In the lands of the coffee, from the book, Searching for treasures
Bahía Blanca. Buenos Aires, Argentina
He explored the park with his gaze, once again and stopped when he saw two women who seemed to be well into their years in life. They walked arm-in-arm on one the pedestrian walkways toward the center of the plaza. Instead of covering themselves with hats, they walked under the shade of the colored parasols. One of these was blue with white stripes, and the other umbrella was yellow. In front of the women, in the center of the plaza stood a statue of the Hero, Simon Bolivar, solemnly facing some distant point, possibly a symbolic representation of the remote expanses of his thoughts. Apparently immersed in intense deliberations with himself, it seemed as if he were probing his innermost thoughts for the best ideals to lead his fellow kinsmen toward a better community life.
Jean Marie considered every single detail and nuance of the scene in front him, sketching a preliminary drawing in his mind. In the end, he also included the stately mansion with the white facade as the background of his composition. It was a house that had its wooden windows and doors painted in this lively blue tone and lively adorned with yellow designs in their interior parts. Without any doubt, they matched parasols and the women walking through the park.
The artist asked himself in a subdued whisper, as he admired all the possibilities the arrangements to that view laying at his feet offered to his keen mind. “So… where do I begin?”
Sure enough, the streets that bordered the plaza were lined with colorful, sumptuous, imposing age-old manor houses. They had been built in another, now remote time, when life’s necessities were viewed with a widely different perception. They still proudly displayed the typical Paisa architecture, characterized by their broad facades.
These elegant frontispieces maintained a life of their own, through their emblematic bay windows and their large wooden doors painted in vivid, vibrant colors. Old statehouses from another epoch, framed and delimited by ample balconies, these last, cheerfully decorated with hanging flower pots, filled to the brim with brightly colored flowers.
Versión en español Searching for treasures Purchase the book