…Breakfast in Bol…
It seems to be impossible for me to tire of walking up and down the narrow streets and along the stoney beaches of Bol, a small fishing village on the island of Brac and my favourite place on earth! During the calm mornings I’ll walk down the hill, passing white houses with green jalousies everywhere, taking in the colourful gardens with flowers of all kinds, lemon and olive trees, grapes, oleander, sun flowers, big, old agave plants, mandarin trees, lavender, cypresses and palm trees. As I make my way towards the small harbour filled with the fishermens´boats I’ll pick some sweet figs from one of the many trees hanging over the white fences and enjoy the view of the morning sun resting on the white stone so characteristic of Dalmatia.
I’ll walk through town, past the cafés where the locals are drinking their morning coffee before heading for work. I’ll get a freshly made burek in the bakery and continue along the promenade surrounded by tall pine trees creating a pleasant hideaway from the already too warm sun. Normally filled by hundreds and hundreds of tourists walking between the town centre and the famous beach Zlatni rat this early in the morning the promenade is still quiet as the tourists sleep in their rented apartments. Only the truly disciplined few have woken up to go for a morning run. Admiring the charming houses to the right and the Adriatic sea to the left I walk carefully on the slippery combination of flat stone and dry pine needles under my feet.
As for the locals, Leo is as usual up before dawn, pulling his green carriage as he replaces the garbage bags that have been filled during the previous night with empty ones. Young Petar is generally first in place of all the venders working at the promenade, at this hour he’s busy opening his stand, one of many that sell jewellery, shells, lavender soaps, home-made oils, beach clothing, snorkel equipment, souvenirs made of the typical, white stone of Brac and much more. Martina and her staff in the bar are serving the first customers of the day with coffee and freshly squeezed lemonade. As I get closer to the dive centre, I walk down towards the beach to have my breakfast while listening to the sound of the calm morning waves playing gently with the round, white stones on the beach. To my right Jere and the guys are preparing the wind surfing boards and Cezar is swearing at something that’s for sure gone wrong too early in the morning as he’s entering a yellow kayak which he uses to get to the dive boat that is anchored a bit further away from the shore. An older couple are always there at this hour, just next to my breakfast-spot, enjoying a refreshing morning swim in the clear blue water still waiting to be warmed up by the sun beams. Every morning they come. So do I. It’s one of my favourite moments of the day.
…a night walk in Belgrade…
When arriving to Belgrade there were three things I knew I wanted to do during my very short time there. One of them was to take a walk through Kalemegdan, mine and my brothers favourite place in Belgrade when we were kids. We loved that place – a huge fortress hiding every child’s paradise inside it’s walls – big parks, a stunning view of the river and the city, all kinds of exhibitions, pop corn, ice cream, roller coasters, playgrounds, helium balloons and best of all, the zoo! Every visit to Kalemegdan meant a day filled with endless adventure! Now, 20 years later, I simply couldn’t resist the urge to climb those hills and walk those streets again. And although I did re-visit the zoo I also took a long, more tranquil night walk with my uncle, awakening long forgotten memories of wonderful times spent together in this very special place.
Kalemegdan, Belgrade, Serbia
…a Dalmatian island & its whispering cypresses…
In a few days I’ll be leaving the still very cold and rainy Swedish summer days. A short flight, a bus ride and a boat trip later my eyes will at last rest as they gaze over my favourite place on earth, the Dalmatian islands in the Adriatic sea.
There’s something very special about that area, and about one island, and one small fishing village in particular, that makes me keep coming back year after year. It’s as if the warm, dry air itself has a calming effect on my restless soul. As if the crystal blue color of the sea replaces anything that might be darker than itself. As if the sea salt there has an opposite effect – instead of worsening them it cures all my wounds.
There’s something about that place that heals me, never lets me down. Whenever I feel lost I can go back there and I always find myself in the silent sunrises warming up the sea, in the white stones and green, wooden jalousies so characteristic of the place, in the familiar sound of the waves breaking against the stoney shore and in the tall, green cypresses that seem to be whispering “It’s not just us, you can reach the sky too!”
