Wandering an Incredible Life

I’m in the car, driving on the Quebrada de Humahuaca. Every 5 km mountains change their color. Here God was practicing before deciding how to color the world.

I’m on the Salinas Grande. A salt desert, flat and very white until the horizon. It seems to be on a paper sheet. I take myself a picture to be sure I haven’t become a cartoon.

I’m at Purmamarca. In front of me I have the “Cerro siete colores”, the seven colors hill. I believe they’re more than seven, but I think I won’t make a complaint at the touristic office.

I’m on the street for Cafayate. I park in a rocky desert. Under a natural stone column I sit down and wait for Will the Coyote to pass by.

I’m on the Laguna Colorada shore. Some llama is grazing grass so green. Some pink flamingo is fishing in the red water. I’m not hungry.

I’m in front of the Dalì desert. I get off the jeep and check well, but I can’t see any frame.

I’ve been in six different places, six different planets, six places so stunning that an alien spaceship landing wouldn’t have surprised me.

And when I think I saw all the best, Christmas Eve comes. Really, I didn’t think I had been so good this year, but evidently I deserve a present.

The rain.

I gotta say the truth: I don’t even recognize immediately the magnificent and unexpected gift, better, I even complain. But the next day I understand my mistake. I’m at the Salar  de Ujuni. A flat and endless expanse of salt, totally covered by a thin layer of water: the most incredible and huge abstract painting Nature has ever created.

The sky is reflected, until the horizon.

I have no words, one more time. But being a poet wouldn’t be enough, it wouldn’t be enough being a painter…

This time I look and I shut up.