Starting my journey through South America, almost on the border of Peru with Chile I met a motorist in a blue KTM at the Calama gas station. He approached in his saddle with such bad sense that his suitcases pushed mine and, being on the slope, threw me. Thus began a great friendship with a curious man, an artist on the bike, musician and clown.
In San Pedro de Atacama I had the only accident of my trip. I fell for it, the "chusca" as they call her here, and the bike fell on top of my left foot. This forced me to stay more than twenty days in the Atacama desert., a magical place but dusty and dry, in a campsite, el Taka-Taka, of San Pedro. And, due, Andrés, the Chilean, stayed with me to help me move until I could get on my mount, by then a BMW F650GS. A hot afternoon, under a tree of the willow family called peppers here, He told me the story of Black Esther and promised that, if we got to the south of Chile together, she would invite me to meet her in person. And so it was.
We arrived at the island of Chiloé, dutch architecture, stilt houses and days of wind and clouds.
When my foot allowed me to support the weight of the motorcycle, We head south on a beautiful zigzag trip between Chile and Argentina, passing the Andes from one side to the other, down endless tracks, incredible climbs with abysmal ravines, snows more than 4.000 meters and a landscape full of islands and beautiful sunsets when we reach the Carretera Austral. And taking more than one ferry, we arrived at the island of Chiloé, dutch architecture, palafitos (houses on the water) and days of wind and clouds. I was finally going to meet Black Esther.
It, a Chilean woman living in San Antonio, prostitute, beautiful day is long, stylish and fun, It is the envy of local women, whether the "good life" or bad. A man, Roberto, I was in love to the bars of her unrequited. This beautiful “black woman ends up falling madly in love with this gallant, who decides to abandon it, fool him, for her to find a better partner. And that's. It, they keep telling me, she forgets him after much heartbreak and marries a man with a good social situation, abandoning his old profession. But time passes and Roberto does not forget her and that is why he decides to return to that Chilean port to find her and try to make her fall in love again.. But the Black Esther has married and has forgotten him. Roberto, dejected, go away again. She continues to live with her husband until, one day, death makes the only visit. By that time, Roberto decides to get her back again, meeting nothingness instead.
a chilean woman, prostitute, beautiful day is long, stylish and fun, It is the envy of local women
And how did I know her if she did not live in Chiloé and was dead? I am talking about an incredible work, the most viewed in this country, inspired by the poet Roberto Parra and adapted by Andrés Pérez Araya (1951-2002), the most important playwright in the modern history of Chile. Andrés, my partner, He is his only son and he invites me to live behind the scenes this incredible show that is the work of La Negra Ester, that takes more than 20 years in poster (from 1988). This is how I soak up the life of a theater family. La Negra Ester is represented by Andrés' stepsister and is his mother, Rosa Ramirez, who also played that role before, who directs the work with the mastery of a wise, of a life dedicated to her and the late Andrés.
Life in the theater is communal, everything is done together. Once the stage is set, the musicians tune their instruments while the lights of the small makeup tables are turned on behind the set. Wardrobe hangers run from side to side. They all look at each other and help, They support. They're nervous. The work is about to begin. A careful scenography, a cinema lighting, a beastly cast, a musical work that makes me laugh and cry ... It ends and the thirteen actors and musicians say goodbye to the audience. We all got up and clapped for a long time. They have made us move to another era and, to me, to another country.
I learned that the stage is swept in, that there is nothing yellow, that everyone cooks and that there is always to collaborate.
Touch collect, among all (I include). We fold clothes, we keep in bags and trunks. The decoration begins to be disassembled; some remove make-up; others load the truck. I learned that the stage is swept in, that there is nothing yellow, that everyone cooks and that there is always to collaborate. They are a family.
Dinner is fun. All together in a nice restaurant in Chiloé we eat fish and drink wine. They laugh and think what they are going to do on these days off. The bus to Santiago leaves in the morning. We will continue on our motorcycles to Ushuaia and we will meet again on República Street, in Santiago de Chile, where the Great Circus theater has its home there, its cultural center.
Meeting Rosa Ramírez has been an honor. A strong woman, tremendous, tough but loving, who masterfully directs the play that he represented the longest, leaving the baton in the hands of his daughter, a young woman in her twenties who, Since I was a child, grew up behind the scenes, and who has not needed to study the dialogue, Well he knew it by heart since he was four years old.
And I continue with Andrés and his tenor saxophone, from which he does not separate even on these long motorcycle trips, nor his clown nose, nor of his love for art and music, inherited from his parents and learned in the Cirque du Soleil where he spent his youth, there in the lands of northern Europe.