For some reason those cypresses on Brac seem so much more credible than any fir-tree here in Sweden, no matter how tall it might be. And for some reason, every time I come back I get this striking feeling that one part of me, maybe the deepest part, had in fact never left. It had stayed there all along, enjoying the magic of the remaining three seasons while waiting for me to return and accompany it in another one of our early morning walks…
© 2011 M. Gutic
…If I could go back…
Bolivia was a very special place for me. Not only because of it’s beautiful landscape and its’ way too delicious food, but because of its’ people. Some of the people I met there have forever printed a part of their soul in my heart and taught me so much about myself, about who I am, who I’m not and most of all – about who I want to be.
To see their struggles and share their joy, to be treated with more generosity than they can afford, to be welcomed into their home as one of their own,to be invited into their every day life, to get an insight into their culture, listen to their dreams and almost feel their fears… and maybe most of all to see how infinite and enduring their faith is… that has bewildered me.
After three months I had both laughed and cried more together with them than I had done in a long time together with somebody back home. It turned out to be an unexpectedly insightful and intense journey because of everything those people taught me just by letting me step into their world. I will forever cherish that and remember the last day when we all cried together in the dining room probably already then knowing, but denying, that we would never laugh together again.
If I could see them again I would tell them about the immense gratitude I feel towards them for everything they have come to mean to me. I would tell O. that I remember the time we bathed in Río Mateo in the mystical rainforests of Chapare while the rain was pouring down on us and everything about our trip to Lake Titicaca; how we looked for the hostel that she knew “was here somewhere”, “at least last time I was here” she kept saying, which was many, many years ago; about the cold nights and the time we drank Api and ate empanadas con asucar early in the mornings while the air was still chilly and the sun just about to awaken the town of Copacabana; how we enjoyed the magical sunsets over the calm lake that the Incas believed was the place where the Sun and mankind was born; how we stubbornly climbed “Las 14 estaciones” and lit candles for the others at the top of El Calvario and how she, a strictly professional, worn out, seemingly cold and distant lady, turned into this youthful, smiling, easygoing and warm woman with a contagious laughter and a sparkle in her eyes that none around her got to see any longer. At the same time as I hated life for having robbed her of that sparkle I remember feeling privileged to have seen that beautiful side of her during those days at the lake.
If I could I would tell E. how much I miss her cooking and that I tried but never succeeded in making her delicious empanadas con queso back home. I would tell her that I miss the spontaneous salteña - lunches we used to have and the sight of her with the apron on, all busy in her beloved kitchen. I would let her know that her enormous, warm, devoted heart and unselfish way of living has taught me the meaning of the word self-sacrifice. I would take them to yet another colourful carnival and watch the dancers lose themselves in the happy traditional melodies of the area.
I would make sure we do the planned trip to Oruro, Potosi and el Salar de Uyuni that we never got the opportunity to do because of that guide that took off with all the money we had been saving up. I would try to convince the lady selling the best salteñas in Cochabamba, just in front of the University of Medicine, to move to Sweden and become my private salteñas-maker, because that’s how good they are! I would stop and drink freshly squeezed jugo de naranja at every street corner and get more of those “llevanta-culo-jeans” (meaning ass-lifters, and they live nicely up to their name!), I would go and get another yummy Milanesa (Bolivian type of burgers) and go back to the tranquility of the rain forest. I would go to another concert and listen to the combination of all the different sounds and instruments and I would make sure to pass by the street corner next to DHL already the first day of the trip (instead of my last) and buy all the empanadas that one old lady used to sell there. I would join G’s family in Santa Cruz during another karaoke night and get goose bumps while listening to his family singing, I would spend more time playing with little D and cuddling with his baby brother C. I would hop on one of the small, crowded city busses and just sit and look out the window as it’s moving through Cochabamba, and I would have another enormous barbecue with all of them in D and A’s garden. I would have more long conversations with O, even the tearful kind, and I would give them all more hugs than I did. I would gaze towards the mountains surrounding Cochabamba more often and zip glide over the rivers once again. But most of all, if I could, I would want them to know the deep impact they had on me and how I still very often think of them and hope that they finally manged to find what they were searching for.
© 2011 M. Gutic
