Eleutheromania

If you are content to get nowhere, bounded only by Earth, the ocean and sky, plus occasional irksome mosquitos. Let me take you to La Pica, Venezuela.
Rooted deeply in Apure, it is traced by plains with extensive fields of sand dunes. And while absent of trees and shrubs, it is bounded by corridors of jungles surrounding mirroring rivers.

I lived this place once a year, every year, for 18 years.

Has it ever happened to you that you go about finding these spots that are in some way divergent while remaining stagnant?
I discovered La Pica anew.
The 1st and 18th time.

You see, its magic relies not only its boundless nature, but its people. The trek starts in the roadtrip with hours of a perpetual roller coaster of a highway, followed by the rhythmic smell of fresh white cheese and passion fruit, along with the emphatic sound of shady boats that carry cars through rivers without bridges. When the road ends, you are lead by tiny muddy paths that only Garmin knows, paved by someone who wants you to discover the gratification that comes with uncertainty.

Sounds loony, but isn’t that what we look for when we travel? The secret behind the possibility of becoming someone else when globe-trotting?
I did, 18 times.

As you enter Apure, small towns welcome you with shoeless men and shirtless, chubby kids whose moms wear hats that carry the weight of their monthly dinner. And like that, almost instantly, when you inhale the ever-so-hot air you become an ‘Apureno’. Wanting to undress and walk in the sandy unpaved road with superstitious necklaces around your soul.
Seems like a trip already, and it hasn’t even started. When you make it to the campsite, that chosen by the smell of trees old enough to hold the weight of your hammock and the view of a river that cleanses your feet as much as your spirit. You are there, in a little parenthesis of eternity.

For us, this was an undercover fishing trip. Yes, we did fish all day, everyday. However, it was not the fish we were after, but the satisfaction of listening to the silence inside the illusion of the world. This was a Generational Father-Son trip. I was raised to be a boy, and for a week I was happy pretending to be one. I woke everyday with my dad ear-splitting singing and fell asleep with the whispering voice of the myths that rule my nightmares to this day.

Now I dream to return, so I can see him at his best, or just at all, teaching me the wonders of understanding that every trip is a question to be lived.