Tras la estela de Saint-Exupéry

For: Javier Reverte

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A few years ago, I remember that in the 2004, still in the spirit and psyche disrupted by the bloody remains of a malaria (in the lethal range of the brain known as plasmodium falciparum ") it had made in Brazil two years earlier, I decided to embark on a journey to the coastal desert of southern Morocco, Atlantic shores ranging from Agadir to Tarfaya, the old Cape Juby, where he would be stopping, in their night flights, the plane-mail that it was pilot and writer Antonie de Saint-Exupery. Traveling is not only exciting to those who made fun of it, but also a good therapy when the spirit feels troubled and confused head. I usually recommend to friends in situations of this sort and, in most cases, not ignore me. Beyond them if they prefer the analyst's couch, because, inter alia, tends to be more expensive.

And Marrakech I rented a car 4×4 and pulled to the south without stopping at the Jemaa el Fna, because I can not stand its smell of fried food of lamb and I feel sorry for the snakes drugged by their owners so they will not bite when they are screwed to the neck to delight tourists. Agadir circled the wide arc of his ring, because the city, after the earthquake that destroyed decades ago, has become a kind of imitation of a graceless Benidorm. And follow the coast road, whose traffic decreased appreciably in.

Traveling is not only exciting to those who made fun of it, but also a good therapy when the spirit feels troubled and confused head

I slept in the homely town of Tiznit and I got up early, with the sun, to resume travel. The soft curves of the mountains encircling the horizon to my left and, to my right, tended the untamed Atlantic. The vegetation disappeared beneath a stony desert. I crossed the humble town of Mirleft, detuve me of the days in Sidi Ifni, visited Fort Boujerif (an old fort in ruins of the French Foreign Legion that seems out of the pages of the novel "Beau Geste") and followed the coast for two days to Tan-Tan and Tarfaya. And was on that highway from the Atlantic coast, full of tough clay cliffs and the raging sea, where they watched one of the most superb shows I've seen in my life: wrecks, Boats tossed by storms to the beaches and left there, oxidized, dead, generations to remember the violence of the oceans, indestructible force of nature that men violated every day. "We will overcome it and win? Contemplating the landscape of boats defeated, I fear the answer is not simple.

I wrote a poem about it. Here are some of his verses for the curious reader:

"The dune against the iron and stone into the sea,
desert is a rudderless ship
and screaming wreck ...
Old steel shipwrecks, malheridos,
In the latest effort to reach the ground.
And there still forever, humble tin plates
Under the wild air of harsh salt ...
The mouth of this coast has tiger teeth ...

The trip ended in Tarfaya, where there is a modest monument to Saint-Exupéry: propeller biplane, cast iron, small and painted green. A little tribute to that great writer who swallowed the sea during World War II, when his plane was shot down by Nazis.

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Comments (7)

  • home

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    wow… Reverte in pure

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  • Jocaro

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    Sensational verses. Are you a road, M. Reverte. Congratulations

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  • Ancestor

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    The closest of the major travel. A year ago I would not miss in Morocco. A year since I caught a considerable snow at the foot of the Atlas when he came home… Grand Master, as always.

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  • Begoña

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    What beautiful poetry

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  • Rosa

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    Hi Javier,
    Sorry for the familiarity…I have traveled many places in your hand you feel like an old friend.

    I know how it feels in those silent land. Three years ago I was privileged, during 20 days, touring the Western Sahara. I saw the mythical Smara,the legendary Chej Malainin, that he killed Vieuchange Michel. I was at Tan Tan, Cape Bojador, Laayoune, Guelmim, Dagla (The old Villa Cisneros still has manhole covers with the Spanish name)…And, course, Tarfaya, with his naive and tender memorial sculpture and a small museum dedicated to Saint Exupery.

    I made tea, between graves, in mausoleums semiruinas, in the desert, at Seaside, in soil, walis in mansions, Mayors, in simple houses, in tents, between dromedaries, between ostriches .. Just a teapot and patience…of the former, are fans, and the second, abundance in the Sahara..

    Thanks, Xavier, for bringing me back to where I never left.

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  • Ramón Wander Isle

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    Saint-Exupery's book "Land of men" is for me one of the most beautiful of the author. Ideal for travel. Greetings.

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