The adventure begins in southern Colorado at the great sand dunes that rise over 800 feet above the plateau which gives way to the rocky mountains. Colombe, myself, and her dog venture out into the depths of the vast mountains of sand. Following the ridges to its heights, we stop and stand in awe of the phantasmagoria of the ever-shifting dunes. Shadows of clouds move across her curves with high speed precision. Whirling eddies and vortices of sand dance around us.
Colombe runs into a sandpit. I follow and penetrate the slope above, creating an avalanche. Suddenly a sound like the percusion of a low flying jet against the earth shakes the ground beneath our feet, stopping us in our tracks. The sound of one layer of sand moving upon another. The slope here was perched in the perfect state to give rise to this earthen base frequency, its amplitude unimaginable. In all the other hills we jumped off or ran through, the sound was never reproduced.
In the afternoon sun we defied gravity on a ridge top, hand stands and yoga postures... open to the world.
This one of the places that the buddhas love, an ever-changing phantasmagoria of landscape. Like a sand mandala, a true testimony to impermanence. And so i break away from a certain bubble of reality in Taos, New Mexico.
Leaving the Mexican Caribbean, an extension now of the USA, is to enter Mexico. Welcomed by the howler monkies in the night, I returned to the steamy jungle of Palenque, to once again climb Mayan pyramids and sing in ancient tunnels.
From there I joined two american girls in a truck and we drove the winding roads towards San Cristobal de las Casas, stopping at Agua Azul, the quintessential jungle waterfall paradise. Traversing through small, poor villages, there were signs to remind us that we were in the land of the Zapatistas. In San Crisobal, where the Zapatistas made their stand, there were protests in the streets for the recent killing of a 14-year-old boy with tear gas, and the raping of village women by the Policia. "Viva la Revolucion!" is alive here.
While in S.C., I was reaquainted with a man that i had met three years prior at the rainbow gathering in Costa Rica. For three years he and others rode on horse-back through Central America; the caravan's mission was to network eco-villages and organic farms. Through them i was invited to stay and help build at a nearby eco / artist community.
Following my will to the south, I journeyed to Lago Atitlan, Guatemala. Staying in San Pedro, a sort of traveller's paradise in the midst of "full on" Guatemalan villages. In this region, the women wear colorful traditional clothes and speak local dialects.
The lake is surrounded by volcanoes and constitutes some sort of "vortex", hard for many travellers to leave. After days of meeting many beautiful people, swimming in the lake, eating good food and drink, and playing / dancing for a full moon party, I escaped the vortex (however, with thoughts of returning to help build a sustainable yoga retreat with a Dutch yoga teacher, and perhaps to share sustainable building practices with local victims of last year's hurricane).
Advancing towrds the coast of Oaxaca, I landed in Puerto Escondido, a beach with some of the largest waves in the world. On a smaller wave, I surfed and joined the great reverberation of the Pacific....
And now I find myself back in San Cristobal with a couple of days left and a passport that expires tomorrow....
Steve Harkless
Last modified: October 23, 2006
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