More than two thousand years ago, at some point between 120 and 113 BCE, an exceptional horse of rare and marvellous beauty emerged from a little lake in a single hop and put itself in the hands of one man. The place was extraordinary: impressive, solid dunes that rose up to 400 meters high seemed as if they were refraining themselves from moving on top of the beautiful lagoon, named Wuwa. How could it be possible that they didn´t let the wind pushed them to bury the whole place for eternity?

The man was Bao Lizhang, a Chinese government’s official who ran the luck of the exilees: a fault or a mistake had been enough to condemn him to serve in wild lands, on the Empire’s very far Western borders. Many, like him, when crossing the Jiayuguan Pass fort’s last gate –facing the uncertain and wild–, used to throw in sorrow a little rock against the wall: if it failed to bounce back, their trip would end up in tragedy.

The Great Wall at Jiayuguan.

My photo gallery on the Great Wall and the fort is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/temoris/sets/72157615022967457/show/

When we look at a map of China, it seems to us as a one-piece territory, well integrated, static since milennia. In fact, China’s heartland lies on the East, roughly between Xi’an, Beijing and Hangzhou. The rest are conquests: Sichuan, the South, Manchuria. And to the West, the Tibetan plateau and Xinjiang province. Regarding the latter, China´s map along the centuria looks like a man whose belly grows hugely and then falls in famine: it has taken the “Western territories” many times, in bloody wars, and then lost them ever again (until Mao retook them).

The communication gateway between the West and China has been the narrow and long Hexi corridor (the Gansu province owes its shape to it), stretching right in between the freezing Tibetan plateau, to the South, and the deadly Gobi desert, to the North. A series of oasis allowed for the survival of those travelling along. The key point, its narrowest, was the Jiayuguan pass, which in Chinese tales and myths carries both the connotations of dangerous border and a Siberia-like punishing exile: the Empire was always in need to colonise those lands to assert its control. For that purpose, it used to get its subjects into forced migration: criminals, fugitives, merchants, low-rank officials like Bao Lizhang. Their duty was to become peasants and harvest food for the military garrisons. As Hexi’s corridor resembles China´s long throat, expelling them was called kow wai or “without the mouth”, as a sugestión that the country was spitting the condemned out.

The Jiayuguan Pass is closed by the westermost end of the wall, and the fort is still there, like new, to guard it. When I first saw the fort, from the opposite side of a frozen lake, it looked powerfully solid. It´s walls are very thick and trying to reach the main buildings seems an endless task. One goes across a gate, then there’s an open space, another gate, more open spaces… the designers created rat traps to mischieve the enemy when it thought it had overcome the last wall. Three high towers kept control over the scenario. In the last gate, there used to be graffiti left by the exilees lamenting their luck. And on the Northern and Southern sides, the Great Walls stretch along the desert and up to the mountains: all travellers had to submit to inspection at the fort or challenge its might.

A few kilometers to the North, a beautiful section of the Great Wall has been restored. By large, most people who have visited the longest human-made barrier went to the parts near Beijing, where they have joined the immense tourist groups that walk by the footpath on the top. It was wide enough to allow the hurried movement of entire platoons. But here, at Jiayuguan Pass, were this magnificent work of tens of thousands of humble Chinese subjects ends, it is barely wide enough for two men standing shoulder to shoulder. I followed it meandering up to the mountains, climbing with two hands at some point, and was exhausted when I reached the summit. I had to imagine the soldiers running up and down, trying to stop the attackers climbing up the walls and protecting themselves from an arrow storm and stumbling upon each other to fall on the wrong side of the wall –to the hands and swords of the enemy. (Well, not that falling on the “right side” wasn’t fatal.)

From the top I could see the end of the Jiayuguan oasis as a clear line: the cultivated lands on one side, the Gobi desert’s grey cruel dryness, on the other. Gobi means “stony”, and certainly there doesn´t seem to be anything alive, no vegetation, no scavenger birds surveilling from the sky. The Taklamakan desert, which I’d see further on, reaches higher temperatures, but it’s got the blessing of its oasis, of which in the Gobi there’s none.

The restorers of the site placed here a Silk Road’s caravan replica in real size: camels, merchantes, servants, the men who must have felt shaken when leaving the safety of the Great China and heading towards the wild territories, infested with aggressive nomads, poisonous animals, thirst and supernatural spirits ready to mislead the traveller out of his way and to painful death. But it made a huge impression on those coming towards it, as well. Three female European missioneries, Cable, French and French, wrote: “Only those who have crossed the Gobi roads can possibly understand the thrill and excitement of the traveller when the first tower of Kiayukwan (Jiayuguan) comes into sight, about five kilometers before the town is reached. Drivers and passengers always raise a shout at the prospect of once more passing the portal of China”.

Eight hours away from Jiayuguan, or a several weeks-long trip for the ancient caravans, there’s another oasis, Dunhuang’s. This town serves as a base to visit one of China’s most important cultural features: Mogao ku (Mogao caves), a climax in the humankind’s artistic history. They are also called the “thousand Buddhas caves”: for over ten centuries, between the 4th and the 14th, humble monks sculpted, carved or painted religious images. Dryness, cold, Buddhist resistance and good luck joined to keep them relatively safe from time and imperial persecution. Not so much from the White Russians, the soldiers defeated by the Soviets who escaped to China and were imprisoned in the caves, in the early 1920’s. Neither from the Western archeologists from the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, who are locally known as the “foreign devils” because they “saved” thousands of ancient relics from this and other sites in Xinjiang, by sending them out to countries whose museums still keep them and won´t give them back.

