Puna
Door: Gilles
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Gilles
16 Oktober 2009 | Peru, Huancaya
Ease
I´m sitting in the Puna. Short, rough grass, a random gringo might call it, but for a student in biology it is an realm of little living creatures of endless size and shapes. Most would heal you if you asked them nicely. On my left a lake. The hilltops of Pariachacha rise up behind it. She is one of the twelve sacred mountains of the Inca empire, 6 kilometers above the level of the sea. A two day´s walk away. Nights are cold here. Minus ten, or so I have heard. Colder than in the village, hidden down inside the valley.
I will remember this moment. For the first time I did not try to conquer myself a way to the top. Could have, would have, if it wasn´t for the past. The top has often disapointed me. It is the place where I used to realize that I had been frantic to reach it, forgetting to enjoy the road to there. That is, if I was not so overwhelmed by the length of the road towards it, that I found myself demotivated by the very thought of going there. As I watch the gorgeous mountains on the other side of the valley, I feel good about myself and happy about the path that brought me here.
What pops up in the sometimes unpredictable world called my experience, is the wonderful capital of the Netherlands. Amsterdam. I´m there. I can feel the city. Reality and illusion are not separable now. While I am sitting here in the heights of the Andes, the city that hides my origins is with me, and so are my friends who live there. Droevendaal. Curiosity kills the cat. Giel, I love you. I don´t mis you, we are one. Whatever I think is here while I do. And I am grateful, even as I write this in my bed on the third floor right outside Huancayo, in the house of people I barely know, but who embraced me as their own because I spoke the magic words. "Nor Yauyos".
A month it´s been. The road to Piura was painfull, my heart torn apart. The city, sunny as always, emptied from my life. Time had stopped for me, but not for them, stranger as I was once more. I found my one best friend in there, apparently unmoved. Old times relived with painfull haste. Goodbye unveiled that hollowness had filled itself with soul. Once again I left that odd town crying, yet with more leg space than back then.
Lima, cold and grey, charged with the awfull smell of unfiltered petrol, has become one of my many homes. When I found the guts to look, the little lights of life could reach me even there. An old man, a young lady, and someone I have struggled with since my fourth, unmasked themselves as friends. What more do we need than an open glance in each others eyes? The only stranger in my life, at times, am I.
Rainclouds come, it´s time to go.
I´m sitting in the Puna. Short, rough grass, a random gringo might call it, but for a student in biology it is an realm of little living creatures of endless size and shapes. Most would heal you if you asked them nicely. On my left a lake. The hilltops of Pariachacha rise up behind it. She is one of the twelve sacred mountains of the Inca empire, 6 kilometers above the level of the sea. A two day´s walk away. Nights are cold here. Minus ten, or so I have heard. Colder than in the village, hidden down inside the valley.
I will remember this moment. For the first time I did not try to conquer myself a way to the top. Could have, would have, if it wasn´t for the past. The top has often disapointed me. It is the place where I used to realize that I had been frantic to reach it, forgetting to enjoy the road to there. That is, if I was not so overwhelmed by the length of the road towards it, that I found myself demotivated by the very thought of going there. As I watch the gorgeous mountains on the other side of the valley, I feel good about myself and happy about the path that brought me here.
What pops up in the sometimes unpredictable world called my experience, is the wonderful capital of the Netherlands. Amsterdam. I´m there. I can feel the city. Reality and illusion are not separable now. While I am sitting here in the heights of the Andes, the city that hides my origins is with me, and so are my friends who live there. Droevendaal. Curiosity kills the cat. Giel, I love you. I don´t mis you, we are one. Whatever I think is here while I do. And I am grateful, even as I write this in my bed on the third floor right outside Huancayo, in the house of people I barely know, but who embraced me as their own because I spoke the magic words. "Nor Yauyos".
A month it´s been. The road to Piura was painfull, my heart torn apart. The city, sunny as always, emptied from my life. Time had stopped for me, but not for them, stranger as I was once more. I found my one best friend in there, apparently unmoved. Old times relived with painfull haste. Goodbye unveiled that hollowness had filled itself with soul. Once again I left that odd town crying, yet with more leg space than back then.
Lima, cold and grey, charged with the awfull smell of unfiltered petrol, has become one of my many homes. When I found the guts to look, the little lights of life could reach me even there. An old man, a young lady, and someone I have struggled with since my fourth, unmasked themselves as friends. What more do we need than an open glance in each others eyes? The only stranger in my life, at times, am I.
Rainclouds come, it´s time to go.
Reageer op dit reisverslag
Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
