Intercéltico de Sendim 2005 [en]

Tactequete e Eliseo Parra

Intercéltico de Sendim 2005 [en]

I promised my self to write more frequently in English - in consideration for all my beloved friends (my beautiful people) that don´t get this weird Portuguese language at all - which leaves me in a sort of complex situation since it´s not, for sure, a field where I feel really comfortable … English, I always feel like a 4 years old kid trying to express sort of complex things, and in the end I actually feel as if a 4 years old English kid would have been able to express him self much more and much better than I did …

Well, after these brief considerations, it’s time to try to describe my most recent trips.

On Friday I went to Sendim, in Portugal North-East, in order to be able to participate in Intercéltico festival, sort of oriented to Celtic music and Celtic musical traditions …

I went with Vera, Diana and Ana … and that made it all so better … Afterwards we met (Pedro) Serra and also some cool friends of him over there, also Rui Afonso was there … Looking backwards, I can for sure affirm that to get engaged in GAIA and meet all this terrific people, such essential part of my reality, was one of the best things that could have happened to me.

The trip it self was not so that easy … a couple of hours inside a bus in a swinging road … fortunately after some point the landscape was a very positive way of distraction.

It’s hard to express in words the mystic aura present in Trás-os-Montes. It’s a region with a very special energy, really sort of mystic and in some aspects untouched by the predating fury of industrialization and so called “development”, the concept of development that they try to sell us. On the other hand, it’s possible that this untouched area exists more in my perception than in reality it self.

Well, we arrived there nearly at sunset, which would complicate the things a fair bit since we still had to set our tents and stuff (it´s not so easy to live in material world ;O).

Fortunately there was a very kind fireman that offered him self to take us to the (camping) park (since it was still a bit faraway). Well, the so called park was quite shity but well, fair enough to the purpose that took us there.

The concerts were cool, but I´m not sure if up to the point of making such a long and exhausting trip worthy …

On Saturday we were swimming in Douro, that same river that arrives so polluted and dirty to my city, Porto. There Douro was running among an incredibly beautiful landscape. I promised my self, when circumstances would make it possible, to pay another visit.

I had a very interesting chat with Joana, Pedro sister, and I could realise that intelligence is some genetic heritage in this family, since Pedro is one of the most interesting persons I know, and also a very cool fellow from GAIA.

Hmm, I´m getting tired of all these descriptions, that I really don´t get along with. I feel that there´s so much to tell and not that much patience or capacity of mine to do it ;O)

Besides, I´m really not good with details, which usually is said to be the most important part of a story … well, it makes some sense …

At night there was a very cool band, mostly based on drumming. The name is Tactequete and Eliseo Parra, this one a very professional singer and, I suppose, dancer as well, with a terrific latin swing in his body.

If I would feel capable of that, I would like to write a bit more about Tras-os-Montes and the very particular atmosphere over there … the very authentic and unique aura that´s still possible to feel …

We didn´t sleep over night (exception made to Vera, smart girl ;O) in order to get 6.30 am bus. Well, in normal circumstances the trip could have been even interesting somehow, but it wasn´t, it was a bit more like torture I would say ;O) Nevertheless in some moments the landscape was absolutely incredible, and fortunately big part of the trip we had to do it by train. The trip “Pocinho” – “Porto” is really something very special … especially if there isn´t any group of “boys and girls scouts” singing all those terrific scouts songs … unfortunately there was one …

About the landscape, I´m sure that is that amazing and unique natural and human landscape that makes Porto wine so special, well, I don´t drink wine but still …

Trains are sort of passion in my life, so apart from regarding it like a crime, it´s also with a very personal pain that I think in all the train lines that have been shut down by all the stupid portuguese politics in most recent years … a cultural and social crime for sure … isolating remote populations and making even wider the gap between big cities and small countryside villages …

So, at least in this country, to be in the countryside is simultaneously a very inner and painful experience … to feel its dignity but, at the same time, slow abandon process …

In my mind still the impressions of that really beautiful trip (at least the part of it that I managed to perceive in such circumstances).

I also made my self a promise … hmm, but I suppose that it could bring some bad luck to reveal it, I guess that I just can’t avoid to be superstitious somehow … I suppose there´s nothing wrong with that … is there?