Yet, a thousand-years art work is not so easy to plunder and impressive sculptures and paintings are still there, showing different influences which in time mixed up: greco-Buddhist (the greek comes from Alexander the Great’s invasion of Central Asia, on the other side of the big Taklamakan), Chinese and Mongol-Lamaist. To protect them, there’s no artificial light in the caves (you can’t introduce cameras) and all visits must be guided (for 20 yuan, they take you to only seven caves, or so, which adds to the sustained robbery commited by the Chinese government to enter all tourist sites, 200 yuan in this case, about 35 usd in all). In dim light, you can have a glimpse of how was the border life a thousand years ago, of kings and rich donors (who paid to be included whith their relatives in the scenes), all Central Asia´s ethnic groups, merchants, pilgrims, bandits, caravans, the two paradises of Mahayana Buddhism (Western and Eastern), and prominently, the feitian or apsaras, winged divine beings flying across the Buddhist sky.

It was almost middle March and the temperatures were still below zero. How could these monks from a thousand years, dressed in robes, survive living in this icy caves, only dedicated to multiply the images of the Buddha? The guide said that minus 20 and less was normal in february.

On Dunhuang’s other side, I went looking for the Crescent Moon lake. I stood in awe long before I reached it: at the end of the road, giant dunes rose up as I’d never seen before. They shined under a late afternoon sun, partly golden and partly white and blinding, as that morning snowfall’s frozen layers persisted. I rode a camel around them, and went to the top of one, but it was only the first one: many more, ever higher, stretched to the horizon.

Dunhuang dunes from the road.

My photo gallery on Dunhuang is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/temoris/sets/72157615062431247/show/

Then I walked toward the lake, flanked by a few traditional Chinese buildings. The shapes justifies its name. And surrounding it, the huge dunes. The existence of this lake, long ago called Wuwa, really looks supernatural. Why are the powerful dunes, steep and difficult to climb, opening up this space? They can invade fields, destroy towns, change form and position during the night and amaze people in the morning. What has stopped them to advance just a little and make the lagoon dissappear, to turn it into a legend impossible to investigate, buried forever by the incredible weight of these mobile mountains? But the lake is there.

The exilee Bao Lizhang’s duty was to preserve Wuwa so that the wild horses could drink. One day he saw that stunning animal. To be able to capture it, he made a human clay figure and dressed it with his clothes, putting a briddle and lace in its hands. The horse felt uneasy at the beginning, but as the weeks went by it got used to it. One day, Bao took the place of the clay figure, wearing he same clothes, and laced the horse. Then he tamed it and offered it to the emperor.

He expected to be released from his punishment and allowed accross the Jiayuguan Pass fort’s gate to go back home. In order to secure this, he planned to associate the horse with an auspicious and divine event and made up the story of the animal hoping out of the lake to his hands. The emperor, who had showered with presents and privileges a magician who had done nothing but deceive him, had a weakness for all supernatural manifestations and interpreted the tale as a gift from god, a personal favour from the divinity, and wrote an ode called “Song of the heavenly Horse”. Bao Lizhang went back to his family.

Wuwa, today’s Crescent Moon lake.

China’s West is far less modernized than the Eastern coastal cities. Besides the intense cold, what struck me when I arrived in Xining, Qinghai province’s capital, was that I was completely alone, surrounded by people: I couldn’t find one single person who spoke English and my Mandarin and Tibetan skills where just like the temperature, below zero. This city serbves as a base to visit the Kumbum monastery, where Tenzin Gyatso, the dalai lama (who was born nearby), spent his childhood, and somehow I managed to make my way there. Founded in 1560, this complex of temples, residential and administrative buildings is the main Buddhist-Lamaist pilgrimage centre outside of Lhasa. There were visiting urban Chinese, sporting Armani sunglasses, Louis Vuitton handbags and fine leather coats; Tibetan peasants in traditional costumes of rough black and white wools and light coloured fabrics (in their facial features, you could see the high-mountain cold beautifully traced, whereas the city dwellers’ skin looked well-cared for with creams; the latter prayed standing and properly behaving, the former were endlessly repeating a procedure, raising their hands to the sky, bending then their bodies, lying on the ground and hitting it with their hands); monks, many teenagers and a few older ones, protecting themselves from freezing with light red robes; and only one other foreigner, enjoying the ease of an expensive private guided trip.

Tibetans take a relative to a Bodhissatva’s (roughly the equivalent of a saint) temple in Kumbum.

 For my photo gallery on Kumbum, click here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/temoris/sets/72157615095033698/show/

The main temple was easily recognisable among the other buildings, bigger and with a massive golden roof, and it’s by far the most popular. A major part of its interior is off-limits and most of the faithful pray outside, where there were dozens of persons. A young, long-haired Tibetan male, in Western clothing, practised the exhausting postrations demanded by religion. So did whole families, including cute three- and four-year-old girls. Others, holding rosary-like necklesses, walked tirelessly around the temple, auspiciously swinging ritual cilinders attached to the back of the building. This particularly amused groups of children, who were always cautious not too disturb those in oration. That, in contrast to the Hugo Boss Buddhists, who were coming and going as mobs, jumping over the postrated devotees. The streams and water sources were still icy, but many bodies were stretching on the shaded frozen floor. When I saw a space on a little wooden bench, under the sun, I quickly sat there (don’t forget I’m a tropical little foreigner). I was welcomed by the kind face of an older woman who was sitting on it and said something to me. I replied with a gesture I practise here about a hundred times a day, shoulder-raising and helpless smiling. She kept talking until a young monk, who had been circunnavigating the temple for a long while, went to seek the solar warm and sat in between. They exchanged phrases for a minute and then I realised that they’d adopted my attitude, raised shoulders and helpless smile… they didn’t understand each other! Could it be that the lady spoke Tibetan and the kid, Mandarin? Or Uyghur? Or they used mutually unintelligible Tibetan dialects? From somewhere in his robe, the monk got a rough pencil, a piece of paper and a little bell, and wrote something. He showed it to the lady and rang the bell, and she laughed. He wrote something else and rang again, and the lady laughed even more. He then turned to me and swong the bell. But all I could see was Chinese characters which refused to reveal to me the secret of laughter. I raised my shoulders and smiled helplessly.

