bazaruto

if i hadn't been there myself not even the images of google earth would've made me believe it was true.
the island of Bazaruto takes literally your breath away... of course there were 50 degrees under the sun and that basically took out your breath. but the gigantic dune of sand (duh) in front of me seemed so amazing i couldn't stop laughing. there was nothing i could do but laugh... say "shit!" and thank God in a low voice thanking him to let me live long enough to see this.

i kept looking around me, almost as if to let the world know about it, i wanted to say "i'm here" "i've made it" and "it's real", i would've called everyone to let them know, but in a place like this there is no place for mobile phones... none whatsoever. the telephones were dead... and with that slowly i realised this was a moment in a lifetime where someone drops you off in a corner of the world and tells you to enjoy it to the fullest for 1 whole day.

i did...

there were no colors except for blue, light blue, dark blue, pink blue, yellow blue, white blue, green blue, sea blue, turquoise blue, orange blue... whatever blue, it was there... i saw all the different tones of blue... actually i now believe there is only one color on this planet, BLUE... the rest humans created from it.

wherever you looked you saw space... almost but different as in Gorongosa, only here it was the ocean... the so beloved Indian Ocean my mother says it's the most beautiful she's ever seen... as i sat on that warm and soon-to-be very hot sand i took deep breaths and smiled, laughed, probably cried thinking i almost ended up missing this... and i was surprised by the tricks and trips your mind does when it's confronted with a place like this.
the first question couldn't be other than "what the heck am i doing in belgium?" and the next one wasn't a question... it was a goal "what if i lived here, would i see it like i'm seeing it now? is it possible to take this for granted? to forget that it exists? will the cold of belgium make me too sensitive for these things or will it make it dissapear too soon from my mind?"

i guess that's just up to me...
the same way my family always made sure i knew exactly what it was like to live here and how the dirt smelled, how the sun burnt, how the wind blew, how the trees swayed and how the monkeys laughed, i am trying to explain how blue the ocean is, how warm the sand felt, how far the horizon layed, how red i became, how happy A.T. was and how scary it was at first to jump in the water later on and snorkle for the first time...
see bicuka, it's not that scary they said... Antonio held my hand, this young dark guy, held my hand so i wouldnìt stay inside the boat... i wasn't scared of the water, i'd live in water if i could, it wasn't because i couldn't swim, i love to swim... but the thought of looking down upon another type of life felt like i'd be intruding on someone's life... and also because it's like being afraid of heights upside down... i'm not afraid of heights, but i can't, or couldn't conceive the idea of swiming with fishes... Antonio made sure i was calm... i saw starfishes bigger than my dinning table, goldfishes bigger that rocks and rocks that actually were just coral swaying slowly with the water... there were no sounds, no noise, no voices... just me and a chocolate colored hand in mine and billions of life beneath my body...

AND i found Nemo! i did, i did... he even winked at me.
it was probably the sun... he made me allucinate, but i swear it was Nemo.


tomorrow we're heading to Maputo... it's been a long month, a long trip down memory lane... and a great trip to my inner self.