and, just like a game, we're travelling again! "we" almost the whole gang has gotten back together for this one: myself, Chancho and Roberta hit the road again (Marta and Bufe stay behind to take care of the rear)
And 2115 rolls in, I grab my bags and dart out of class, into the metro heading toward the train station and once here, after going round and round looking for the txt office, the adventure starts: we sit down, lay back, open our bags and goodness comes out: apples, mandarines, labash, a tortilla, cheese, wine and the uncomparable feeling: we are on holiday!!!
Looking back and my trips with Marta is now hard to believe that only 3 hours can take me so far away, but airplanes tend to move a tad faster than old Marta, and despised as they are, they still hold some charming things to do in them. 0400 and we step out of an airport into the Polar Circle, that enigmatic place I read about some 20years ago and that will then help me make as scenario to some story telling for my back then little sister. And it's white, white everywhere. And thats all we manage to see: white, "Murmanski snow" is the cry we give... a quick futbol game with a piece of ice (almost as good as "futbol con chapita") and our charriot arrives: 4 wheels and 2 smiling faces, what else could I ask for?and we drive, heading for the city. 30 minutes to cross the tundra. We feel it but there is little we can see, it wont be till a few days later, when we step back into the tundra again that we could truly appreciate the magnitude of this white coat: majestic, breath taking, omnipresent coat....
And can´t help it but compare my Peru with this place. After all, the people are almost as friendly. But the similarities go past that... and we relate: deer - llamas; piripiolki - cuys; seals, sea cows and the sort, we have those too; and mountains, mountains so magnanimous I remember many a one time standing at their feet, getting ready to take them on, but not here. Here, with this white coat the mountains so much like wearing, I wouldnt dare. I look at them and simply enjoy the view.... the magnanimous view of a frozen tundra as I tumble down the mountains on a snowboard or as I cross it at high speeds on a snowmobile. A snowmobile, what a delightful concoction! .
But this holiday has to come to an end as well. And I say goodbye to the white coat, to the seals, to the porros while walking in empty streets at -30C, but I refuse to say goodbye to the best part of this trip: the people that took us in their house and into their hearts. To you guys, thank you and hope to see you again....
Ciao belli....