West from Xi’an, I entered the kingdom of incommunication. There are some lovely people who try to help me beyond the language barrier (as two young blokes who went great lengths –more than was needed– to make sure I took the right train to Xining). Others seem annoyed for having to deal with a barbarian who doesn’t speak the common language. Quite often, when the person finally admits that I don’t understand what they say, they resort to write it down for me, maybe the name of a place or instructions to do something. A girl wrote a long question. All in Chinese characters. My first reaction was: Can’t they understand that this is as opaque to me as their language? The second one: I know the Chinese are a huge lot, but aren’t they aware that the rest of the world doesn’t use these ideograms? But the monk-and-lady scene gave me a clue. On TV, Chinese movies are subtitled in Chinese characters. What is that for? For the deaf? In fact, in a 1.3 billion people country with 5,000 years of development, expansion, conquests, foreign invasion and poor communication, linguistic unity is fragile. The TV uses the Beijing’s Mandarin dialect, which they can’t understand in many regions. And there are more languages, as Cantonese and those of the many subjugated peoples, say Tibetan, Uyghur, Kazak, Tajik, Miao and more. By force of school, nonetheless, ideograms are widely understood and have the same meaning for all of them. They aren’t phonetic, that is, they don’t represent sounds, but ideas (such as “house” or “rising sun”) which can be pronounced in many ways (that’s why it’s unproper to call it an alphabet, it doesn´t have any letters alpha and beta). The Tibetan and Uyghur languages have scripts of their own, but all children must learn to use the Chinese ideograms. That’s why, when one deals with a person who can’t understand what it’s said, it is all so normal to resort to write it down in Chinese (yet, they don’t even imagine that we don’t use it).

 

For my good luck, and that of travellers by China, the country has adopted Arabic numbers. In Mao times, the government fruitlessly tried to replace the old characters with an alphabet based in the Latin script, the Pinyin, but now it only subsists as an official Romanization for Mandarin (that’s why Beijing and Guanzhou are no longer Peking and Canton, written in the old, improvised European spelling). The only thing people kept was the Arabic numbers: it is easier to do math with those simple scribblings than with the complex traditional graphics. Furthermore, those numbers adapted well to the Chinese mindframe, for they are ideograms too: in the West, you see a 4 and can pronounce it in any way they like, quattro, vier or four, we all understand what it is. So, we visitors can at least get what’s the price of things or when we have to run to catch the train. I was seating there, with the monk, his piece of paper and his bell. He kept ringing it in search of my laugh. I gave it to him in the best way I could, though I felt fake, he seemed happy. So I was for having figured out the answer to this enigma. But then I understood that, before the eyes of the less educated people here (another huge lot), unaware of the world’s linguistic and graphic diversity, I’m not only a barbarian mumbling senselessly, but an illiterate unable to understand the common script. Then I felt like joining the postrating devotees in the cold, or to walk and walk around the temple: this time, my reasonings would provide me no consolation. Better to pray for it to the Buddha. *** A little political debrief: When I was leaving Xining to Lanzhou, Gansu province’s capital, back to the Silk Road’s main branch, I had to go across three police filters at the train station. They all requested my ticket. The last one was particularly difficult and they only let me go after getting an officer to escort me and make sure that I was taking the train to Lanzhou and not in the opposite way, to Lhasa. I didn’t know at the moment, but Tibet was closed to visitors, foreign above all.

It was March 8th. This time, every year, is tragic in that “Autonomous” region. On March 10th, 1959, a popular uprising against the Chinese rule ended in bloody repression. Every year, Tibetans demonstrate in remembrance, the authorities respond with force, many are jailed, sometimes people are killed, and these become new motivations to protest next year. The government has staged a show calling the invasion of Tibet a “liberation of the serfs”. In a country where obbeyance to the leaders is a fundamental mindset principle since Confucious times, and where media are strictly controlled by the State, it’s no wonder that most Chinese actually resent what they see as the ingratitude of Tibetans, to whom –it is consistently told– the motherland has given freedom and wealth. The “Hanification” (the minorities’ demographic and cultural assimilation by the Han majority) process in Tibet is in full swing and seems difficult to revert. The dalai lama’s peaceful stance is losing ground among Tibetans, with the more violent tendencies having shown themselves up last year, killing many Han Chinese in riots. He even looks as losing hope. To the unbelievably pragmatic attitude of the Communist Party, whose officials controlled the panchan lama’s (second place in the Lamaist hierarchy) reincarnation-finding ritual (giving birth to what I’d like to call Karmatic Materialism), an aged dalai lama, fearing that his reincarnation will be also chosen and controlled by Beijing, responded with equally surprising and heterodox proposals: to elect his own reincarnation by a popular referendum (Democratic Theology?) and to find him (his reincarnation) ASAP, while the dalai lama, the reincarnating being, is still alive (simultaneous double-life, an unsuspected mystical strain of SciFi). While attacking an insulting the dalai lama (to the satisfaction of the Chinese crowd, who truly believe the dalai lama is a hand-blooded thief and that the lama monks hide weapons –not bells– under their robes), Beijing does as if it was willing to reach a deal with him. It’s a game for the masses, to play the well-intentioned before the international community, but nobody actually believes there will be any concession, ever. There is no force that could extract anything from this overwhelming rising power. On March 10th, although he insisted in his “middle way” (not calling for Tibet’s independence, but for a “greater” –some would say just real– autonomy) and repeated his offers of friendship, the dalai lama went out of his normal discourse and bitterly denounced that Tibetans “live in constant fear, and the Chinese authorities treat them as suspects all the time. The Tibetan people are seen as criminals due for death penalty”.

