Montserrat is a cork dust floating in the middle of the Caribbean. A stone with a volcano. A ghost town with narrow gray living world, Green, beautiful and Cornered. A bastard oblivion. Ash. Music. A ferry and a perennial goodbye. Anyone who feels the curiosity of the traveler, I, you must go to this place.
We left at nine in the morning with the barge that covers the island of Antigua with the island of Montserrat. The sea alters halfway, still gently, On a cloudy day that leaves gray steles among the waves. In the distance we begin to contemplate a green rock. In the old ferry go the 12 children from a school and seven adults. More than 95 percent of the speech armchairs are empty. No one goes to the island that the volcano ate
We arrive at a port terminal built after cataclysm. Customs is a prefabricated house in which two officials once put the scarce stamps of the passports that come there. The airport closed with rock blows and a narrow track for planes was built in which we see that goats graze. The ships that came from everyone stopped coming. The inhabitants who did not fled raised a new life in the 30 percent of the island that was habitable.
He teaches the island to which 1995 and 1997 An incandescent ash and cloak fell from the sky
Out of customs awaits us Sun, One of the neighbors who endured the onslaught of the volcano and who has a company that fixes the permits to enter the exclusion zone. Sun is a kind guy, who knows the ins and outs of Montserrat and that teaches us the island to which 1995 and 1997 An incandescent ash and cloak fell from the sky that destroyed everything.
We climbed into his car and we are going through the rare rain in which everything got up again. Like the little cemetery that gives the sea, Substitute for the old pantheon who is still buried under ash without having time to get the bodies of the buried there. Or the football field, which also looks glowing and suitable to contemplate what was in 2002 officially considered the worst selection in the world after losing with Bután in the final of the two most bad for 4-0. So it's all on the island, new and improvised in the area where the crater did not split everything.
"There are people who believe that mining prospects were made and angered the spirit of the mountain and that is why the sleeping volcano woke up", Sun tells us as we approach the Volcano Observatory, institution that must give us the permits to enter the prohibited area. «Less than a year ago they began to make these regulated visits to get some income. Is tested to see if they work without risks », Our guide explains.
There are people who believe that mining surveys were made and angered the spirit of the mountain
"The volcano is still active and shows signs that it will release something again", dice Rod Stewart, the director of the institution that monitors the 24 Hours the threatening mountain. Your name cannot be more indicated, before the explosions of 20 Years were in Montserrat the recording studios of Sir George Martin, The Beatles producer. The greatest world artists like The Police have passed there, Say strap, David Bowie… All that closed, as happened with everything, And even the house that Paul McCartney has on the island ended up at Cal y Canto.
Finally we access the exclusion zone, The so -called area V. We pass several police controls and enter a ghost city. Explain what is Plymouth, The old capital, It would be something similar to explaining how the world will be after apocalypse. The entire city, Where there were luxury hotels, Golf supermarkets and fields, It is today remains of real estate covered by thousands of tons of ash and huge rocks that fell from heaven.
We walk through some houses that still have the tables on since those who lived there should not have time to collect anything; By supermarkets with their shops of purchase lost in desolate halls with empty shelves, and by offices where under the ash layer documents and leaves are still broken between broken chairs.
Houses that still have the tables on since those who lived there should not have time to collect anything
In some homes, On the wall and floor, Plants grow that are making their way between cement. The kitchens are clusters of pans and pots turned into smoke and there are still some magazines of the years 1992 the 1995 If some shelves are cleaned.
The old hotel pool, whose reception still keeps the table phone and the book of visits and whose rooms you have to enter crouch because the accumulated ash is barely left space on the doors, It is especially unique. From its tiles a lush garden has grown that stands out to the surface. Not long, no one can guess that under there was a place where families bathed happily. It was in the times when there was life there, laughter, noise. Today an eternal silence covers everything under the shadow of that volcano that seems to monitor the island.
Part in the afternoon again the ferry almost empty to old. The sea is agitated and the ship falls from two meters waves with some violence. Back, as a ghost that fades, The silhouette of the mountain with fire is gradually lost in the bowels. Montserrat seems to cease to exist.
