Describes Ricardo Coarasa -author of the book "Journey to the sources of the Blue Nile"-, over the falls of Tis Isat that "the path, stony and slippery due to mud and continuous cattle droppings, descends towards that same place that Páez described, where the Portuguese had the happy idea of ??building a stone bridge that prevents us from balancing on the current”.
And I live years later, after leaving the 4×4 in a car park, the same descent on the same path, now dry because it is not rainy season. And we cross in front of a religious with his body bent under a shack waving a bell and asking for alms. And we go down a small hill and we see a stone bridge, 17th century, through which a man passes with a donkey whose back is bent by the load he is carrying. And we understand that this must be a special place from the beginning as I read in the book.
We cross in front of a religious with his body bent under a shack waving a bell and asking for alms
And Coarasa recounts that “the children accompany the indecisive footsteps of the occasional tourists, sounding their wooden flutes while offering in perfect English pumpkins converted into jewelry boxes and handcrafted fabrics.. For now they do not insist, aware of the eagerness that moves visitors. Most are content to exchange a few courtesy greetings and part with an enthusiastic "see you when you get back.".
we live the same. I think even more vehemently, perhaps because the day lent itself to being away from home. children ask, they sell and even ask us to exchange a five dollar bill for local currency. The very good change we give the girl draws a huge smile on her tender face. Nearby there is a woman who weaves on the same land with the sole purpose of being photographed and then asking for money for the snapshot., one of the most common professions on the continent. Yet, the route has something authentic and inevitably touristy. The image of loaded donkeys climbing the mountains is an example of the former.. Children and the elderly, probably of the latter, even if it is in a more than acceptable intensity.
Nearby there is a woman who weaves on the same land with the sole purpose of being photographed.
And Coarasa says that "after 15 minutes of walking, the Blue Nile roars despite the overflowing vegetation still serving as a parapet. It is a threatening sound like the one that heralds the arrival of a great army., but in this case the only weapons of the river are the millions of liters of water that collapse in a front of almost half a kilometer (…). A little further on, the Tis Isat waterfalls are finally shown in all their spectacularity, with its puffing of white mist that gives it its name. The first thing that stands out is that there are no railings or spyglasses, not even some rudimentary slabs to stabilize the ground.
And I walk a path that's wrapped in green. I already hear the noise of the water. Suddenly, around a bend, the sky opens and under it a river and under the river some rocks through which the water collapses. it's dry season, but the flow is still impressive. the image is wild, nice. I feel the own emotion that is felt when arriving at special places. “It was worth crossing Africa to see this site”, I feel. we walk, we look, are photographed. There is a first double waterfall jump and a second, largest, in round, What is the one that Coarasa tells who spits out smoke?. Today there is a bridge, that Yohanes tells me that it is recently built and that it crosses to the other side and allows us to go down to the same pool of water.
drenched by rain, silenced by the thunderous roar of the waters
And Coarasa says that "soaked by the rain, silenced by the thunderous roar of the waters, one can get an idea of ??what the first Europeans who visited the place felt.
And I add to that list the author of the book that brought me here. And then, as I took your book with me from Maputo and I travel with the driver that Coarasa also used and has recommended to me, I decide to pay tribute to my friend. And bag backpack his manuscript and tell him Yohanes that pose under the falls that drench us feebly. And then what subject I. And somehow I pay tribute to the honest words and the well-told texts that showed me a country I had never been to.. And this book should come here because here was born. and Yohanes, with whom in three days I made a strong friendship, he removes the Coptic cross that he carries on his chest and gives it to me with the naturalness that joy gives. And I give him a hug that does not pay for his gesture. And I also hug Francesca who celebrates her birthday today and has not said a word of complaint despite the fact that we are going back to Johannesburg to do my job (Mandela had died). And we all laugh out of inertia, for simple, per trip. And I settle for a second on a damp rock with Ricardo who, thousands of kilometers away, knows nothing of a reader who came there with his work and who shares a distant happiness..