La versión original en castellano está en Mundo Abierto.

150 meters wide, the Red Bird street was flooded by the Chang’an’s citizens. They were chanting prayers and clashing cymbals, blowing conches and burning incense. It was the eighth day of the first month of the year 645. The great procession advanced slowly, carrying 657 big books, relics of the Buddha and seven gold, silver and sandalwood images. “Every monastery was competing with all the others to prepare its best banners, carpets, umbrellas, precious tables and palanquins”, wrote Hui Li, the historian of that time who recorded the event. “They sent monks and nuns in ceremonial robes. It was the most splendid event since the death of the Buddha!” All this to honour a humble monk that had clandestinely left the city 18 years before, breaking an Imperial edict, to set himself on a lone trip to India.

I read about monk Xuanzang’s feat when I was in Pune, near Mumbai, in 2006. I was fascinated by this character: wise and brave, intrepid and determined. I got interested on the Silk Road since I used to listen a Kitaro’s album named after it, in the 80’s, but Xuanzang made feel that I wanted to follow his steps, and those of the many travellers who went along it for so many centuries. Also, that’s how I felt seduced by Chang’an, today’s Xi’an, which could be compared with New York, but in the 7th century. Xuanzang had left a country torn by civil war (two thirds of the population had perished) and breaking emperor Taizong’s etat de siège, imposed after he had taken the throne by the sword. 18 years later, the monk had been received with glory because the monarch needed his accurate reports on the Western territories (current Xinjiang province) in order to launch a reconquest. Along the millennia, China’s history has resembled that of a heart’s sistole and diastole, pushing its borders thousands of kilometers forth and back towards Central Asia. And Taizong was interested in regaining those lands.

When Xuanzang returned to Chang’an, there were no traces of the disaster he left almost two decades ago. It was the richest and biggest city on Earth, with one million inhabitants (it would double it a century later), a quarter of whom where born in other kingdoms. That’s not common in China’s history. “Since the old times, we have always loved ourselves too much and despised foreigners”, declared Taizong before his officials. “But I love ones and others the same”. A Chinese proverb says that the ocean is vast because it has drunk all rivers. The emperor was confident in that foreign influences would just make Chinese culture richer and brighter.

Chang’an was the begginning of the Silk Road, one end of the connection between East and West, and everybody in Asia wanted to be there. Emperor Taizong was always pleased to receive foreign embassies and had a good eye to detect among their ranks those who could serve him well in court. In ceremonies and special events, he was pleased to see his officials all dressed in their national costumes. Chang’an was a place where all main Asian languages could be heard.

1400 years later, Red Bird street has shrunk to a half. Huge offices and commercial buildings line up there now. The only trace of its former glory is the Red Bird Gate, opening the huge city wall  (15 to 18 meters wide and 12 meters high) for the noisy flow of buses, cars and bicycles. Off to the right, there is an interesting neighbourhood, though. It leads to the Forest of Stelae, an almost one-thousand-year-old museum I visited with my friend Elli, a German girl I met just here two and a half years ago, and who happened to be visiting when I arrived to our old, lovely hostel, Qixian (Seven Sages). The museum was set up in 1087 to house many documents in stone, including some written by Xuanzang and Confucious. In its area, traditional houses have been reconverted in antiques shops, restaurants and tea halls, like a movie set. This impression grows stronger as the employees, mostly old men dressed with Mao-style shirts, seat in little bunks and read the papers with their black, rounded glasses. The appreciated art of calligraphy is practised on the street by experts who delicately show their skills to the many Chinese spectators.

Chang’an’s cosmopolitism was also expressed in its spiritual life. There are many temples that in time were ruled by Nestorian Christians and Zoroastrians, there is a couple of synagogues and the fascinating old market is presided by the  Grand Mosque. Also, my good friend Marga, a Spanish journalist living in Beijing, told me about a French nun living in a Daoist monastery. And there are the Buddhist, of course, and I had to visit the Big Wild Goose Pagoda (there is a small one too), built under emperor Taizong’s orders to lodge the treasures brought by Xuanzang: the big books contained the Buddha’s Sutras (teachings). The monk had risked his life to obtain them in India, as China’s Buddhists were learning from second hand, incomplete manuscripts. Curiously, the Pagoda is not in the walled, old-city area, but in the modern town, about three kilometers South. From the Pagoda’s last floor, 64 meters high, not many years ago you could see all of Xi’an, but not anymore: new developments are filling its surroundings with big appartment blocks. The Pagoda was built in the middle of a wide, pre-existant religious complex with temples and schools. On the esplanade before the entrance, there is a statue of the brave monk, where many people want to have their pictures taken because most Chinese grew up with him: not with his real character, but with one appearing in a famous TV cartoon that even reached some Western countries, The Monkey King: in this version, the monk makes his way to India thanks to the valuable help of a super-monkey able to fly and break mountain ranges.

