Behold - the Andes

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The first morning of our voyage was all about the Andes and the dream into which it woke us.

The ever inquisitive Penny slid the shades of our jet craft open, and the queenly majestic Andes went streaking by, their green mounds bobbing along on a fragile lace of yielding clouds in white, gently laying itself out, bed like, for this persistent mountainous presence. And the gentle rays of the sun, yet un-risen, bathed our sea in the sky with hues of deepening blues and hesitant reds, fading to pretty pinks, among drowsy, molten browns. And through all of it, the rolling Andean range lent moving substance to the passing scene.

Yes, it was early morning, December 11, and we were breaching into Southern South America. I asked me, as I do on these occasions, why? And was reminded, by the striking display of nature beyond the open shades that, in my long-gone high school mind, it was geography that entranced me, geography and its influence on people who roamed, settled and, or passed through its stunning contours; and tamed, or were in turn tamed by it.

And so the Andes went into sparkling mode, as the morning sun joyfully joined the show; and randomly iridescent, jagged sculptures, sometimes amber in tone, oft times rouge stained in creamed marble, danced beneath the wings of our air bird droning-on in the midst of this wonder.

There was no reprieve from the beauty unfolding beneath us; as mounds of shale and slate came and went, speckled with dabs of white; and winding narrows of vegetal green flowed through graceful, if stark, running rises in the terrain. Then, there appeared, icy cavities of infinitely irregular shapes, claiming their own small but coveted space in this expanse of muted splendour.

There then came fluffy billows of snowy spray, from which thin threads of water emerged, winding their ways, transverse across the land, and giving way to the foothills or Steppes of this region, dissolving, finally, into the chequer-boarded expanse of the savannah or Pampas fields, arrayed in squares of green grass and hay browns.

And so it was that our flight, having passed-by, over the Pacific, to the west of Lima, touched down in respite and took off again at Santiago, now yielded, reluctantly it seemed, to control from the Buenos Aires tower.

And of that, and more, later.


Vernon

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Comments

[Bill Tait]

What? No pictures?
Much as I admire your literary prowess - pictures are good.

[Anicet]

Hi Bill, You are right, pictures would have made the perfect acccompanyment. Problem was the camera was in the checked in baggage.