The sound of the desert

“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'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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