Last time I was in Xi’an, in 2006, it was September. I have bad luck here, because now it’s March and, as then, the sky is grey and the weather, cold. Furthermore, this time, I was not-so-kindly asked to leave the Great Mosque by a grumpy old man who thought irrespectful that I was taking pictures during Friday’s service, on the courtyard –I wasn´t allowed to enter the temple proper. The mosque was built in 742, a century after Xuanzang’s big adventure, and it is a magnificent building divided in five courtyards, a mixture between Chinese and Islamic styles. I had a particular interest in visiting Xi’an’s Muslim quarter because it’s inhabitants, the Hui people, are specially linked with the Silk Road: they descend from the merchants who came from the desert many centuries ago, travelling in the caravans loaded with products from India, Persia and the Mare Nostrum. Xi’an is the door to Muslim China. I’ll make a stop at the Buddhist Tibetan Kumbum monastery, in Qinghai province, on the Northern edge of the Tibetan plateau. But from now on, and until I get to the Mediterranean, I’ll cross lands where almost only Allah is worshipped. It will look a lot less like Xuanzang saw it, and more like Gengis Khan shaped it and Marco Polo found it. Plus the colonial hands’ lay out, of course: Stalin´s in Central Asia and the Caucasus, British and French in the Middle East, everybody’s in Afghanistan (and they all got burned).

 

The Big Wild Goose Pagoda

Click here to see a slideshow of Xi’an

Please scroll down to read the blue text in English!

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ASIA-ÁFRICA 2009-2010: On the Silk Road / En la Ruta de la Seda

Hagan clic en el mapa para verlo en detalle / Click on the map to see it in detail

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La Ruta de la Seda, Oriente Medio y el Nilo hasta los Grandes Lagos del Centro de África y el Congo: este lunes 2 de marzo inicio una segunda vuelta al mundo, con duración estimada de un año.

La primera parte del viaje es seguir la Ruta de la Seda, desde Xi’an (China) hasta Estambul y Jerusalén, por tierra siempre que sea posible. Atravesaré varios de los “stans” de Asia Central que antaño pertenecieron a la Unión Soviética, después Pakistán, Afganistán, Irán y los países del Cáucaso. De Estambul regreso a Siria, Jordania, Líbano e Israel.

Durante 1800 años, la Ruta de la Seda fue la vía de comunicación más importante de la humanidad, entre China y el Mediterráneo. Aunque el nombre sugiere que lo que se movía a través de ella solamente era la seda y otros productos, de hecho se transportaban invenciones e ideas. Alejandro Magno, Gengis Khan, Ibn Batutta, Marco Polo, Xuan Zang: guerreros, monjes, mercaderes, exploradores y diplomáticos se encargaban de ello. Ciudades fascinantes que para los europeos parecían un mito, grandes sucesos militares y políticos, aventuras, romances y traiciones: éste fue el escenario fabuloso de eventos nunca bien conocidos en Occidente. Hoy, la ruta está sumamente dividida. El caos de la implosión del imperio soviético, las guerras en Afganistán e Irak, la animadversión entre vecinos, rebeliones civiles y religiosas, fronteras caóticas y mal trazadas, pésima infraestructura de transporte, una locura burocrática para obtener visas: recorrerla hoy no sólo es buscar las huellas del pasado, sino experimentar la fragmentación política y cultural del presente.
No conozco registros literarios de latinoamericanos que la hayan emprendido.

Desde ahí seguiré el Nilo hasta los Grandes Lagos, pasando por Egipto, Sudán, Etiopía, Kenia, Uganda y Ruanda. Hasta el momento, el itinerario sólo llega al Congo (RD), donde iré a las reservas de gorilas de montaña. Después, ya se verá.

Para poder estar en contacto con ustedes, reuniré aquí, en mi blog, todas las referencias (mientras tenga acceso a la internet) de lo que se publique: los posts que aparecerán en Mundo Abierto, los reportajes en revistas, fotos, entrevistas, videos y noticias.

Los invito a suscribirse también al grupo que abrí en Facebook.

Por lo pronto, les dejo los audios del programa de Fernando Rivera Calderón, La Noche W, del martes 24 de febrero, donde mi viejo amigo y yo conversamos sobre este proyecto.

Parte uno

Parte dos

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ON THE SILK ROAD

The Silk Road, the Middle East and roughly the Nile up to the Great Lakes of Central Africa: on this Monday, 2 March, I’m starting a second round-the-world trip, this time shorter, lasting for about a year.

In the first part of the trip, I’ll follow the Silk Road, from Xi’an (China) to Istambul and Jerusalem, overland as long as it is possible. I’ll go accross the Central Asian Stans, formerly belonging to the USSR; then Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and the Caucasus’ countries. From Istambul, I’ll go back to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel.

For about 1800 years, the Silk Road was one of the most important pathways of humanity, linking China and the Mediterranean. Firstly opened by Alexander the Great, the name suggests that it was only a trade route for silk and a few other products. In fact, it also transported inventions and ideas. Xuan Zang, Ibn Batutta, Marco Polo, Gengis Khan: warriors, monks, explorers, diplomats and merchants took care of that. Fascinating cities that resembled a myth for Europeans, great military, political and cultural events, adventure, romance and betrayal: the Road was a wonderful scenario for many successes that were hardly known in the West.

Today, the it is deeply divided. The caotic implossion of the USSR, the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, the enemity between neighbours, civil and religious rebellions, hectic borders, bad transportation infrastructure, a bureaucratic madness to get visas and permits: wandering on it is not only searching for footprints of the past, but to experience today’s world’s political and cultural fragmentation.

On the second part, from the Middle East, I’ll roughly follow the Nile upstream to the Great Lakes, passing by Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. Up to this moment, my destination is the Virunga National Park of Eastern Congo (D.R.C.), where I expect to see the endangered mountain gorillas.

And then, we’ll see what’s next.

To be in touch with you, I’ll be gathering here, in my blog, all published references to this project (as long as I have internet access): news, press coverage, pics, interviews, videos. You are invited to join the Facebook group I opened for the trip. In the mean time, you can practice your Spanish listening to this radio show from February 24th, on which I talked about all this with my friend Fernando Rivera Calderón:

Part one

Part two

Thank you all and see you on the Silk Road!

