I did not take any photos of Aconcagua. When the idea came to mind, to pocket, I lived it the same way we lived those childhood occurrences of getting away from the group to go home when it had started to rain. They came like a gust of wind and then volatilized. Because, Why stop living? Why think, even a second, in letting go of the moment of flying it for the first time?
"To your right, they can see Aconcagua ", said the commander proud, before giving us a voluntary maneuver so that we could see the highest mountain in its entire range. It was a perfect blue sky day. Aconcagua had bright snowfields at mid-altitude and the top was drawn with impeccable clarity as it had just emerged from a punctual and sharp orogenic crack., with edges of ice and rock that opened in all their majesty. The sun's rays pointed to its south face and the rocky mass stood up, like a torch, in the immensity of a valley of peaks. Emanated, with a shocking naturalness, so much insignia and so much power that it was much closer to the perfection of the Mother Earth than to the impressionist painting that my camera would have wanted to make.
Why think, even a second, in letting go of the moment of flying it for the first time?
The plane was rocking gently, maybe planning, in stark contrast to the imperious force of the Andes and I was suddenly thrilled, My eyes filled with tears, and I let myself feel my whole life, just like days later leaving the Wonderland café.
When we arrived in Santiago there were friends and conversations, each more diverse, cappuccinos on buses without wheels, coffees in blue trunks, and snacks in Italian cafes with passion fruit cakes with honey.
And from Santiago to Valparaíso. We went out in a rented car that started shooting early one day with cool sun to the sound of talks and open windows, the beet potatoes and that jolly little joke that finds room to frolic on any road trip, whatever comes next. It is impossible, weird, unusual, almost an exception, than rolling down an unknown route in the arms of exploration and fresh wind, a master life does not emerge that fills the vehicle with the effluvia of discoveries and the summery adrenaline of short sleeves and the sun.
And so we went, on the roads of Chile, when a sign on a dangerous curve invited us to taste the best eggs in the country and, thanks to a Formula maneuver 1, we got into a kind of hangar. In less than ten minutes Jusep, Catalan with blood and fire, and his lady, Chilean of pure faith, they put us some pans with some yellow eggs around a round wood fireplace, and a smell of smoke and home made us want to sacrifice Valparaíso and stay for the day with fried eggs and that wine.
Valpo's graffiti threw colorful rays at us and we entered with the paint on that labyrinth of murals, late night hippies, warships and fishing boats and hills with lift
But we continued along the ordered routes of the south until the graffiti of Valpo threw us some rays of colors and we entered with the paint placed in that labyrinth of murals, late night hippies, warships and fishing boats and hills with lift.
It seems that the original inhabitants of Valparaíso were the monkeys, some guys about whom little is known, who worshiped the sea, who they called Mama Cocha, and they were dedicated almost exclusively to fishing, activity practically naked. Not content with fishing naked and making rafts out of sea lion skins, They used the salt to make a fish that they exchanged for other goods such as fruits and, especially, for some appetizing liquors that the lupacas made, coles, male, atacameños and puquinas and that they did not know how to do.
Although those times of exchanging a fish for a fighting rum were far away, and today Valparaíso is a port through which they pass 10 million tons of merchandise and more than 150.000 passengers per year, citizens continue to drink palatable liquors and make notebooks, rings, vessels, bracelets and whatever gadgets possible in a pretty healthy mess that mixes young and old, dogs and seagulls, indigenous people and tourists of various conditions.
We climb, we go down, We walked from one hill to another on slopes and funiculars, getting lost and finding ourselves among drawings, phrases on the walls and under a skein of electrical wires that were tangled like copper branches. We take micheladas, we bought notebooks with cats and returned to Santiago at dusk. On the return trip we try to understand that city that, by its own anarchic nature, could not be understood.
On the return trip we try to understand that city that, by its own anarchic nature, could not be understood.
Happiness was in disorder, the prize seemed unique to who had left to lose. We remember then that in the main square, where a narrow street that starts wandering vagabonds timeless, in front of a monument to naval battles Chile, is the Palace of Justice. On your stairs, as in so many other equivalent buildings around the world, there is a statue of Justice that is usually represented, from ancient Greece, with a balanced scale held by his firm arm and blindfolded, symbol of blind and impartial justice.
The statue of Valparaíso, however, her eyes are uncovered and the scales hanging unbalanced, one of the arms akimbo and a defiant and easygoing attitude, as if she was tired of doing justice and pretending that criminal codes are a capital truth.
And that's Valparaiso in the end. That's the lady that, from the land of the peaks that worship Aconcagua, pardons the humans that haunt the colors, who fish half naked or who get lost under cables and seagulls, primitive metaphors of the essential journey.
