In Arequipa

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