After many urban hours in Mexico City, I hankered for remote, silent places - space and room to get lost with its own views in the landscape. We followed the call of the Andes.
The path leads us three over headache bringing passes and frighteningly melting glaciers. Passing by small villages of round, thatched houses where guinea pigs scurry around at the floor to escape the cooking pot. Along turquoise lagoons the path leads us through deep partial dark and vivid green canyons where hundreds alpacas are grazing.
By approaching darkness we reach a village just in time to join the inauguration of electricity. As we got up and out of our tent the next morning between alpaca in their enclosure, we enjoy fresh cooked potatoes. The "electro party" was irresistibly going on. Five men who did not ran out of alcohol keep going on by throwing the hats of each other at the rooftop.
The presumable route gets close to an impressive glacier and leads us meanwhile we are getting lost to a village made of sanguineous coloured adobe merging with alike coloured environment. The snowy nights surprise us and the colourful landscapes of the day before turn into a multifarious white. Natives scamper barefoot in sandals through the snow.
Thoughts remain in the memories of the Andes, as we suddenly stand in the dunes of a desert close to the Pacific Ocean. Our feet crack the salt-crust of the sand dunes. After uncountable drawn-out sand hills we catch sight of the sea, smashing powerful against the cliffs glowing intensely orange in the setting sun. Confusingly we hitch-hike with a truck filled with sea shells through the desert landscape, to continue our route in the heartland.
Capital Inca ruins, subtropical mountain landscapes and endless salt-mine-terraces haunt our minds as we cross the Bolivian border at Lake Titicaca. In La Paz we walk up a hill in the suburbs as a metropolis shaman crawls out of his tent to contact the spirits. It is day of the dead - in the cemetery we raise our glass to drink on the dead. Skulls lying decorated on blankets, surrounded by friends and family infusing glowing cigarettes to the skulls mouth. The city resembles an ocean of red bricks, shining in the setting sun before it disappears in the dark.
