In 1998 I was attending a writing workshop. After the first lessons which advised us on the importance of leaving our inhibitions behind and learning some basic techniques, we began working on topics such as estrangement, the meeting of cultures, journeys or something along those lines. In was in that context that the coordinator of the workshop, Elena Romiti, gave us a fragment of the novel Baltasar and Blimunda (Memorial del Convento, 1982) by José Saramago. When I asked her about this author, whose name I had never before heard of, she unequivocally recommended that I read him.
Publicado en Panorama de Noviembre. Esta vez me estrené como fotógrafa y la fotos de la nota son mías. ¡Incluso la de la portada! (La portada la tengo en un archivo pdf y no puedo convertirla a jpg para subirla. ¿Estaré perdiendo las mañas?)
Cabo Polonio might not be the most beautiful place in the world. Nevertheless, you feel like you’ve entered paradise. Cabo —as it is called by frequent visitors, as if there were no other— is a gentle grasscovered hill of sand jutting into the Atlantic and ending in rocks that shelter a stable population of seals and sea lions. It is crowned by a 19th century lighthouse which has not succeeded in preventing frequent shipwrecks in this difficult-to-navigate area, with its winds that push ships toward the coast and a dangerous sea floor with rocky formations that thrust upward as islets. Cabo is flanked by two beaches that stretch as far as the eye can see, with dunes that were once higher than the current 98 feet. There may be other similar hamlets with higher dunes, more exuberant vegetation or better tourist services, but I can’t think of any that have the magic of Polonio.
