• © Pepa de Rivera
  • Tangled
  • © Manuel Bayo
  • Friday, May 15, 2015
  • 22:25
  • Patagonia
  • I can´t still remember how I got here. I woke up this morning-over the cold and wet grass confused and with a kind of headache. Although frozen stiff, I could stand up after a while and keep on heading East, I suppose. I got to a completely closed border barrier, a Chilean crossing point. A long printed banner informed “we can´t help you, indefinite strike. We are working for you” (but not today). I turned back, right sure to the West now and walked to the other side of the crossing point. The moorland landscape fenced on both sides, wind, silence and an oblique light similar to the sunrise or sunset. A car went by and I stared at it fixely. I thought somebody had waved at me slightly without stop talking to his car mate. I waved him back. In the distance I could see another barrier, the one of the opposite border. A notice “welcome to La Argentina” next to another one, smaller, unfriendly said “STOP”. A sign post informed “Paso Laurita”. I got into the border house. Just below the pictures of the President Kirtchner, The Pope Francisco and a small altar to a Nursing Virgin, right in the middle, a surly customs woman agent asked for my passport. I realized stunned I did not have it, I could not even answer clearly basic questions such as name, nationality or where I was coming from or going to. Embarrassed to note my amnesic awareness, I found I could not even tell what I wanted. I was not allowed to enter. I left the border house and walked for a while along this two-direction corridor, eastwards. I could really reach the Chilean barrier on indefinite strike and jump through it without being disturbed. But where could I go without any identification? How could I answer the questions that I was going to be surely asked by the police, the emergency services or by anyone, even myself? What could I do to guide my steps without a past to hold nor even the incitement of an already dreamed future? I think I prefer a 2-km-long and 200-metre wide strip (rough measure). I will stay in “El Paso Laurita”.