Ago 16 2010 “Shangri-La”: the place of immortal men

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I'll tell you a story, friends. Starts in 1930. On that date, National Geographic magazine published a story that talks about a distant rabidly, in deep and unknown Asia. It is a document signed by an unknown journalist, curious traveler and tireless, named Joseph Rock, who claims to have lived, for more than eight years, between the slats of a superior civilization, endowed with special wisdom, twinned with nature, lived up to lose track of his age, able to see the future, to understand the past and even levitate for hours. Isolated from the noise by the natural barrier of the roof of the world, the mountains of the Himalayas, members of this people maintain a peaceful coexistence with the animal kingdom, fauna, flora and the spirits of the ancestors of the land.

Three years later, inspired by the dazzling prose Rock, another dreamer, James Hilton, writes a novel entitled "Far horizons", in which he describes in detail the magical universe, placing it at some unknown point in the vast Tibetan plains, in a place he comes to call "Shangri-La". It is a magical and mysterious territory, it was like before the Trojan Hector and Achilles, or the underwater kingdom of Atlantis, or the long-sought during the Middle Ages paradise on earth.

James Hilton, writes a novel entitled "Far horizons", in which he describes in detail the magical universe, placing it at some unknown point in the vast Tibetan plains

The dream of these men continued to infect the minds of other peers, Fran until Kapra, a few years later, filmed a movie with the same name, Far Horizons, that, yes now, definitely rose to the heights the name of Shangri-La in the collective imagination of Americans. Thereafter, a veritable plethora of adventurers, dreamers, journalists and curious of all stripes began traveling southwest China in search of the legendary Shangri-La.

Never found, clear

Over the years, many villages in China tried to gain historical heritage of the kingdom of Shangri-La, claiming to have evidence proving his claims. Actually, course, what they wanted, more than the ancient and wise lifestyle lamas, was made with the delicious cake of tourism come from the far corners of the planet…

And then, when the balloon began to deflate, authoritative voices began to listen to spiritual guides explaining that Shangri-La never be found, because it is not an earthly kingdom, but the soul. And if there is a way to get there is demand within the heart… "Shangri-La can be at the bottom of a cup of coffee, in the ink on the pages of a book or in the eyes of a brother », I read these days. "You just have to know how to look. If it is not, is because you are not looking closely enough ".

Shangri-La can be at the bottom of a cup of coffee, ink on the pages of a book or in the eyes of a brother

I do not know how you look in coffee grounds, or what to tell my sisters eyes. I do not know if the place where I am as I write these lines, that guides all China appears as Shangri-La, elders who have lived there two hundred years and keep in their memories the memory of the earth.

Just know that these little feet of mine have walked for two days in the mountains of Jade, the 5.600 meters, and have seen their snowy peaks, which, according to tradition, is a year of good luck. And while, down there, very low, in the gorges of these mountains, ran the turquoise waters of the river raging Yantzé, the largest river in Asia, with permission of the Mekong.

And I also know that this morning, in the town square that has proclaimed Shangri-La, yak meat eaten, black pudding, potatoes and peppers while drinking, for the first time since I left Spain, a few months ago, a glass of wine, the more vinegary and delicious that I will have proven time, while beside me smiled a group of women with their heads covered with pink turban ethnicity.
And there, at the bottom of that glass of wine; in meat flavor unknown; in the most secret corner of the small passenger's feet that have led to the cradle of the world that does not exist…There have uttered the word free.

Yes. It is true. I'm a little cloying. I guess it has to do with the distance, and the time it accumulates in the pockets of the backpack. Voy in denying that all seems like muy spiritual, such as greetings that people gave me when I saw this afternoon in shorts and running to two degrees below zero in the town's streets. Some streets, certainly, that, not to exist, are quite comfortable because there is very little traffic. I think the Chinese should think it was a mad monk dressed in yellow, so I closed my eyes and said… "What about the costs that Park West is going to give the toast bar where is?"And how suffering his heart racing a 3.000 meters high ... Ugh, makes you want to stop every mouse, and then make you want to start when the eyes are such a different world.

The Chinese miracle is just. I take heart full of stories and dreams. Perhaps we have learned something from this search for Shangri-La. Who knows. I just know that this night have to travel by bus, desde Shangri-La to Kunming sta. And tomorrow a plane to Nepal. When I go back to bed in a bed, will be in Nepal. Another border, more butterflies in the stomach. More dreams fulfilled. I'll tell you.