We stand beside the dry riverbank. Some white bones scatter on the ground, which is weaved togeher by different shades of brown, and which stretches to the horizon. I am amazed at how far my eyes can reach. It is by standing here, the center of nothingness, that the path becomes clear. If I had superpower, I would let my legs carry me toward the horizon, without stopping, without worrying about anything. The landscape simply makes people silent. All those sounds in my mind die away and do not bother me anymore. The endless Patagonia welcomes and accompanies us without any prejudice.
But I can feel Mr. Darwin shouting madly in his head. He jumps between tufts of grass, many of them hiding bones of the same creatures called guanacos, pretty much like the Llamas. I’ve seen them many times here in Patagonia, but always at a far distance. Most of the time they ran away even before I could spot them. However, a cruise member once told Mr.Darwin and me one day that they were extremely friendly. They can “approach a person playing peculiar antics" without any alertness. Mr. Darwin told me then that maybe their eyesight was not that good, that they mistook us as pumas.
The place has both the solemnity of a funeral and the peacefulness of a forest. Those bushes of bones are like neatly arranged tombstones, standing still under the cloudless and windless sky. I watch Mr. Darwin touch carefully at the ribs of one of the dead creatures. He reckons me to follow suit, but I simply come closer with my hands resting in my pockets. I can never touch the bones of such creatures. They’re like sculptures that once had lives inside if you imagine. Their cold, hard bones completely differ from their warm, soft bodies when they’re alive. They are beautiful yet sacred.
Later when we have supper on the ship, Mr Darwin tells me that those guanacos might walk there all by themselves. Those bones, without any visibly broken or gnawed parts, might not be left by beasts of prey. His thoughts somehow romanticize my imagination. Early on I spotted a pair of bodies of bones lying under the same bush. Now it’s clear they might be a couple. That night when I lie on my bed and watch candlelight flicker in the corner of the room, casting shadows of Mr. Darwin sitting and writing between piles of books, I picture two old lovers ambling to the next phase of their lives, leaving their bodies on the ground and reaching toward the sky.
Today is December 23rd, 1833.
River on Baltic Sea 
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