These mini travelogues are the result of an exercise I once tried; writing one hundred words a day for one hundred days, the point being to gain discipline and economy with the written word. Once started, it became addictive. A terse sort of prose is the usual result; in which one tries capturing the essence of time and place. Although I may have been a little liberal with the facts in some, it’s only to better express the spirit of the experience. Some over the one hundred word parameter have been added, just for mischief. Maybe you’d care to count?
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LOS ANDES A VIEW FROM SANTIAGO |
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They surround one. From almost any vantage point in the city one looks, they are there; drawing one’s eyes ever up, ever higher, so high it feels disrespectful. So imposing are they it begins to feel perilous to look too long, perhaps it’s forbidden? Like silent watchful sentinels they stand, as if in some Imperial service, guards of honour keeping at bay all who would trespass beyond their border posts into those secret, forbidding realms that lie beyond; where today only the mighty Condor and the ghosts of Incas and their many, long forsaken, Gods now stir; Los Andes, Santiago. |
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Flying to Chile southward bound, I sleep exhausted through the night. On waking and sliding up the blind, I sit incredulous. Snow capped colossi spread as far as the eye carries, so close one might easily step out upon them. But no stable place affords my startled foothold, rather each a massive, terrifying monolith, jagged - razor sharp, rising one after another, mesmerizing all into reverie. I have seen the Himalayas but these are different, wilder, more tempestuous known only to those gods who alone are brave enough to abide here or us fools who dare to fly across their eerie vastness.
The elegance of Santiago |
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SALVADOR DE BAHIA, PARADISE REGAINED |
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On our way into Salvador strapping, bare-chested youths, so ebony black all light flung filters out individual features, cluster at corners, in doorways, chatting, laughing; playing football along dusty alleys. Red, sun-baked brick buildings tumble down hillsides higgledy-piggledy, this urban sprawl providing a raw-textured background to their blatant sensuality. Everywhere I look people so wondrously alive and vivid amid seascapes and escarpments of staggering beauty I wonder why I never knew of the place before. After the indecision of leaving Lencois, I can hardly believe an equal paradise exists. My travel-weary eyes soak up the delights this new Eden promises.
Beautiful Pelerinho |
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WHAT DO THEY DO HERE? COTTON FLATS OF BAHIA |
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Across endless plains flatter than my islander’s mind can comprehend we seem to float for hours driving without seeing villages, houses or any signs of humanity other than the road on which we travel. Cemeteries of cotton plants, vast fields, their once snow tipped stalks now plucked naked, stand scorched in rigor mortis across arid, ochre landscapes. Cobalt skies form a seamless vault above, lit only by death sentries, black vultures circling as eye catching as daylight stars. What do young men do here? Certainly they plant, grow and pick cotton - but in the off seasons they gamble, drink and dally with other men’s women folk I am told. Just like all young men!
Cotton Flats, Bahia Brazil
The incredible Blue of Bahia Oases |
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Driving across endless shimmering plains of serado in Bahia, Northeastern Brazil, cacti stand like voodoo poles, vultures circling far above, black death-kites high in indigo skies, other-worldly. Constantly shifting panoramas scorched ochre-red, the shrubbery parched. Then a dot, walking towards us, becomes a form so mad it un-nerves in this wildness. An Afrikan spectre, filthy rags like kites, all black; hair matted, eyes too ghastly, frightening to behold. Who are they, these crazies out here in the middle of this desert? How do they survive? One needs water. Where do they get that? Four we pass in three days driving.
The Searado Bahia |
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Travelogue