My Amazonian excursion was a Herzog-ian fiction become real. While languishing on riverboats I felt just like Klaus Kinski's increasingly mad conquistador from Aguirre: The Wrath of God.
...and as I steamed in the jungle camp of the electrification workers my mind took on a Fitzcarraldo-esque cast; his crazy dream was to bring opera to Iquitos, mine was to ascend the Urubamba River to the highlands. Both were fated to confront nearly insurmountable odds.
Once I did get to the highlands, Tintin became the fiction paralleling my travels. As the French philosopher Michel Serres said in reference to Tintin: "Who has traversed Shanghai, Tibet, Scotland, or the Near East without saying to himself: I recognize this landscape? The world mimics the memorable panels . . . life has begun to follow the spells of art." Now add Peru to that list. I was impressed by the accuracy of Hergé's depictions of architecture and dress in "Prisoners of the Sun." Cusco looks like this.
My relationship with llamas and alpacas has been more copasetic than poor Haddock's. He's really the guy to get the bone in the fish every time.
On my Ausangate trek I found myself repeatedly thinking of "Tintin in Tibet"'s taxing high-altitude trekking. When I needed motivation I imagined I too had a friend to search for in a snowy plane wreck.
Now, if only I could enter a Miyazaki stage in my journeys. That would be a dream.
No comments:
Post a Comment