That’s it.
At the grocery store the other day and some Metallica song comes on (one of those from the ‘90’s so more pop than metal).
Reminds me of being at the Bolivian/Chilean border on New Year’s day:
After 4x4 ing through southern Bolivia for almost 3 days we get to the Bolivian outpost.
This little building with one guy who rotates in on 3 week shifts.
Passports get stamped, tell him how beautiful his country is, and go to wait in the Landcruiser.
Our Bolivian driver is chewing his coca leaves and we wait with our group (3 Landcruisers).
And wait...and some more waiting.
Chile is hyper organized so they send a bus to us, we get on, they take us back to their border station to search our luggage, and then we get back on the bus to go to Antacalma.
But they are late.
And our tour guide is trying to talk our drivers to take us to the Chilean station but our driver can’t because he has a stash of coca leaves and Chile frowns on that (or, rather, frowns on Bolivians - there were a number of occassions where Chilean rascism towards Bolivians and Peruvians shone throw).
Thankfully, the Chilean bus arrives (the excuse was the Chilean border agents had a late lunch) and we head off.
We get to the station but stop short.
Our Chilean guide explains that we need to behave calmly, do not be too loud, let them go through our luggage but we should declare certain items from the outset to stay out of trouble: fruit, vegetables, incense wood etc.
Our bus enters the station (literally drives inside) and we pull all our bags down and line them up.
There is no one else here probably within 50 km unless you count the Bolivian back at his outpost about 10km away.
We stand in line to get our stamps.
The agents look like bastards/criminals.
Then one of them turns on the boom box they have and some Metallica song comes on. Can’t remember which but pretty sure from the Master of Puppets album.
The mood suddenly changes as, first the young Aussies, then the older British, and finally the Scot and Canadians start moving to the music.
And just like that the scowls turn to smiles and when they went through our bags (thoroughly) it was almost a pleasant experience.
This memory will always be triggered whenever I hear Metallica from now on.
The thing is, I made a playlist for this trip as I was told that then when you hear that song it will bring you back to that trip.
My playlist was heavy on Metric, and Dark Saturday in particular.
Now whenever I hear that song I am reminded of being on the train from Ollantaytambo to Macchu Picchu.
So it works: music triggers memories whether intentionally or not.