Sea You Soon!

“Balajú, siendo guerrero

se embarcó para guerrear,

le dijo a su compañero:

-Vámonos a navegar

a ver quién llega primero

al otro lado del mar.”

- El Balajú

Since colonial times, the l í rich of the Son Jarocho preserved and transmitted the essence of its people and the subtlety of everyday life - becoming an art not only music but oral history and collective memory. Its lyrics are characterized by the wealth of traditional symbols and folkloric elements that illustrate the reality of the town, among which there are many referring to nature and of course, the sea.

After a month soaking in this culture of the Son in the port of Veracruz, we have to embark and continue our odyssey. However, unlike those navigators and warriors of New Spain, we say goodbye to the sea and move towards the interior of the republic. From the Caribbean to the Gulf, we have been coasting and getting to know the different beaches of the South, which culminated in a very magical farewell suitable for the occasion, together with our friends from the Chuchumbé space.

Every Sunday, Chuchumbé organizes a beach clean-up that ends in an African dance session with live percussion. The idea is that as you cleanse your environment, you also purify yourself internally - connecting from within with the authentic and organic rhythms of our being. After all that movement, sweat and energetic detox in the sun, you could not miss the dip in the sea! As I floated and let the waves roll me back and forth, I realized that it would be the last time I would swim in salt water for a long time, probably until I touched the shores of the Pacific. At that moment, I wanted to hug him. See you on the other side, I thought. " Let's see who gets there first . "

The sea has given us so much in the last five months, and just as in Son Jarocho, water in general has been a very pertinent and relevant issue. We are always looking for her ...

When it is hot, cooling off in cenotes has been a great relief for the skin and our muscles.

When we are thirsty, resting next to the springs with clean and fresh water, a delight.

Hot showers have become our most precious luxury.

We have also swam and had fun in pools, lakes and waterfalls.

In fact, I write this from the Carrizal hot springs, whose temperature and environment have given me an incomparable peace and tranquility, and that we have enjoyed both watching the sunrise and floating under the stars.

The abundance of natural waters is one of the most extraordinary and rewarding privileges of traveling through Mexico. For now we will be pedaling parallel to the Río de la Antigua (formerly called Huitzilapan , which means river of the hummingbirds) until we reach Coatepec. We had the opportunity to see where the river flows into the sea, and in a certain way, it is as if we were tracing its origins, reaching the source from which it was born.

But all to be recreational spaces for fun and hang d í to, I want to think about water bodies so they really are. It is not for nothing that they are called bodies: "a set of material parts that make up the organism of a living being."

Water is a living being and a very powerful history, memory and culture much more to s older than we know and hear the sound through. Unfortunately, we have also witnessed the lack of respect for these sacred places, the mistreatment of resources and the contamination of the ecosystem in which they are located. I think this is because as a society we have forgotten to thank and treat with deserved admiration what nature gives us, and many times we simply take it for granted.

In the state of Veracruz, we have visited many towns whose names carry the suffix " apan ", which means " water " in n á huatl: Pajapan, Soteapan, Tatahuicapan, Sontecomapan, Apazapan, Actopan, etc. This diversity of names inspires me to imagine the kind of relationships that our ancestors developed ind í genas each bas place to ndose in their interaction with water. We show that there are thousands of ways to interpret and characterize the different water bodies if we learn to read and distinguish those qualities that make them unique.

As faithful lover salty sea leg being, I know we face many freshwater to discover and enjoy - and now I feel motivated me to mature this sensitivity and conscious connection with each of them.