Toniná
Toniná is a wonderful place and this is what Claudio thinks about it:
Imagine a grass field. Then imagine it big enough so that you can't see the end of it. Imagine it green, with the grass reaching the end of your boots, nearly to the knee. Can you see the drops of water left by the night on every leaf? Feel the sun rising behind your shoulders warming up the scene and uncovering details in the shadows. Look all around and see just trees, cows and a horse left there in the middle. It's slowly eating that fresh grass which such a pleasure that it nearly gets your lips wet and for a glympse your tongue tells you its taste.
If just it could know. But maybe it does.
As soon as you turn the corner your knees start shaking, your chest feels a strong pressure and your body is unusually heavy. These, with the first drops of sweat on the back of your neck, are the first signs of the excitement that is going to hit you in a few seconds. You still don't know what it is, but your right hand is already on the camera and you realize that your thumb has turned it on.
At first it looks like the usual hill you've met so many times during the last weeks, but it has something different. It's not in the colors, it's the usual tint of gray mixed with saturated green. The trees are there, the grass with them.
It just doesn't make sense. A hill with holes. Straightly you follow the lines that surround the hole and before you're off with it you understand it's a door you're looking at. And there are many more in its neighbourhood. Your mind has already traced a virtual line that connects you with that door. Funny enough, there are stairs on that line. Things start to link and you understand that somebody was there before you, somebody who was able to steal that rocks from nature and build something magnificent, raw and elegant at the same time. Somebody who used to walk on that same grass you've just stepped on. For a second you can see the scene from his eyes.
It's a strange feeling. It's a mixture of past and nature. The same feeling you have when you enter a big cathedral with the smell of an afternoon spent in the trees.
You feel your mouth moving: it's a smile. The only thing you can do is turn towards your mates and jump on the first stone of those stairs.
