, is the destiny of this journey, or the first stopover of a bigger journey that is just starting. From there onwards the rollercoaster gets rougher, even more uncomfortable. The discomfort is numbed only by the sleepiness given by waking up in the middle of the night to take the day’s only available transport. One, two, three towns go by before the road shows up again, eventually taking me to Camocim. There I hop on the 4x4 once more, which this time rides the sand along the beach to Jericoacoara, my final objective.
I’ve been on many roads before. This was one of the roughest, surpassed only by an Angolan road where 30 years of war still managed to leave some asphalt in between the holes. Nevertheless, and bumps apart, this northeaster road of Brazil was, is, will always be one of the most beautiful routes I had the pleasure to cross.

Jericoacoara, Brazil, February 2009

Road bump, or the circumstance of being human

2009-03-27T00:36:00.005Z

I’m in São Luis but I didn’t want to be here. For the first time during this trip I want to be far away from where I am. This gigantic and sunny "Bairro Alto", reminding me of those summer days in Lisboa, cannot prevent my craving to be elsewhere. This stopover was planned but ended up being a forced one, larger than expected, when my body decided to surrender and my mind followed suit. I’m questioning myself, almost giving up, living a moment of weakness, human and natural. If only I could stop for a day, take the boat to the other side and head South... But on the other side there is no Cacilhas, there’s an Alcântara which is not the same, and there no road or train will take me home. I stop at ‘Antigamente' instead, from where I write these words. I look at those who pass by, strangers to my questions and problems, while thinking about what to do... Passers-by carry on with their lives the same way I should carry on with mine, heading to a destination other than this one, following my dream, given that other dreams are impossible and giving up would be plain stupid!
I’ll move on, not knowing how or why, but I will do it! I will not give up that easily of a dream my instinct compels me to follow and luck allows me to bring to reality each day. Following my dream is harder than predicted, more profound than I planned for, bolder than what I dreamed it would be, but way too important to end-up like this. Bigger reasons would make me give up, maybe they will come my way. Without those, giving up would be forfeiting life and that’s not who I am. I’ll move on instead, there’s a bigger path in front of me waiting to be explored...

São Luis, Brazil, February 2009

A day in Amazonia

2009-03-26T21:36:00.012Z

As dusk sets in the boat roars up the Tapajós River headed to the forest that awaits for our arrival. In Amazonia the sky seems lower than anywhere else I’ve been before, laying just above the water that mirrors it. Fading behind us is Alter-do-Chão, which postcards portray white-sand beaches instead of the fine-breed Lusitano horses its Portuguese counterpart is known for. In front of me the reason why I came here in the first place, the immense forest I can see before my eyes.
Further ahead we leave the boat and my steps trail those of the guides who skillfully follow a narrow track inside the forest. Along the way they teach me how to distinguish the different birds’ chants and unveil the mysteries of some plants, which among other things are used to heal headaches, glue canoes and help loosing weight. Many steps and 3 hours later we arrived to the ‘granny’ of all trees, an immense wall of which my camera could not give the right perspective and of which I could not spot the top. On our way back the fauna, which made itself heard all along, decided to show up. A poisonous jararaca snake crossed our path to remind us we were not in some amusement park but in the planet’s biggest forest, a marvelous world filled with surprises where we are just one more, a visitor in someone else’s house.
I’m feeling tired, tired and tiny. Only a dip in these river’s refreshing waters can bring me back to reality. This swim, however, cannot erase from my mind the consciousness of how small and relative my position is in this world, the biggest teaching I got from immersing myself in this forest.

Alter-do-Chão, Brazil, January 2009

The Floating Bazaar

2009-03-17T16:37:00.006Z

I’m sailing up the Amazonas River. In the distance the slowly falling asleep Belém can still be seen. Its buildings reflect the sun that sets in the west in between the clouds and the water. This immense mass of water, which flows tirelessly to the sea, is being sailed in a sort of bazaar where scents and people elbow each other, where everyone fights to find a place to hang its hammock, their private nook for the next 3, 5, 8, 10 days, depending on where life is taking them. Sailing this boat is like living inside a floating bazaar where hammocks, blankets, towels and all sorts of cloths fall from the ceiling, hanging over suitcases, bags, backpacks, boxes, all sorts of packages that pile up in the floor. This living bazaar sails through the night, which hides the river’s margins, the forest and its people. The morning sun starts to disclose the scenery while waking up the bazaar and the growing hubbub. The cloths gain life and its wingless inhabitants start to come out of their cocoons. Unable to fly but filled with dreams, they look at the spectacle presented by the river and the countless trees that fill the immense forest. Here and there a house, a village, from where the indigenous come to meet us. Some come just to say hello, others to collect the food people throw them from the boat, some others, like pirates, approach the boat in order to sell food or just to catch a ride upriver. Inside the boat people run to check out who arrived, breaking up the monotony of a trip that repeats itself every minute. Here the space is limited and the huge lines faced everywhere limits it even more. Only patience and smiles are immense, the indispensable companions in this epic journey, which is a necessity for many and an adventure that will most probably never be repeated for only a few. Bonding them all only a dream, the dream of going up river, because going up this river is and always will be a dream.

