The Travels of Karra Elejalde: 'I don't like to travel; what I like is to arrive'

He prefers that we do the interview on the terrace of the hotel where he is staying so he can smoke a cigarette in the meantime. Karra Elejalde, at 60 years old, lives intensively in everything he does. After promoting his latest film, it seems he enjoys recreating the landscapes and sunsets that have left an imprint on his travels.

My mother was from Vitoria and my father was from Salinas de Léniz, a small town in the interior of Guipúzcoa, where they lived. When it came time to give birth, my mother had two options: to do it in San Sebastián, which is 98 kilometers away with winding roads, or return to her city. That's why I was born in Vitoria and was baptized in the Cathedral of Santa María.

I don't have many happy memories. My family had a tavern, and when you are born in that context, you work without pay starting at 13 years old. I helped my mother prepare snacks before the church service.

What I like is arriving. I can't stand being locked in a plane for fourteen hours to cross the ocean.

Imagine a guy like me on a plane. I take a pill or a whiskey and try to fall asleep. On top of that, I have two herniated discs, and I have a hard time when I sit. That's why I say I don't like to travel. I like to arrive.

A bus trip with all the people from the town. They took us, I don't know if to Bermeo or to Durango. It was my first time on a bus, and the kids were singing 'if you're a first-class driver...'. We went to a place with very dark paintings that scared me a lot.

Thanks to theater, I've been lucky enough to see all of Spain. Sometimes I say we are very foolish because we travel to distant places and don't know Laguna Negra, the Lagunas de Ruidera, or Santiago de Compostela. What a beautiful adventure it would be to take a car and travel along the Cantabrian coast and the French Mediterranean to Saint Tropez, stopping at inns or sleeping in tents! I've traveled in every way.

From America, I know Canada, the United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Costa Rica, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru... In Argentina, I was filming the movie The Finger in the Wound, and when I finished, I was fascinated by that country. First, I went to Salta, San Salvador de Jujuy, the Iguazú Falls, and then I traveled down to the Valdés Peninsula, Ushuaia, and Perito Moreno. The Iguazú Falls blew me away. When I was in Toronto (Canada), I asked about Niagara Falls, and they told me it was nothing compared to Iguazú. I have also been to France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Greece... but never to Germany.

When people talk to me about 'the call of Africa,' I think of its orange, reddish, and sometimes maroon sunsets. I was able to see those sunsets several evenings from a hotel in Cairo. I've also seen beautiful sunsets in Cadaqués (Girona). When there are clouds, the sun does wonderful things. From a plane, I once saw the green flash, but it only lasts a few seconds. My daughter and my wife said to me: 'Come on, dude, what have you smoked?'.

I'm very pale, and I can't stay in the sun for more than half an hour. I prefer to have a few beers at the beach bar. Besides, I'm a slave to my character: a little hyperactive. But I love visiting places. I know Portugal quite well. I like Lisbon and Porto, and I also know Braga, Coimbra, Braganza, Estoril, and the ports and beaches in the south.

I like to cook. Basque cuisine has good raw materials but little seasoning. We are sparse with spices. It fascinated me the play of spices I discovered in Morocco and Egypt. I am very curious, and I've eaten spicy piranha soup or caiman in Brazil. And I wouldn't eat monkey brains because I'm quite an environmentalist... I'm not picky. I like everything.

Costa Rica. It is a wonderful country, full of natural parks, with the Arenal and Turrialba volcanoes; it has the Pacific Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, and Puerto Limón, where an earthquake caused the sea to go one and a half kilometers inland, exposing a beach that is abnormal. I was there 19 years ago, the same age as my daughter Ainara, and it impressed me. 'Pura vida,' as they say.

I always bring something back. From Costa Rica, I brought home a two-and-a-half-meter snake that wanders around in my house in Vitoria. From Argentina, I have a type of dagger that I bought in Victoria as a souvenir of Ezpeleta, a fellow countryman and founder of that city. If I go somewhere, I always have to keep something from that place at home.

I already have it chosen: my house in Collserola (Barcelona), where I've invested all the money I've earned. To anyone who wants to spend an interesting morning, I suggest going to the La Boquería market in Barcelona, having a couple of vermouths, and buying something to make at home.

To soak in, to be exposed to, to learn, to mix... Nothing could happen to our country more beautiful than being enriched by all cultures. Without those cultures, we would all be poorer at every level.