Me acaban de enviar de Barcelona la portada de “Asante África. Crónica de un encuentro con los pueblos de Sudáfrica, Suazilandia, Tanzania y Kenia”, el libro que ganó el IV Premio Eurostars de Narrativa de Viajes en 2008. Una edición de bolsillo de 12,000 ejemplares estará disponible gratuitamente a fines de enero para los huéspedes de los hoteles Eurostars. Y en marzo saldrá a la venta la edición de National Geographic, cuya portada les adelanto aquí.

I’ve just got sent from Barcelona my new book’s cover. In 2008, “Asante Africa. Story of an encounter with the peoples of South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania and Kenya” was awarded the 4th Eurostars Travel Narrative Prize. A 12,000 copies pocket edition will be given for free to the Eurostars Hotels’ guests from the end of January. In March, a National Geographic hard cover edition will be on sale. Only in Spanish. Wanna publish the English edition?

En mi columna Fronteras Abiertas, de este mes de enero en National Geographic Traveler, planteo a los lectores la idea de que es un error que los fotógrafos amateurs tratemos de imitar a los profesionales cuando hacemos fotos en nuestros viajes. “Lo importante es que aprendamos a desarrollar un lenguaje con el que nos sintamos a gusto. Hay gente que le tiene miedo a la cámara porque siente que sus fotos van a ser ridículas en comparación con las que vio en National Geographic Traveler. Eso es dejarse intimidar por el lenguaje de los profesionales. Las fotos del viaje de cada quien son únicas e irrepetibles cuando reflejan su experiencia”.

Para argumentar el punto, quise poner como ejemplo algunas imágenes mías que no ganarán un marco dorado en la exhibición World Press Photo, pero sí en la memoria de mis andanzas, y me ayudarán a ilustrar la historia cuando la cuente. Como sólo cupieron tres, en el texto prometí que en mi blog encontrarían algunas otras más, con un comentario al respecto. Aquí están, primero las que fueron publicadas en la revista, y luego otras más.

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Ésta es una de las que más me gustan. La hice en el Centro Arrupe de la ciudad de Battambang, en Camboya. La chica es Elena, una joven médica valenciana que concluía nueves meses de trabajar como voluntaria ayudando a víctimas de la guerra. El niño es Neng y perdió dos piernas y un brazo porque pisó una mina antipersonal enterrada muchos años atrás. Él jugaba a tomarme fotos con una mano y un muñón, y a saltarme encima. La mirada de ella derrite. Al ver la imagen, me da un poco de risa, me relajo, recuerdo el alboroto de los demás niños y me siento bajo el fresco de una sombra en un día de 40 grados de temperatura.

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Ésta es la China supuestamente comunista: bajo la mirada paternal del jefe Mao, cientos de millones mueren de hambre. Y otros se hacen estúpidamente ricos. Como en América Latina, pero todavía en mi adolescencia, algunos querían hacernos creer que China era el camino. Esta foto me devuelve a la sensación de coraje que me acompañó mientras recorría el Reino del Medio.

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La foto de folleto sólo mostraría Ciudad del Cabo con el fondo enorme de Table Mountain. Visite Sudáfrica, diría abajo. Pero lo que a mí me importaba era que Nelson Mandela hizo ese mismo trayecto décadas antes, cuando lo llevaban preso a la cárcel de isla Robben. Y que la bandera multicolor –la más bella de todas, para mí– refleja su retorno victorioso a tierra firme, el fin del régimen racista y la fundación de su “nación arcoiris”, de todas las razas. La foto me entusiasma y me llena de esperanza, con brisa marina y una pizca de mareo.

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India es alucinante para tomar fotos. Aunque uno sea muy pero muy burro, en el cuadro se cuelan colores y formas muy interesantes. En el texto de la revista decía que nosotros también podemos aparecer en la foto, aunque no se vea nuestra imagen: los personajes de aquí están en interacción clara conmigo, hay una corriente de simpatía. Antes de hacer la toma, el chico mayor (un peregrino descamisado en un templo de la ciudad sureña de Madurai) estaba tomando fotos con una cámara mucho mejor que la mía, y me fotografió cuando yo lo fotografiaba a él. Después vio que mi atención se dirigía a los niños y corrió para colarse en la toma. Ellos hablan tamil y yo no les entendía nada, pero después nos quedamos un rato riéndonos juntos por las puras ganas de compartir.

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La noche anterior, una figura se había acercado a nuestro campamento y hablado con los camelleros del Desierto del Gran Tar, en Rajastán, India. En la mañana, Seru, este chico de unos once años, regresó con dos camellos: mientras dormíamos, se los había llevado a muchos kilómetros de distancia a alimentarlos. En sus pies, ya no calzaba sandalias, sino zapatos tenis: la figura misteriosa había sido su hermano, quien lo había buscado entre las dunas para dárselos como regalo de cumpleaños. Seru parecía muy orgulloso. Desperté cuando lo escuché llegar y me pareció todo un gran hombre del desierto. Hice esta foto desde debajo de las gruesas mantas que nos protegieron de la helada.

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Esta hermosa señora maya representa para mí la reflexión del votante. Era el día de las elecciones presidenciales en Guatemala, de septiembre de 2007. Por la mañana, habíamos estado en los centros de votación de los barrios de clase alta, donde las casillas estaban protegidas por techos permanentes, las colas eran mínimas, había grupos musicales que tocaban marimbas y a los electores, todos blancos y bien alimentados, les regalaban bebidas y galletas. En el pueblo de San Pedro Sacatepéquez, en cambio, los indígenas hacían filas de horas bajo un sol sin pausa, a pesar de que mafiosos de ultraderecha habían estado asesinando choferes cerca de ahí para desalentar la participación. La gente estaba ahí, no obstante, sin quejas, de buen humor. Y meditando su decisión.

