I remember my first travel with my mom and my brothers. It was the first time we were going to get away from Cali. Maybe and you hope I give you all the little details about it, but I just have one word for you to describe it. Unbelievable.
Out of the concrete jungle
August 1997. We were going to know mom’s place of birth. San Pedro del Vino. A little town built on a big mountain right on the banks of the Patía River. It was not easy to arrive there. Mom and dad decided it was better to travel at night, in that way we could arrive early in the morning to Tumaco, our first stop.
Once away from Cali, it was great to feel the wind right on your face. You really could breath; you really could feel the clean air getting into your nose, passing through your throat until arrive to your lungs. In the morning, you could really appreciate how awesome it was to move something away from the gray city. Your eyes could get shining in front of a grand green grass rob covering the ranges. In that moment, I and the nature became two into one, I could feel that was the place my human essence belonged to. I really felt how my body responded to the call of that celestial paradise on earth. My view could not be apart of the occident green side that surrounded the road to our destiny. No noise, no pollution, anything stinked except the thought we had to return to “contemplay” the concrete jungle again.
We finally arrived Tumaco. “Mire mija, this is the place were your mom was born”. I have to confess it did not impress me. The first thing I could see was a group of depressing houses in front of me. More pollution, more people everywhere, women and men crying “bocachico, lleve el bocachico!!” My mom, my brothers and I walking and walking. That gray color, again, in front of my eyes.
Water
I thought the magnificence of that trip, my first trip, had finished when we arrived there. But then, I saw it. Just as grand as it is, right in front of our faces. Imposing, furious, impatient, but calm. With no ending more than the limits of your view. Dancing from back to front, like calling for you, like inviting you to get into it until getting lost. It was the first time my brothers and I saw the sea. We were about six, eight and ten years old. We looked at each other and our smiling faces could perfectly describe what we were feeling right that moment.
On the wharf, there was a man “Salahonda, Ramo, San Pedro. Baratico vea!” he cried. My mom took the box with our stuffs, and started to walk faster “háganle, háganle!” My brothers and I ran as fast as we could, furtunely, we could reach the last empty places on the motor-launch. My mom, my brothers and I closer to the sea. The motorist started the engines. The front of the boat breaked the water. I could not avoid my eyes got lost into that clear blue dancing water, those waves comming and going were a kind of hypnosis. I was almost sure nothing could interrupt that moment, but thanks God, I was completely wrong.
The sea creature
During that moment of facination, I could see something in the water. It looked such a big wrinkled brown piece of wood that was being moved by the waves. Outside and inside, one and another, following the launch. The piece of wood seemed to be closer. My eyes on it, closer and closer, and my eyes on it, closer and closer. I felt my heart stoped for a while. I could not believe that was hapening. During my whole life I had thought you just could see it in a biology book of the library. I thought moments like that just taked place on TV. That here in Colombia it was not possible to experience such as thing.
Yes. You know, I thought a whale was something impossible to regard in a considerable short distance. But it hapened to me. I could no believe it, a magnificent creation swimming by the side of our boat, and me –at least for that moment, the only spectator. I felt it was there just for me. It was not as big as those we use to see on the National Geography Channel, I suppose it was just a baby-whale. But I did not care. The creature was there for me and I was there for it. No one but me was looking at it, and I could not say anything, my body was encapsuled in a very strange turbulence of emotions from toe to head.
I swear it is true
I thought it was better to keep it in silent. I fear that someone called me a liar –it is not common adults believe in kids’ stories, but the point is, that it was not a product of my imagination. It was real, as real as me or you. Despite evrything I made my decition. Once at home –in Cali, I was going to share that amazing experience with my family.
And yes, I did it. We returned to the gray forest, and once at home I finally talked. I told my parents and brothers I saw a whale during the travel on the boat.
- “Stop saying pendejadas!”, that was my father’s first reaction.
- “I swear it por Dios, it is true!”
- “a lo mejor and that was un bujeo!”
I did not know what a “bujeo” was. On the contrary, I was sure about what a whale was. And what I saw that day in the sea, was a whale. It is incredible how ignorance sometimes makes people get blind. At that time, my father and I had not idea whales use to arrive to Colombian Pacific Coast. A year passed until we –my father and I, could see on “Telepacifico” that amazing spectacle in a news section.
- “Aah, si ve pa!”, I told you it was a whale.
- “Mmm...Hmm”.
And this is the story about my trip to San Pedro del Vino, my mother’s place of birth. A twenty hour trip which could capture my all in just one minute. To see a whale in its natural habit to just some meters from you. I had thought it would never happen such as thing to me, but it happened. It really happened to me.
Ah! Maybe and now you are asking to yourself, what about that place called San Pedro? Well, it is a confortable place –with no electricity but a confortable place, with nice people. The green grass is everywhere, the sky looks more blue than ever, and an immense river that challenge you to sail it.
A beautiful place apparently away from “civilization”, but immersed into a terrenal paradise.
N° 05