Lô and Janderson

A smile like no other is the most beautiful image of the whole journey. Sorry, two of them, the smiles of my two favorite neighbors: Lô and Janderson. Brother and sister, cousins, friends, who cares... I didn’t ask their age either, maybe by stupidity, maybe because it simply didn’t matter. They welcomed me in the boat with a smile, most probably answering to my own, which I couldn’t see. The whole time they were around, smiling with the naivety their age around 10 to 12 and their humble origin gave them. They smiled the whole time, despite the journey’s many difficulties, despite having to take care of their many brothers and sisters. Smiling for no reason and for them all at the same time, they were living the dream of moving to a new city and the excitement of what most probably was their first big journey. Even if I had the temptation of complaining about the lack of comfort, the lines to buy food, to use the toilet, the smelly surroundings, the heat, the people bumping against me and waking me up during the night, of so many different annoying things, I just couldn’t because their smile was always there, remembering me about life’s relativity, of how everything can me a blessing or a curse. It only depends on ourselves, of how we want to look at the situation. And their eyes see it all as a new discovery, as a new reason to smile...

What are you looking at Lô, where to? What thoughts, ideas, dreams, ambitions, what crosses your mind while you stare at the horizon? What sort of future will your beautiful smile have in 5, 10, 15 years from now? How will your life be? What future is in store for you, in this country of yours where you were born in the wrong “half”, in the “half” where the difficulties far outweigh the opportunities given to you? But in the end that doesn’t matter, with your smile you’ll always be happier than many others who have it all... My boat journey ended, yours carried on, but your smile will always be in my mind, to remind me of how everything is so much easier with a smile, a simple smile.

Amazónia, Brasil, Janeiro 2009

Kitchen Table

2009-02-19T17:17:00.002Z

When I entered that kitchen I felt I was reencountering old friends. A smile, a beer, a joke about Portuguese people, another beer, a music we sang together and one more cold beer that went down our throats, a delicacy we cooked, one more beer we drank. Endless laughter, loads of music, non-stop chat, too much food and liters of beer sealed an instant friendship between a Portuguese and a group of Brazilians from all over the country, all of us just passing by Belém do Pará. I ended up not seeing much of this city but with no regret of the long hours spent around that kitchen table, where I ended up learning more than if I had wandered around the narrow and confusing streets of this place forgotten by time and fortune. The only thing which was not forgotten in Belém was the art of welcoming foreigners. Not even the first mugging of my trip will make me forget how welcome I felt around that kitchen table.

Belém do Pará, Brazil, January 2009

"pit-stop"

2009-02-19T02:00:00.000Z

Will selected Brazil to be the first destination. Rio de Janeiro. Is there a better way to start other than by one of the most beautiful countries in the World, by the ‘cidade maravilhosa’ (wonderful city), the queen of Carnival, of Samba, of natural and human beauties, of each and every contrast? But after a few hours looking for the ‘garota de Ipanema’ (girl from Ipanema) that Jobim sang, fortune decided that Rio was only a 'pit-stop' on my way North. Fortune determined this way but will compels me to come back.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, January 2009

The beginning

2009-02-19T01:47:00.004Z

How does a round-the-World trip start? Probably in some random airport, packed, way too packed with people running into each other in a sort of purposeless rat race. People, coming and going, starting or finishing their journeys, with loads of them not even knowing why they came or why they are going. In a word: people...
I always loved watching those who surround me in airports. Well, in all means of transportation in general, but airports in particular, because although a bit elitist it ends up being the place where all sorts of people converge. From businessmen/businesswomen, always running, always on the phone, reading, behind a laptop screen, always busy, as if every minute of that hour was more valuable than the ones from the following. From the immigrant who just landed, looking around with awe, still questioning if it is true he’s already here. Still thinking about all the yada yada he had to make up in order to cross the border, although he’s already through, but with the endless hours making sure he knew it by heart making it impossible to forget all the stupid answers to those meaningless questions destined only to prevent others from dreaming. Anyhow, unwelcome or not, all immigrants arrive with that mix of awe and sparkle in their eyes that only those who are living a dream possess. There’s also those who are leaving, with the drained look of those who lived the dream but are simply homesick. Also those who go home so they can pay their respect to a loved one who left this world without saying goodbye. Those who simply return home, after following a dream which wasn’t their own and merely return to themselves... But there’s many more running around the airport: the tourists, with their often ridiculous outfit, showing they don’t care about anything but that moment of relaxation; the kid who looks astonished, about to fly like the birds for the first time; the professionals with those too many flight hours offering coffee and peanuts mirrored in their tired eyes, or those others who even without flying are as tired as them.
Well, people, loads of people, everywhere. Those who are here because they have to, those who gave all they had so they could come. Those who go and want to stay, those who arrive and didn’t want to leave in the first place. Those who are just passing by and never wanted to stop here... But there’s one thing in common among all the people bumping into each other in the check-in, undressing to go through security, getting bored waiting or getting distracted wandering through shops selling stuff they never wanted to buy. All of them are just passing by, for a shorter or a longer period, running around or taking it easy the way only time and age enables us. All are passing by, between an origin and a destination, all on a journey, living their endless journey without noticing it.
A round-the-World trip starts probably in some random airport, or most probably long before, the very moment eyes shine for the first time when crossing a border, when hearing someone who talks in a way we cannot understand, but sparking a smile of curiosity. It starts when we realize the relativity of our place in this World, how much we have to learn with strange foreigners, unusual places, diverse smells and colors. This was the way my journey started, when crossing a border in some random day I can’t remember, and it didn’t stop anymore. This way a dream was born, the dream of going around the World. A child’s dream that becomes true now, many years later, in some random airport, with West on my mind, going around the way Magellan did but not looking for the westward route to the spices, looking only for my way back home to Portugal, through where will and fortune may take me.

London, United Kingdom, November 2008