MUD, PAIN & HAPINNESS (part 1)

In my perfect world, it would be, humm now that I am thinking, a world like this it wouldn´t be possible.

Let me start again, hello sir, how It´s the road I asked? Very well my son, just a bit of mud along.

We left Vilcabamba´s, this place where we should feel young, we left with a kid illusions, wishing that the famous longevity last, but, my knee didn´t think the same, on those moments I didn´t know what it will come next, some of those moments that I think we never have to forget.

We were warned, some cyclists friends that have already passed there, had to abandon in there try, others simply brooked their bikes, they all were right, this is a very difficult road if muddy, but in my head still sounded the words of the friendly man “very well my son just a bit of mud along”, but we didn´t had luck, It was pouring rain since four days ago, and this little mud was like moving lands, what the hell with the friendly man, I thought.

Cars and trucks last more than 8 hours to do 40km, this if they were lucky and didn´t get stuck in the mud like a magnet. So, we took the big decision of asking for help, obviously in exchange of a handful of dollars, a good man brought us till San Ignacio´s town, a lost village in the middle of mud and high humid green forest not far from the Peruvian border.

The red and humid land full on unless hills filled up with lead my tired knees, and with a wonderful spectacle I was waiting the night like it waits the defeat ones.

EL VENCIDO / THE DEFEATED

In my pain and solitude, I remember our passage among villages, these last happy looks of those kids with their broken toys, shouting “ gringo, gringo “, among them there are many dreams yet, who saw you and don´t remember you Nando? Turn off your light because day comes.

Already in another country, another stage of my life, another of everything, another sad border that I won´t explain again, there are all the same, this ones the only different that it had was, that the police man had his feet into the mud, and just in case said, the barrier you raise yourself I am tired of this mud… but he didn´t forget to say, Welcome to Peru.

We kept going with protests, pain, happiness and much more mud, and on top of it things went worst and worst, the health of the “jockeys” went wrong often, and hours came darker.

The lovely plains that inhabitants of here use to grow rice, cheer up our eyes, and the colors were simply gorgeous, villages on holidays, sad rooster fights, music all over and kids shouting “gringo gringo “ among them three gringos with a bike full of mud passing through trying to be one more of them, all this added with the shiny sun fill it up us with energy and freedom.

COLORES Y LIBERTAD / COLORS AND FREEDOM

But, we will leave soon the plains heading to the mountains, my lungs without asking me warn me that something wrong was happening but… the night came again with the wind, a dry cough shared my hours but in my stubbornness I kept thinking, “we should do something else than living, we should risk, because my dears, risking it´s living the rest it´s television, the same ones that systematically destroy the empty between the normal and abnormal, the real and the fiction”.

So, forgetting about all those hours inside one car or truck, this pain that we have those people that travel with bicycle, and we think that we cheat, and only can change our ego when our feet touch the ground and the good sense comes to rescue us, I am sure that we all understand this, because our life only belong to us.

This is how we arrived to Cajamarca´s province, one of the poorest provinces in Peru, that paradoxically has one of the most important gold mines in the world, some “friendly” Canadian people have a mega project in Yanacocha´s named Conga.

LA VERGUENZA / THE SHAME

This makes that this area lives every day with big protests, the streets are full of armed cops lending their backs against the lovely churches walls, their friendly people with their traditional and colorful dresses dream to recover what they have lost, a pretty land full of lagoons that today it´s just a land full of huge holes that pollute dangerously, we passed there, and I can tell you that it hurts your eyes when you see all this destruction, but who am I to say something against those “friendly”cannadiens and this corrupt government .

To be honest I have enough problems with my bothering lungs and my passion to keep going, like the ones that drag his pains but in his eyes carry the dreams.

But in this high altitude we breath the air like it was the sky, cuts and it expands inside me, and suddenly hurts, my chest falls down because of the knocks, and I can see a blue sky that I think no one else can see, I guess it´s the shortest way to the stars, all ever there´s fantasy.

FANTASIA / FANTASY

Nando´s, I said to myself, complain it´s a big lost of time, you better go to see a doctor…

And then finally here in Cajamarca´s city, a place wrapped with big protests, pain and happiness, a place where, Herbert´s and Carlo´s host us like the best of their brothers, where the doctor Luis Escalante´s takes care of me, even if for free he tells me what I don´t want to hear.

It´s here in this pretty city, with a mailed weather I will finish this first part of this chronicle, the same place where it finish also the wonderful times lived with Marie´s & Johann´s the boys like I call them, Yes, they have lived, they follow their journey towards new illusions, it has been lovely, I wish the best for them in their life, and I am sure that I will miss them, although I have the comfort to know that they will see one day the same sky that I have seen ones, peoples leave, time doesn´t wait for anybody, I am sure that no matter where you will be, you will listen me complaining.

Here I will finish this first part, I will because Cajamarca´s gives me so many reasons to write, soon I will explain to you what it comes next, meanwhile I am going to be coughing.

Watch out of fears because they love still the dreams, meantime rain it will keep knocking the windows with its melody.

MELODIA / MELODY

Mud, pain and happiness…

LIFE´S TO SHORT TO DEAL WITH STUPID PEOPLE.

HEALTH AND GOOD JOURNEY, NANDO.