Descriptive Essay of a Landscape

Descriptive Essay of a Landscape

Looking at the Caribbean from a plane

Welcome to heaven, tourist friend, although you probably have a while on board the plane. You've probably gotten tired of flipping through the magazines and instructions he got in his seat pocket, and the staff must have served your snack by now - portions this small do not really amount to a lunch. So the time has come to open the window and look down.

Let's start with that infinite blue savannah, almost black, that extends like a desert of water in all directions. Look at that color, so intense, blending in the distance with the color of the sky itself, as if wanting to confirm in a strange way the circularity of the planet: the sky is water and the water is sky.

From these heights it cannot be appreciated, but down there the waves advance, continuously, like an army in camouflage, towards a destination far or near, just breaking the perfect formation to spit out some foam. Get closer to the window and you will see, from time to time, the fleeting white flash, the bubbling presence of the crest of a disobedient wave, which breaks a little before its time.

Now imagine the two thousand two hundred meters of water below the surface: such an immense abyss in which more than 20 planes like yours could easily fit, one after the other looking at the same address. And that's not to mention the maximum depths of 7,600 meters, in marine trenches like the one in the Cayman Islands. But do not be scared by the proportions: that infinite sea that stretches down there is one of the warmest and saltiest in the world, an ideal sea for the holidays that await you.

Now look there in the distance, in that whitish spot that is looming. Notice how the water changes color as it approaches the shoreline, losing its intimidating blackness and brightening. That of course that is perceived in the background is the white sand, so white that it seems that the sun in the heights used its grains as a mirror. And the water, translucent, reveals the large and lively stones, home to corals and species of animals colorful a fauna so rich and diverse that it is well worth giving up the atmosphere for a while. 9% of the world's coral reefs are down there - they occupy about 20,000 square miles.

An equally exuberant flora and fauna await you on the mainland: note the strange, changing green that can be seen from here in the interior of the island. It is a slow degradation: first the clear blue of the shore, then the pristine white of the sand and then the tropical green, jungle at times and xerophilous later, as if on the same island, the jungle and the desert had their offspring. Undoubtedly there will be coconut trees down there, but also ceiba, mahogany, guayacanes and other 6500 endemic species, accustomed to the salty air of the sea.

You may be struck by the extravagant shapes of the islands, which from the top look like a fragment of the writing of the giants. What message is hidden in their silhouettes, what truth revealed, appreciable only from here? Nobody knows. Much less know those who live below, surrendered to the sun and a life that passes centered in the present. This is how the Caribbean people are: people of the sun and the sea, fleeting as the very foam that we looked out of the window a long time ago. More than 13 different countries coexist in this paradise, where races mix as much as Spanish, French, English and indigenous languages ​​do. Nothing is pure in the Caribbean, nothing has origin or destination. The Caribbean is present and nothing else.

But time is running out, dear tourist, and the plane signs light up again. Soon the descent will begin and this landscape that we have seen will be lost in his memory, and will undoubtedly be replaced by more concrete, physical, immediate memories. So make an effort - don't forget what you've seen. This is the distant and beautiful face of the Caribbean, one that no one could appreciate in millions of years of existence, until the human being appeared and created these noisy devices in which you travel. The Caribbean is like that, eternal and ephemeral, like this same landscape.

References:

• "What is a descriptive essay?" on The thinker.
• "Essay" in Wikipedia.
• "Landscape" in Wikipedia.
• "Caribbean Sea" in Wikipedia.

What is a descriptive essay?

A descriptive essay is a type of essay text (that is, reflection written in prose) that is characterized by addressing a specific topic (a place, a person, an event, an object) and describe it exhaustively, that is, highlight its most prominent or relevant features or characteristics for the Author. However, as in all essays, in this type of texts the subjectivity of the essayist is key to define which are the most outstanding characteristics or which is the perspective from which the theme or the chosen reference will be described.

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