Apologies again, if this posting takes on the flavor of ‘holiday pix’ – but images often speak louder than words, and I have been ‘on the road’ in south America for the past five weeks. The descriptive travelogue would take up very many pages indeed. So, here is a fleeting run through some of the impressions and experiences of this time – I have aimed to include material not posted on Facebook – plus a round up of some reading and music.
The stay began with a special event that Lucho was organizing where the city of Mendoza was invited to switch of all their lights as a gesture towards ecology – ‘save the Planet’. Candles were lit and a lovely atmosphere prevailed.
The next event was a Musica en Moviemiento Introductory course. Excellent team here and some very good work.
This being Mendoza, a trip to the local vineyards was never far away:
I then ‘decamped’ to Salta – a town in the north of Argentina.
A further journey north then took me to Humahuaca, saturated with indigenous Indian culture.
And then a meet-up with two of the MEM team for an even more spectacular trip to Cafayate.
The Devil’s throat and Amphitheatre – reputed gateways to the underworld and cosmos respectively.
Again many indigenous signs and myths to get hold of.
This lead to a Dr Mike transformation……Dr Who?
Also some time to search out some contemporary Argentinian art:
A special trip to Samsi – the Yoga, Tai Chi cenre established and managed by one of the MEM team – Vijaya – these past 23 years!!
A honour and a pleasure to meet the team there, eat and speak with them.
Could not resist this photo of fast food – Argentinian style.
A trip to Buenos Aires – a great city.
This trip took in a concert of the British group – Radiohead. Spectacular!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iajXJIp_eU
Pizza with Lili and Lucho at 03.30 in the morning!!
Also a visit to La Boca – a coastal port where the first immigrants arrived
– and tango was born!!!
My favourite photo of the trip:
I posted a recording of the lecture I gave in Mendoza last November – with concurrent interpretation into Spanish.
Lots of reading and listening to music along the way. For music, some traditional Argentinian chanson – beautiful songs:
I need to improve my Spanish, so my reading was firmly English based: one philosophical and the other fiction.
The philosophy is one of those books that one comes across every now and again that seem to pull together and sum up the current direction of one’s own thinking.
The fiction was actually a translation of Esther Kinsky’s book from German – very much in the style of W G Sebald. A very elegiac account of a woman walking the outskirts of the city – London, but other places as well and images joined across time by the presence of water and the river. Very poetic – part psycho-geography, part dream-like, part Bakhtinian carnivalesque:
We gave another Musica en Moviemiento presentation:
https://www.facebook.com/musicanmovimiento/
Lots more eating outside – but autumn was turning in out there,
….so time to catch up with the English spring…..