Beneath the Mountain...

I went into a mine once, a silver mine in Bolivia. It was probably some of the harshest conditions I've ever witnessed first hand. There were boys no older than 14 working besides old men with bent backs. And outside, wizened women sift through the scrap with nothing but a small rock hammer and a bag of cocoa leaves to dull the pain.

I recall vividly the feeling of having tons of rock and earth above my head. It was almost suffocating and the dark wet walls felt closer than they were.

At the moment I'm passing beneath the Alps through a tunnel the Swiss have cut straight though the mountains and I remembered that familiar feeling. Outside there is nothing but blackness and the ambient light of the train reflecting softly off dark stone as it races by.

And then suddenly, almost as if a blindfold had been removed, the darkness is replaced with lush green Swiss valleys and white capped mountains against a stark blue sky. Red tiled roofs and ash brick churches nestle peacefully alongside wide lakes that are almost painfully blue.

Every time I see something new, I still feel that awestruck sensation I got the first time I stepped off a plane somewhere distant and different. If nothing else, I am deeply grateful for that.

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