Beyond the Hills

Driving on the solitary winding road that ran up the hills and into the snow-capped peaks, the wind blew the sands at our car, great clouds of dust and sand raced past, and the Andes stood solid in the distance.  Randomly cars would pass by, speeding on their way into and out of those imposing tips, reminding us that we aren't the only ones around, even if the closest we would ever get is the millisecond glimpse we would catch of one another.  What lay behind those hills stays in our imaginations for now.

After a filling portion of the tastiest pork, we searched for the small wineries as the larger estates were mainly flush with foreign investment.  It was more the fact that large estates served lower quality wines for a lot more money than the smaller ones that we made this decision.  We found a small family winery that served us wine made in very Argentine fashion, fermented in concrete vats sealed with Poxy. 

The old couple served us a tasting of three wines that they produced pretty much all hands on deck.  While it wasn't any stupendous find, the old couple were super cute and talked about their own families' path to the western edges of Argentina as farmers from rural Spain.  Their tale was reminiscent of immigrant stories that I've heard from my own experience as a child of immigrants.  Traveling four months through forests with only some faint idea of what might come to be, or in the case of my family, traveling for hours out to restaurant to apprentice and only be home with family on weekends on holidays.

The machinery they used was 160 years old from Lyon, France.  The tasting room, basically the family's kitchen.  Abuelito told us about how the machinery was French because the Spanish were scientifically behind, not smart enough to create such fantastical tools.  This thought made me sad inside, that people are always challenged by their inferiority to others.  At the same time, I know that people of color, LGBTQ folks, differently abled folks, and other different marginalized communities are challenged by their mere existence, and again, to achieve the status that this elderly gentlemen has is sometimes galaxies away from where I can see myself or what I consider my communities being able to truly reach.  

It seems sometimes that it is jealousy driving the incessant comparisons I make, and yet, why should these comparisons not be made and unpacked?  Our trip backwards through time to when the world is bustling full of those that do not know one another, where the importance of an individual seems to have receded into the backdrop of interpersonal violence.  As we sat in our semi-camas and reclined slightly, we poured the last of the half bottle of Gran Reserva to lull us into the half bed that would carry us to bed.

In those last moments before the earth was swallowed up in darkness, I looked around outside, seeing the encroaching darkness and encircling clouds teaming up together to shroud the world in their embrace.  As the light faded ever so quickly, I looked back quickly at the retreating Andes, unable to sprint up to me, thinking of the desert loneliness with which they have grown accustomed, and remembered that afternoon.  Looking into the hills and crevices of this monumental mountain range, the sun stretched its arms forth, wrapping us all in it's fingers as best as it could, the snow-capped peaks slowly tearing away their wintery coats through the young green lumps.  Beyond the hills, beyond those mountains, something lies in wait, and yet I cannot know because I have yet to traverse those great lengths to see with my own eyes what lies beyond.  The last fleck of sun drizzled off the bus as the night sang us to sleep, even if it were a fitful sleep, as I hummed my tunes of sadness resolved only with the embrace of one who loves me, waiting for the sadness to be chased away so soon.