The crowded bus we took you do not see. Neither the reception we got at the entrance of the hot springs nor the troop of young guys and girls tagged to us. We pay an entrance fee. We choose a guide. So, they all guided us, told stories by turns. Here is the mud of sulphur and bubbles, the earth breathes red. The boys and girls jump from hot stone to hot stone. To show they understand their profession and they care for us, our money. They stir with a long stick in the pulsing blood of the earth. Melted, red iron from the stomach of the earth. In the far back a smoking volcano difficult to reach if not impossible.The children still fight to be the only and exclusive guide. The losers start already to curse and use their stick trying to hurt the others. They become angry, shout mightless. Money is what they want, money they all need. I don’t remember if they all got money or some of them twice.

The bus does not stop for the beach. The bus goes all the way to the end of the small peninsula. We are halfway the afternoon and it is still hot. For miles the beach is on the left behind a row of houses, behind gardens and trees. Sometimes we get a glimpse of the flat, greenish sea. Women step down from the bus, colorful dressed women climb the bus on their way home. The beach is a promise. At this hour, this day of the year there is nobody on the beach. No girls to look at, no guys to play baseball, no bars for a drink or a snack. Are we disappointed? The beach is long and broad, the beach is light to dark sand in front of empty hotels and empty terraces.This is not too bad, it is a privilege. The sun begins almost unnoticed somewhere its setting and all of a sudden we get company on the beach. A lonely swine walks black and slowly on the beach. He enjoys the beach, the sunset, lonely as he is. One never knows about the next day, particularly not a fat swine.

Miraculous island in the lake. The immense big lake once robbed of its very fish, the name I forgot, by a president who was more interested in money than fish. Fish sold to Japanese for their never stilled taste for fish. However, beautiful lake, I will sing a song, a song of your volcanic beauty and your stillness. Behind the border of the lake, a strip of land is a small pond in the woods. The water shallow and dark. Closed in, a kind of small moor, no a muddy pond as I said. A fallen tree out of sight serves as a bridge to the other side, the invisible trail through the woods to the meadows, the horses and the cows. But, stop and look. Here on the spot. Incomprehensible sunlight between the trees, red and white reflected by the pond, the dark water and a trunk of another old tree fallen down. Secrets of illumination, the breaking of materialized light. Camera obscura and infra red at the same time.

The day ends, the night comes, I happen to be here. No thoughts no worries. A floating house covered with straw on an iron frame.To fish or to live in. Not a living being to see. This is the sea and the shore, endlessly stretching behind what we see. However, no Hemingway or his old man, no Anaïs Nin in her glass boat. Nor my old aunt who lived in a so called living boat during the War. A boat amidst reed, her apartment in the  main city an address to hide her beloved brother, my role model as a stoic man who took all pleasure and pain for granted. And she learnt me to walk over a narrow foot board, later to keep my balance in life. This is a quiet place. On the left, almost on shore a shining object, a car on its side or an unrecognizable machine. They are part of the scene. They are indispensable. The picture will be ruined when one of the objects will be removed.