10/26/2025
Andrés was sixty-one, a quiet man with deep-set eyes, riding a dusty Honda Shadow across the high plains of Chile.
His bike carried more than saddlebags — strapped to the back was a wooden guitar, worn smooth by years of playing.
He wasn’t a performer chasing stages.
He rode from village to village, stopping at plazas and markets.
There, he tuned the strings with careful hands and began to sing.
His songs weren’t famous ballads.
They were names — names of miners lost underground, farmers swept away in floods, children whose laughter had gone silent.
Each chord carried memory like wind across stone.
In one small town, I watched as an old woman pressed her hands to her face.
He had just sung her brother’s name, gone fifty years but not forgotten.
Tears streamed as she whispered, “Gracias.”
After the song, Andrés lifted the guitar skyward.
“This road remembers for all of us,” he said softly.
When he rode off, the crowd stayed silent, listening to the echo long after the engine had faded.
And I understood: his music wasn’t for applause — it was for keeping history alive on two wheels.