Petrol in the Pampa

Roads through the pampas of Patagonia (Argentina) are long and lonely. No villages, almost no cars.... All cars driving fast; very eager to arrive at their destination. From the coast, Puerto Madryn, to the foothills of the Andes takes a day. Somewhere along the road is this petrol station where they also serve coffee and tea. A little girl is telling you all kinds of events in Spanish, while her mother is serving the customers.

A remnant of the past. Still functioning, but almost gone. 

Around the station lots of things that can be useful and chickens. Also a lonely turkey.... Surviving Christmas this time.

Behind all this just empty pampas...... Even behind the horizon.

An old polder landscape….

We had to get up early for our annual outing…..  

For me, going on a bus trip still has the enchantment it had when we went on our school trips. Excitement, the need to sing, the smell of fresh sandwiches;  longing to eat them straight away.

Where would we go today?  We were guessing for a long time. Is it the code of all school trips and company outings that you only know what to wear, but not where you are going?

Off course it was important where you were going, but somehow I best liked the bus trip itself. I love looking out of the windows to the passing world. Watching the landscape flow by from high up; at least much higher up that from a normal car. Watching people in cities wrestling through the traffic or going about their business in any other way.

This morning, a long time ago,  there was a little haze on the meadows. Just enough to make the landscape a bit distant, quiet and unreal. The pictures were taken through the coloured windscreens of the bus. So the tone is a bit artificial. And don’t ask me why some are more orange and others are more blue.

The old and new windmills, the greenhouses, the birds, the cows in meadows. A typical Dutch polder landscape. The cool air, the sun is low. It is almost autumn……

 

Empty landscapes

Iceland

I was watching a writer explain that landscapes are important for the creation of the characters of his novels. And he liked empty landscapes. Suddenly I realize how strange it is to call a landscape empty.

Canada

Even the fact that we talk about an empty landscape… It suggests that there should be something extra in there. That something is lacking. Is nature not sufficiently filling the landscape? Can a landscape with animals, like a herd of cattle, be “empty”. Can you make it feel empty”?  Is a landscape filled when there are buildings in sight?

Canada

I can think of many ways to fill a landscape. Like the painters Jeroen Bosch or Salvador Dali fill the landscape with demons and dreams. Looking at paintings, the landscape is often filled with a story, a battle or some biblical scene.

Scheveningen

Looking at my pictures, I see landscapes that feel empty because they are filled. It might be the indication, suggestion, that people are absent that makes them feel “empty”. Sometimes you even need people in the picture to make you see the “emptiness”. But on the other hand a landscape empty of people can feel full when it is overwhelming.

Iceland

I am not a philosopher, so I won’t pretend I can explain. For me it counts what I feel when I see a landscape. The emptiness means different things in different times and different places. It can be filled and at the same time be empty. An empty landscape is free to wander in but also forms a kind of mental frame. It puts you in a certain mood. A kind of mental peace; no noise, no action. Maybe some loneliness. It certainly makes you believe in space, in freedom……

Patagonia