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El Museo de Arte Moderno de Nuva York contiene varias de las obras de arte más famosas del mundo y yo no me iba a poner a enseñarles como tomar fotos de ellas. Lo que sí podía hacer era ponerles atención a los visitantes, tratar de situarlos en relación con las piezas, conectarlos. Era difícil porque la gente se coloca a distancia de lo que ve, no me daba la lente y se me colaban otros objetos y personas. Por suerte, algunos, como este chico, necesitan más cercanía. Y así lo pude retratar a una distancia peligrosamente corta de un Picasso de millones de dólares.

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Me encanta el sax y me fascina la multiculturalidad de Nueva York. Quería tomarle una foto al músico, pero no hallaba la forma de darle un toque original. Pasé un rato haciendo pruebas, jugando con la cámara y con la luz, con la esperanza de que pasara algo diferente. Entonces vi a esta pareja de origen oriental que se aproximaba. Así pude conjuntar blues con diversidad étnica: sólo subiéndolos a los tres a un rascacielos hubiera podido ser más Nueva York.

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La escena tuvo lugar en un ojo de agua en medio del desierto australiano. Quería tomarle una foto a la niña cuando vi que Vincent, un videoasta ítalo-australiano, y otro chico aborigen tuvieron la misma idea. A la pequeña le salió la modelo innata y posó como si estuviera en un estudio profesional. La imagen me transmite dulzura por unas tardes muy divertidas que pasamos con estos niños de un campamento arrernte de Alice Springs.

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Con ventanilla y buena suerte (condiciones climatológicas favorables, el panorama adecuado, un vecino de asiento dormido) se pueden hacer fotos alucinantes desde los aviones. Siempre sería mejor tener una avioneta que fuera para donde nosotros quisiéramos, pero si por alguna rara casualidad eso no es posible, hay que conformarse con lo que se tenga. Y así me salió esta foto del Centro Rojo de Australia, que uso para la portada de mi página web (éste es sólo mi blog).

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Monument Valley (en los límites de Utah con Arizona) es otro de esos lugares en que uno saca fotos impresionantes casi sin querer. Es también uno de los sitios más fotografiados del mundo. ¿Qué podía añadir yo? Seguro que no soy el primero en hacerla, pero yo nunca he visto otra foto de estos monolitos con una tienda de campaña, y me pareció que de esta forma nos da, por un lado, una idea de las dimensiones, y por el otro, la sensación de maravilla que debe provocar despertar una mañana, salir del sleeping bag y sacar la cabeza para presenciar este panorama al amanecer.

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Iba solo en un coche de ciudad, y sin querer me había metido en un camino de tierra y piedras que amenazaba con destruir llantas, chasis y todo. Me urgía llegar a la carretera, pero la ruta parecía alargarse. Además, en el fondo, deseaba que continuara el momento: los campos cultivados, el cielo clarísimo de Durango, las montañas al fondo, el ganado y las casitas: ¿dónde estaba Van Gogh, que no venía a pintar eso?

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NOTA: Hice todas estas fotos con cámaras digitales compactas, nada sofisticado (no me resigno a toener que viajar con un aparatote). Un problema de las digitales es que no reproducen bien la luz, así que a veces hay que meterles mano en la computadora. En algunas imágenes (no todas), lo hice, pero con los programas más sencillo que vienen precargados (el Preview de Windows y el iPhoto de Mac OS X), y con las funciones más básicas: ajustes de contraste y brillantez. Nada que no pueda aprender uno solo en menos de una hora.

En Nueva York hace mucho frío y donde yo estoy hace mucho calor, hay mojitos y la gente baila como dios… lo cual significa que estas fotos no son de ahora, sino de octubre (bueno, lo de octubre no es obvio, pero ya lo dije). Si hacen click sobre la foto, accederán a una presentanción de imágenes que hice en Manhattan… ojalá les guste.

¡Besos!

IIt’s very cold in New York and where I’m it’s hot, there are mojitos to drink and the people dance like gods… this means that these pics weren’t taken this morning, but in October. If you click on the images, you’ll see a slideshow with a bunch of images I took in Manhattan. Hope you enjoy them!

Besos!

In English: Los Angeles Times’ La Plaza attended the book launch: “Mexican journalists profile conservative activist”. -

La revista Dia Siete publicó un extracto del capítulo 2 del libro. Encuéntralo aquí en pdf, con fotos y en Mundo Abierto (en html).

Estuvimos con Fernando Rivera Calderón en su programa La Noche W, el 29 de octubre de 2008. Escúchalo aquí: La Noche W (archivo mp3)

Y en la mañana del 30, platicamos con Carlos Puig en el noticiero Hoy por Hoy (archivo mp3).

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Entrevista en el programa “Nada a Medias”, de Cadena 3 (México). Conducen: Vianey Esquinca, Yuriria Sierra, Mariana H. y Liz Basáñez.

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Bernardo Barranco escribió en su columna en La Jornada (“Los laberintos de la ultraderecha”, 12 de noviembre de 2008):

“Más que una investigación sobre Serrano Limón, es un texto sobre la derecha católica mexicana. Si bien los autores para nada se identifican con las posturas y acciones de Pro vida ni de su fundador, lo respetan por su congruencia y evitan la caricaturización de un personaje tildado de “fanático”, vehemente ultraconservador, que desde la década de los 80 es el actor más visible de la radicalidad intransigente católica. Los autores reiteran: “La diferencia fundamental entre Jorge Serrano Limón y muchos de estos personajes es de congruencia ideológica: él se presenta públicamente como lo que es, sin ocultar o moderar las actitudes que lo hacen odioso ante la opinión pública; otros, en cambio, han alcanzado maestría en el manejo de los trucos del cinismo y saben disfrazar su fanatismo y su intolerancia al presentarse ante los electores y los fieles”.

