Zoom in

In the astonishment there is implicit a mysterious power that springs from what is observed, beyond its landscape and historical qualities. They may be vanishing points from the bowels of the planet, I do not know, mysterious springs of their veins.
There are two specific places that I keep in memory for being carriers of an unspeakable influence: San Juan de Chamula and the Iguazú Falls.
Near Chiapas is San Juan de Chamula, bearer of the Mayan heritage. The village itself has no greater appeal, but the peculiarity of the temple makes the visit unavoidable.
The huge door opens and the steam charged with the smell of pine and incense, concentrated bodies, gringos and Europeans, chickens and ritual, hits us without question. Blinded by the change of light, my eyes begin to see the interior panorama.
Inside of what looks like a typical Catholic church there are no banks, the natives took them out, just as they took the priests out. In its place there are pine branches and straw where they sit. There is no altar either, but they retain the images of the saints.
Here, between Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina, thousands of miles and a couple of years later, I find the same sensation. The strength of the Iguazu Falls opens my heart loudly and this one gets mesmerized again. Its beauty is incomparable, a real wonder.
 It may happen that the energy of the universe escapes through gaps that we do not see that an indigenous gaze or a thousand-year-old water source tells us something between the murmur of its faith and the stampede of its fall. Because peoples and nature are forces that fall to rise again and again, making their way through their wise, ironic, inexplicable, mysterious and sumptuous course through life, and because life, which is itself one indecipherable and spiritual wonder, is like the water that runs until it crashes against death to be reborn.