The days are going and some weeks too and do not fail, always, every trip I have the same conclusions and, although many days of travel are coming, the conclusion is here. Most importantly, what makes sense, the only thing indispensable for a trip to be truly complete are the people, the people that appear as part of each adventure. It does not matter whether it is an expedition to the Arctic, the Himalayas, or the desert. And when I say “people” I totally exclude the tourists (here very few) with whom one crosses from time to time. That species to which although in theory I belong, I do not consider anything since in the end the tourists always comply with standards as the preacher of a small village in which I spent several days told me, and that he thanked me insistently that I had approached to know them “really”.
Tourists gather among them, take photos and continue their journey without getting too close to them and without realizing that to know a country you have to take photos, of course, but then you have to approach, sit and chat, listen and let them enjoy listening to us, because for them that a foreigner comes to greet and chat for a while is basically a breath of fresh air to a life quite complex and with few incentives or distractions. With few tourists you will see me talking here.
I did not expect the really open arms of these survivors that from our comfortable life they seem to us from a movie and but they are as real as ourselves. To this day I venture to say that they are the most welcoming people I have met after traveling to so many remote places. This place, where the only “black blondes” is full of history, life and death, of survivors in the end as the great “Lupa” fisherman with whom I shared fishing hours and good talks With his family, or the pleasant Barney, who fills his life looking for the remains of the war to create a “small” museum at the entrance of his house. People, people and just people are what puts the color on a trip like this. Perhaps it turns out that I am more sociable than I myself believe or some say. Simple people, noble and humble are basically those that interest me in general, here and in Spain.
As in many other parts of the Pacific, the past of World War II is quite present here, on the surface and under the water, all mixed with ancestral past full of legends, tribal fights and tsunamis….
At the moment neither fights nor tsunamis in sight ….
