La Sebastiana – Neruda

La sebastiana
Pablo Neruda is Chile’s second Nobel laureate in literature. This is a view from his bedroom and office windows in his house in Valparaiso (1 of his 3 houses in Chile). Neruda had a habit of naming his furniture as well as his houses. This one’s called La SebastianaHe described it as a “toy house” in a city that is “secretive, sinuous, winding”,  “twitches like a wounded whale” and where “eccentric lives” played out as an “inseparable part of the heart-breaking life of the port”.  Neruda dedicated a poem to this house and claimed that it gave him a unique perspective into the city, that the privileged view allowed him to see things others couldn’t. For example, he used to tell his friends that everyday at 9pm sharp in the blue house by the green one (don’t remember the actual description) a beautiful woman showed up in her bedroom, completely naked. No matter how hard his friends tried to find the house with the woman nobody ever did.

I was genuinely impressed with Valparaiso and was left with something I did not expect to find, likely because I knew nothing about the city in the first place. Neruda wrote  “If we walk up and down Valparaiso’s stairs we will have made a trip around the world.”, though the times have changed there are little subtleties around the city that make it hard to disagree with him. But more on that later….

La sebastiana 2

 

Santiago de Chile

Santiago de Chile

“Querida viejita: Qué es lo que se pierde al cruzar una frontera?

Cada momento parece partido en dos. Melancolía por lo que queda atrás y, por otro lado, todo el entusiasmo por entrar en tierras nuevas.”

Che wrote these words as he crossed the border into Chile from Argentina across this very mountain range (a bit south from Santiago) in 1952. It was his first border crossing on the famous motorcycle trip, I find these words to be true for many of my own border crossings. Santiago is my first city in the Americas south of Mexico, leaving me packed with plenty of enthusiasm. I had a burning desire to move here for school when I was 19-20 but it never came to be, I went to Europe instead. Years later I’ve finally made it and the first thing to spark my curiosity (entusiasmo por entrar) is the massive cordillera, steep and imposing. For the most part I grew up in a city by the mountains, so I’m no stranger to mountain views. However, mountains this massive next to a city this large is something special. Santiago, with its population of over 5 million is located in a valley surrounded by mountains trapping the pollution inside, making it one of the most polluted cities in South America. You can see the smog permanently hovering above the city. Yet the mountains tower above that too. 

Coconut trees

This is in the ejido of Canasayab in the state of Campeche in Mexico. Having visited dozens of villages in the state some are more memorable than others. It’s not always related to whether there was something interesting and fun to see/do. It often came down to the simple matter of time and whether I had enough of it to walk around and absorb the surroundings.

Luckily in this village I did and these coconut trees particularly come to mind. They were just behind the local school. I thought it was the coolest school “playground”.

Coconut trees

Coconut trees2

Somewhere north

I used to listen to Freakonomics podcasts in grad school and a segment from the show came up to mind the other day, about how people change their behaviour depending on their surroundings. It got me thinking about how our surroundings affect our daily lives, rhythm, lifestyle and the lessons we take from it all. Then I thought about one of the motorcycle trips I took years ago in northern British Columbia. Certainly feels like a world away today. What I now think I learnt from it is quite different from what I thought at the time. As silly as it may sound, one of the most recurring thoughts during the trip was about packing the bike as it affected the ride and is something I had to do every day, sometimes several times. I mean look at it, that mountain in the back of the bike looks pretty unwieldy. I felt quite pleased that the situation has been slowly improving day by day.

One of the things I now think I got out of the trip is a marginal lesson on how to enjoy myself. Let me explain 🙂 Such trips in northern Canada can get bumpy. It’s nothing to complain or write home about, but on some days with hands frozen to the handlebars, a numb face and sore body parts it’s easy to start to wonder “why am I doing this?”. Unlike the packing situation these thoughts have surfaced only once in a while. One day in particular comes to mind, a few days before I took this photo. Almost in Yukon the weather was woeful with a temperature around 0, rain and wind. At a much needed pit stop an RV driver came up and stated that my friend and I must be either very brave or very stupid. It’s probably a bit of both but my frozen face could only summon a smile in return. I didn’t really think much of his question as my mind had been fixed on a hot soup I was about to get. It’s quite fun to get surprised by a ready convenience at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. The attendant’s demeanour added to the whole atmosphere as she nervously and frantically rushed to serve the only 4 customers like she was serving a full house in lower manhattan 1000s of kms south. Maybe she wanted to hurry us out of the place to get back to peace and quite until the next pack of customers, whenever they might pass by.

What I’m trying to say is that it takes a certain mindset to smile and disregard every inch of your body screaming “get me out of here”. Then you stop wondering “why am I here?” and start thinking “isn’t this something!”

Somwehere north

Commute in Toulouse

I have a number of photos of this view as it used to be a part of my daily commute. I remember thinking that particular evening that the sky seemed on fire, and luckily I had a camera in my backpack. I took several shots, one without the tree branch on top. I decided to post the one with the branch. It does create a visual distraction but I sort of like it this way, reminds me of the other side of the river.

Commute in Toulouse

In and around the market, Merida

I spent a fair chunk of my time in one of the markets in Merida. I love wandering around these sort of places, get away from the sights into the hustle and bustle of daily life. The market was fairly big so I kept getting lost many times over. It wasn’t quite like the markets in many parts of China for example, but you could still find tons of things, from gambling sites to jewelry to thousands of knockoffs and more.

I feel like by now I have a good sense of when’s a good time to have my camera out in sight and when to keep it hidden. Sometimes though when I get interested in a certain way I just forget about the camera in my backpack. Here are photos from the few moments I did have it out.

MarketMerida

MarketMerida3

MarketMerida4

Gambling seemed to be in demand in many markets around the Yucatan peninsula. Merida being a bigger city had more machines than usual. The guy outside kept eagerly looking at me across the street. I felt it was alright to take my cam out and snap the scene. He didn’t seem to mind.

MarketMerida2

MarketMerida5

MarketMerida6