Where the wind will take me?

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Where do we go now?_ Door County, Wisconsin.

© Flavio Martín Morante_2012_

I just started to read the book "Where the wind will take me" by Eduardo Redjuch that one of my best friends (Daniel) has recently sent me, which is an accounting of a man desire to not leave a single corner of this world without passing in front of his eyes. At the same time I do that, I have found at home a disc with a set of scanned negatives (the one below included) from some years ago which has brought a smile of good memories to me.

I always heard the story told by my parents about the first time they took me to the beach. I was around a year old (I think) and according to my parents, I was like a Costa Rican turtle speeding up in four legs towards the water at the first chance I had to get away, just for them to pick me up and bring me "back to camp". Its a funny story (specially if you hear it from my Mom's mouth and arms movement) but also I always think of it as a prophetic one, one that will translate later into the way I see or want to see the world. 

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Backpacking in Uruguay 

(in route to the Crows Lagoon in Minas), some 13-14 years ago.

© Flavio Martín Morante_1998-99_ Taken by one of my best friends, Gabriel.

Luckily, I have gone to many different places, from the Carlos Gardel house in Tacuarembó, Uruguay to the Beaches of Normandy in France, and despite of have had find the ways for it, nothing would it have been done if the desire was not there (this to say that I have met people with way more resources than I do which prefer to do their annual trip just to the city mall). And desire is something I never lacked. Because of that, the need to see what was "around the corner" has been always present as a way of thinking and living. I can say I made sure I went my way around to most of Uruguay (or the Uruguay that interest me) before I left the country and the memories are there like tattoos on my skin, from the beauty of swimming on the Río Negro at midnight, to flying over Colonia on an airplane that felt it was going to fall apart at any second, the good memories of Carnaval in the uruguayan-brazilian border town of Bella Unión to the great feeling felt when I set foot on the Isla de Flores, etc, etc.

Then, after moving to this side of the Equator, it was seven years ago on top of the Haleakala Volcano (see photo below) that I reaffirmed a commitment long ago made. It was around 5 in the morning, when at 10.000 feet high as the first sun rays started to light up the morning in a warm flame, the feeling of been so diminutive as I contemplated the "whole world" beneath me underlined the fact that there is a lot to see.

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Top of Haleakala Volcano (10.000 feet high), Maui, Hawaii _ 2005.

© Flavio Martín Morante_2005_

Today, as Dawn and I keep looking to what´s next?, reading the book mentioned at the beginning of this post I only can think on the saying "the world is a big handkerchief" and with its small or big foldings, I would like to visit every corner of it.

PD_ Thanks to my friend Daniel for such a great book.