ANDEAN EYE CANDY
SANTA FE DE ANTIOQUIA, Colombia – Earth claws skyward here, mounded into a spur of the Andes. The bus wends the switchbacks like a snake-hipped tango dancer. And I, somehow, sleep through the 90°F slalom.
Of all my transport-narcolepsy triumphs, this may be the finest.
I awake in Santa Fe de Antioquia, the region's oldest settlement. A market still anchors this colonial city of churches and cobbled streets.
At the Museo de Arte Religioso, I skim away from the group. No matter how passionate my guide, I can't connect with a place while being talked at.
Following a pigeon's trill, I discover two interlocking courtyards, discarded scraps in centuries of haphazard building. Monks chant over loudspeakers, solemn voices leavened by the fountain's arpeggios. On a wooden bench, I sit and grow quiet. I burrow towards the deep, centering solitude, where words bloom unbidden like tropical moss on terracotta tiles.
"You must come now," a hostesses materializes.
"I'm working," I wave my notebook at her.
"Now, please. Come."
She herds me back to the group. And who can blame her? The periodistas norteños are visiting for a few hours only and there is much to see.
Except I need to feel. And think. To simply be here.
Three times we perform this minuet, before I cave and plod behind the curator. Inspired, he displays vestments, beribboned statues of saints and the strange image of Mary squirting breast milk.
As instructed, I fill my eyes.
But not my heart.
Mmmm, that's too bad. But better a glimpse than to see nothing at all, right?
ReplyDeleteDB: you're right, yes. But it's heartbreaking to travel days, then not connect with the "sense of place," as we say in the trade.
ReplyDeleteHowever, like the "Holy Grail" character turned into a newt, "I got better".
Edward, my coffee card made the Norwegian hit parade in the crack entry where I somehow confused a bowl with a cup.
ReplyDeleteI am a highly trained professional...
My only music protest was against Meatloaf (fair enough, I'm sure most would agree). You, on the other hand, squealed like a sausage-bound piglet throughout that classic "Tennessee Stud".
Shame. SHAME, I say.
A sense of place?
ReplyDeleteYou hoped to glean a sense of place on a forced-march press trip?
You must inhabit a parallel travelwriter universe, m'dear!
No, just an eternally hopeful one...
ReplyDelete