“Los autores reiteran la complejidad, tan poco estudiada de la derecha católica en México: “ni El Yunque es toda la ultraderecha ni la ultraderecha es toda la derecha. El Yunque es un actor con gran influencia en el espectro político, pero no es el único todopoderoso (…) La organización comparte e incluso disputa espacios en la ultraderecha católica con otros movimientos, como los Tecos de Guadalajara y la Unión Nacional Sinarquista; con órdenes como el Opus Dei, la Legión de Cristo, los Caballeros de Colón y los Caballeros de Malta”.

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Roberto Blancarte escribió en su columna en Milenio Diario (“Felipe Calderón: ¿Mocho o laico?”, 18 de noviembre de 2008):

“El texto, excelentemente escrito y con una seria investigación periodística, analiza, más allá del caso de Serrano Limón (sobre el que regresaré en otra colaboración), los intersticios y complejidades de la ultraderecha incrustada en el PAN.”

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En entrevista con Notimex (“Retrata “El vocero del Dios” al activista José Serrano Limón”, 4 de noviembre), dijimos: “Creemos que Serrano es un buen ejemplo de cómo se ha formado este grupo de poder y en qué pensamiento”. (Frausto y Grecko) encontraron que hay una falsa percepción de la opinión pública que piensa que “El yunque” grupo en el que se ubica a Serrano, funciona como maquinita, a la perfección, y no es así, para empezar es sólo uno de los muchos grupos que conforman la extrema derecha, no es el más importante, no domina y también tiene disidencias. Eso se explica, añadió, porque “el objetivo general de la extrema derecha es que el Estado y la vida de los mexicanos sea regido por los principios de la religión, pero el Estado laico ha resultado mucho más fuerte de lo que esperaban”. Para los autores, Serrano no es sólo un “iluminado vociferando en el desierto su guerra contra el condón y los anticonceptivos… sino una pieza fundamental y fundamentalista de una cruzada que aspira a imponer un proyecto social: que cada mexicano ajuste su comportamiento sexual, familiar y público a una moral católica estricta… y que el clero pueda actuar como guía y vigilante de la vida del país”.

La presentación del libro fue genial, íntima y divertida. En primer lugar, porque los presentadores se lucieron: Marco Lara Klahr, moderador, describió el libro desde una perspectiva periodística; Fernando Rivera Calderón declamó un poema que compuso para Jorge Serrano Limón y nos tuvo a todos muertos de risa; y Roberto Blancarte hizo el análisis académico de las aportaciones del libro a la historia de la ultraderecha.

Pero hubo una colaboración inesperada: alguien, no sabemos quién, fue al foro cuando nadie estaba ahí, rompió la marquesina, cortó cables eléctricos y el medidor de luz. Los chicos del Centro Cultural El Foco, que se portaron súper, hicieron todo lo posible por resolver el problema cuanto antes, pero durante la primera hora del acto estuvimos hablando bajo la luz de las velas: Wilfrido Momox, director de El Foco, puso candelabros y el recinto adquirió una atmósfera eclesial. Se había generado una sensación de complicidad entre el público y nosotros, y las bromas corrieron como el vino.

Como me dijo un amigo que se autodefine como “de la extreeema derecha”, cuando le conté: “Estas cosas sólo dan pie para que la gente se ría de nosotros”.

Deborah Bonello, del diario californiano Los Angeles Times y autora de la web Mexico Reporter, acudió e hizo una crónica (pueden hallarla aquí) que traduciremos al castellano para publicarla la próxima semana en Mundo Abierto, junto con el inspirado poema de Fernando.

Roberto Blancarte

Chava Frausto

Frausto, Blancarte, Lara, Rivera y yo (*)

Con Andrés Ramírez, editor de Random House Mondadori

Marco Lara, Fernando Rivera Calderón y yo

PD: Mi popularidad ha crecido hasta límites jamás imaginados. El viernes, al día siguiente del evento, mi buzón de e-mail recibió 330 millones 104,940 mensajes de un solo golpe. La ultraderecha no se ha actualizado desde el siglo XVI, pero sí recurre a la tecnología. El proveedor del servicio tomó medidas para el caso de que mi club de fans se siga desbordando.

Fotos de Vivienne Stanton, excepto (*) de Mariela Gómez Roquero.

Quienes deseen ver todas las fotos del evento, hagan click aquí.

Bernardo Barranco dedicó su columna de hoy en La Jornada a nuestro libro (léanla completa aquí):

Va un fragmento:

“Más que una investigación sobre Serrano Limón, es un texto sobre la derecha católica mexicana. Si bien los autores para nada se identifican con las posturas y acciones de Pro vida ni de su fundador, lo respetan por su congruencia y evitan la caricaturización de un personaje tildado de “fanático”, vehemente ultraconservador, que desde la década de los 80 es el actor más visible de la radicalidad intransigente católica. Los autores reiteran: “La diferencia fundamental entre Jorge Serrano Limón y muchos de estos personajes es de congruencia ideológica: él se presenta públicamente como lo que es, sin ocultar o moderar las actitudes que lo hacen odioso ante la opinión pública; otros, en cambio, han alcanzado maestría en el manejo de los trucos del cinismo y saben disfrazar su fanatismo y su intolerancia al presentarse ante los electores y los fieles”.