[Paddlewise] TR: Golfe de Porto, Corsica

Corsica, Golfe de Porto, 02-06-2002

I have found a slap of rock with exactly my shape. I've been laying
there for some time, staring at the sky, at the sea, and at the book on
my lap. When the book looses its attraction my attention wanders to the
rock that I am laying on. For the first time I notice that it is not
part of the cliffs: It is a loose block 
of stone, about the size of my house, probably fallen from a mountain
that I never noticed: I have paddled too close to shore to look inland.

I get up, climb the rock, and indeed I find the mountain, right next to
me. A rough, vulcanic burp rising straight up for sixhunderd meters. The
low, bushy slopes are full of the kind of blocks I am standing on, and
mine is by no means the biggest. A landslide of gravel, only every piece
of gravel is a mountain in itself.

For just a moment I can grasp the grandeur of the scenery, and it takes
my breath. My mind is too small to really understand the size of it, but
by climbing the rocks with my eyes, from rock to rock and then up the
cliff to the top, I get a fleeting glimpse of the majesty of this place.
I can repeat the feeling by climbing it again, and again.

According to the Corsican people this place was created by the devil in
a rage. According to me, it was created by God, with a smile. Just for
once he must have wanted to create something bigger then the sun and the
stars, by building an open-air cathedral that mankind could never copy,
nor understand.

At a time like this I am sorry I don't believe in God. There is no one I
can thank for creating this place.


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