Was it real?

...Are you real? did we actually travelled together thru the transiberian? are you seriously from NZ? was I walking barefoot all the time? how long my beard was? was I shoting pictures everyday? we spent your b-day together...with Pablo?? blue starfish are for real? have we been in Timor Leste? That country does actually exist? How did the milk taste in mongolia? and the camel cheese? how often we used to smile? What was the temperature in Gobi desert? is it true that there was a glacier? how did we manage to speak with the nomads? how many times did we sleep ont the street? were we scared? did we ride motorbikes? is it true that we tried to escape from the police? Manu was a human being or another invention? what about Kupang, their market, mama Bende, the children dancing with us... was it real ? were we traveling light? was I always lost as I refused to read maps?...why wellington wasnt windy? why writing in english is getting so hard? why i havent touched my camera? why do i have to wear shoes? where I have been, how long...a year, seriously? lots of things that doesnt make sense.

Here are my answers:

1. Yes I am real (at least I think so)

2. Technically it was the trans-Mongolian which is part of the trans-Siberian and yes we were on it (we nearly both got dragged off it crossing the border into China.

3. Yes I am from New Zealand - it is a real place,

4. Yes you often refused to wear shoes and walked in bare-feet however my feet will always be tougher than yours and I will always offer you my jandals when you are struggling to walk over stones, you will always refuse :)

5. Yes everyday you took at least one photo except in Cambodia where you lost your motivation for a bit, occasionally it was annoying when I was walking with 20+ kilos on my back but now that I have all your photos the pain seems worth it.

6. Yip we spent the day in Bali for my birthday with Pablo and you brought me brownie cause it was my birthday.

7. Blue starfish are real - there are lots in Komodo National Park.

8. Yip we got to Timor-Leste eventually after a painful wait for our visas and an even more painful 12 hour van drive.

9. It is very new (only 10 years old) but it does exist.

10. It tastes revolting - it's warm, salty, sour milk, that tastes like someone left it in the sun for about a week and emptied 1/2 a cup of salt into it.

11. We smiled a lot but there were also days that I didn't want to smile or couldn't.

12. The temperature was somewhere between freezing cold (at night and I was pleased to have my sleeping bag) and boiling hot as we wondered through the sand dunes.

13. I'm not sure it was a glacier but there was definitely a large chunk of ice there.

14. I think I just smiled at the nomads and you communicated through broken English and hilarious hand movements (you were much better at that than me).

15. Plenty of sleeping in airports and absolutely in one train station.

16. Not sleeping at the train station, but I think that you were scared when that Cambodian guy was driving us to the boxing - but you felt bad for doubting him and brought him a beer :)

17. Yes lots of motorbikes - we even came off one once but I managed to injure myself worse just by walking on a Dili street. 

18. Haha yes we did.

19. Honestly I don't know he was such and interesting man but I hope I never meet anyone like that again.

20. Kupang market was amazing the fresh fish was awesome, saying goodbye to Mama Bende actually made me sad, the children danced and then asked us for money, haha.

21. Some days we traveled light other times we had way way way too much stuff.

22. Yes you have a terrible sense of direction and even when you tried to read a map you often got it wrong, reading it upside down etc - thank goodness you have other talents.

23. I don't know but it is making up for it today and blowing an absolute gale outside!

24. I don't know but I hope you pick it up again soon I would love to see some photos of Chile, but it's often hard to take photos of things that seem normal to you. Maybe you need to look at Chile with fresh eyes to see what you can take photos of.

25. You never HAVE to wear shoes - maybe you shouldn't and teach Chileans the magical joy of walking in bare-feet everywhere- I try to do it at least 3 times a week.

26. You should write a list and yeah it was about a year.

I hope that helped you make sense of some of it.

Cornete en la Pera

Un combo bien puesto en el mentón es bastante particular. No te duele donde te pegan, sino que en el lado directamente opuesto; dado que éste fue ascendente, lo sentí seco en la oreja opuesta. De hecho, pareciera como si escucharas la explosión de una espinilla atómica a todo color en tu oído., no sabes donde estas parado y con cue'a cachai quien te lo pegó. Luego de eso, es cuando te baja la sangre mapuche vietnamita camboyana y sólo piensas en devolverle un puntete en las weas, hasta ahí todo bien, el tema es que ni las piernas ni las manos te responden... creo que un escupo hubiera sido lo óptimo. Mañana, tomaré sólo sopas.

3 de marzo del 2011.

Squash y Semenjanzas

Ya es lunes, 2:45 am y no puedo dormir, mi cabeza me bombardea de ideas en mi estado somnoliento e inexplicablemente me hace retroceder en el tiempo. Los veo a uds. entrar a la cancha con el nerviosismo previo y expectación de cada partido. Veo nítidamente a Don Juan contagiándome de su  entusiasmo,  escucho los bombasos de paralelas llegando al fondo de la cancha disparadas por el Búlgaro Rojas,  los "oooh" del público con Piérart sorprendiendo con su talento, veo esos nicks de dos muros inesperados ejecutados por Magic Fuenza, y veo la determinación y perfección en el juego de Max. Me veo a mí también, perdiendo dos a cero, cambiándome polera para entrar al tercer set, con la convicción que no será el último..mi mano derecha, tiene sangre al igual que mi rodilla izquierda.

Escucho a Horacio González en la premiación, diciéndome que el squash es igual al ajedrez. Es un deporte de estrategia, posición, de pensar en la  jugada más que buscar el punto en cada golpe. Con esa idea me quedé y mucha gente así lo piensa. De hecho esa es la leyenda urbana:  squash es el ajedrez de los deportes con raqueta.

Me acabo de dar cuenta que no estoy de acuerdo, al entrar a la cancha necesitas algo más que eso. Si lo piensas, en un partido cuando te falla la cabeza, aún lo puedes ganar a puro corazón; en el ajedrez en cambio, eso significaría  un jaque mate seguro.

Yo diría que el deporte hermano es el Salto con Garrocha, tu rival pone la vara, tú con tu raqueta debes alcanzar su nivel.

Abrazos, Gonzalo.

21 de marzo del 2011

Buenos Recuerdos

Me gustaban esos tiempos cuando las decisiones importantes de grupo se decidían jugando a la ¨matita¨. (más grande se jugaba en las matitas que tb era entretenio), y los colistas se enfrentaban en un duelo a muerte y siempre polémico ¨Cachipún¨, cuya emoción por el desenlace usualmente se extendía hasta la tercera..

Así de Simple

logré concretar objetivos impensados..., justo después que dejé de pensar" GDV

Violeta se fue a los cielos; y Yo me enamoré de ella...

Cuota

Encontré que en la honestidad hay una cuota de egoísmo, así como en el egoísmo existe aún más honestidad.

La Paradoja de los Sueños

- Tengo muchos sueños, y  no me dejan dormir..paradójico ¿no?
- Repta: Esos insomnios no se combaten.