The next part of the journey takes four buses and two taxis over a good 1,600 kilometres and 33 hours to the far north of Argentina. Every 100 kilometres, a bend interrupts the endless straight stretch to the horizon. For two months I travelled south on the west side of the Andes, now east of them to the north.
In the centre, the peaks of the Andes shine in the sunrise. On one side, they rise slowly over hundreds of kilometres. On the other, they go boom! and after thousands of kilometres of flat pampas, they are up to 6,000 metres high.
On one side the “ll” is a “j”, on the other a “sch”. On the one side I understood little, here practically nothing. On one side, poor farmers burn down unprofitable pisco fields. Here, surplus natural gas is being flared. Neither side is truer. Only the mighty Andes in the centre are real.
All that remains is to slowly and gleefully tear off all four limbs of a really nasty villain on a high peak. Sit down. Wonder. Scream. And to enjoy what’s left: the beautiful sunset.
After three months in South America, Spanish almost feels like my mother tongue. The more I speak it, the less I understand it.
He visto cosas que vosotros no podríais creer.
Naves de ataque ardiendo, más allá de Orion.
He visto rayos-C brillando cerca de la Puerta de Tannhäuser.
Todos esos momentos se perderán en el tiempo
como lágrimas en la lluvia.
Es hora de morir.
Frank Woelky, born in 1973. Kitesurfer since 1998. Since 2006, I have been combining kitesurfing and web design on trips lasting several months off the beaten track.