Corvus Corax the Sentinel

                              

   
 In Santiago I had purchased a painting and an etching from a night street market. Since the artwork was awkward to carry it was now stored in one of the guitar flight cases. I would see it again at our last show in New Jersey before I flew home.

  
 I rarely buy this sort of stuff but I liked the modern painting and the etching of a Corvus Corax, a Raven which is a bird that is ever present in the conifer woods near my home. The raven is a creature that can tell you all that is going on in the surrounding area if you are patient enough to pay attention and learn to interpret their extensive vocabulary. Nothing gets past the sentinels posted by these family groups.

'La Recoleta Cemetery'

 Upon leaving the gig in Montevideo the heavens opened up and a flashing and crashing storm lit up the whole sky through the night. We had an early start out to the airport the following day and the storm was still surrounding us. Due to the inclement weather, not many flights had managed to get into Montevideo so we were unable to catch our flight.  

 Having checked in, we just hung about for many hours. After about 7 hours it was more than obvious that plan B was to catch the late night flight direct to Córdoba. Originally we were to fly back to Santiago and then get a flight to Córdoba.

'At the Cemetery'

 The small Bombardier jet shook us all the way through the dark skies and got us to Córdoba at 23.20 hrs. We had a 13 hour day at the airport and the crew were scattered somewhere between Santiago and Montevideo. Luckily the following day off helped to get us all back together. The gig went well and before we knew it we were back at the hotel for a busy day tomorrow.

  The 10.15 flight took us to Buenos Aires and we were to play a show later in the day. I have never been a fan of flying on the day of a show. It makes me feel unbalanced but needs must, so the plan was to have a good lunch and a long walk after arriving at the Park Hyatt.

 

 Luckily, I had a friend who had lived in Buenos Aires and had given up an afternoon of riding horses to take me to a very cool restaurant. The weather was wonderful and after I walked around La Recoleta Cemetery. This beautiful cemetery was the final resting place of many presidents of Argentina, Nobel Prize winners and poets. The black marble tomb of the much loved Eva Perón is comparatively modest but is still a rather large piece of prime real estate.

 I took a short siesta in the late afternoon and with no sound check we took to the stage.

 The following day was a 14-hour travel day via Panama again. We crossed the equator once again and lost two of our crew to drink at the airport. They spent the night in the airport and caught up with us in Puerto Rico the following day. I felt for them as I had bought the first round of margaritas but I made the flight ok so I didn’t feel to bad for too long.

M.D.C.