My mental circus, inside and out.

It´s easy to lose track of time in this place of slow moving turtles, wheeling sea birds, and drifting sea lions, but it is one more day now, and then home.  Emma is more than ready at this point, and while an ideal state would be to accept things as they are, wherever she is. . the truth is, she has an inordinate craving for a Hot Shower.  The hotel water is tepid at best, and reminiscent of Costa Rica, where she had a month of downright cold showers, standing at the edge of the shower and splashing herself so that she wouldn´t die of a heart attack at the shock of cold water at 6am in the morning.  In this hotel, even the so called ¨hot tub¨ is about the temperature of the ocean, which is not exactly what you would call a warm sea.  It would be advisable, perhaps, when stepping into the shower to wear a wet suit.  Also, she is never offered more than one cup of coffee at breakfast in the morning, and it´s not very good coffee.  Hot coffee. Hot shower. Warm hugs.  All needed at this point.

The Galapagos is an extravagantly wild and beautiful place, but it is not advisable to come here.  In fact, according to Emma´s guide yesterday, they are thinking of shutting the whole place down, even moving off the 20,000 inhabitants of the islands.  According to the inhabitants, the environment is really ailing here because of the crush of human impact since the 1990s.  Today, walking around a remote beach, Emma saw a bright orange feral cat out catching wall lizards, and this seemed like such a strange sight in the middle of what is essentially a desert land, full of cactus and dry brush.  It seems that the impact is not so much the tourists as the presence of domesticated animals gone wild, various introduced plant species like quinine, and the spread of fungi brought in on fruits and the like.  Everything here is very carefully controlled.  Tourists are only allowed on restricted beaches and short paths on the islands, and it is impossible to go wandering around.  Nevertheless, a guide told her that the Ecuadorian government has an incentive not to really clean the place up--for example by completely eradicating the feral goats--because that way the dollars donated by foreign citizens will keep flowing in.  According to him, the government does just enough to keep people feeling like they are having a good impact, while skimming off a portion of donations for itself.

Yesterday, Emma was in a boat with a famous Atlanta radio personality.  With his assistants, he was chaperoning a bunch of kids who had won an essay contest.  They were accompanied by a photographer and a wildlife expert from the Atlanta zoo.  Emma talked to the wildlife expert, who explained to her the disappearance of the planet´s frogs, all dying from a fungus that takes advantage of global warming.

The Galapagos feels like a lesson, where you can see the decline of wild nature in naked form.

Posted by: EmmaPele at July 31, 2007 08:36 | link | comments (1)

The Galapagos.  It´s funny how a place that you´ve imagined for many years turns out to be quite a different reality.  Of course, you think of turtles, and that´s true.  These islands are full of turtles of all sizes, enormous lumbering creatures with long necks, completely unafraid of predators because they have none.  Their only vulnerability is their eggs.  Emma and her teacher, Zyra, spent a lot of time ambulating around and looking at turtles, whom Zyra called amigas.  She seemed to like las femininas better than los machos.  That was true of all the creatures they saw.  Zyra is 29, Emma almost 50, but they hugely enjoyed each other.

And there are birds, the birds that inspired Darwin to write The Origin of Species.  Zyra pointed out the variation in the beaks of these birds, as they walked in a forest unlike any forest in Emma´s experience because it was full of the giant cacti indigenous to this place, and thorn trees, and a kind of wild spindly tree that has murderously poisonous leaves. 

Emma is on the main island, which has a small population of people, but she visited another island, San Bartolomea, that was a truly wild place with recent volcanic activity and without too many signs of humanity .  Here the sea lions fearlessly swim around with the humans, though she was warned not to get too close to El Macho.  She did, however, float calmly above a green sea turtle, drifting along in the current.

Most people take a cruise from island to island here, and all of the activities are highly planned.  Emma thinks its quite nice to not be on a cruise, but to take a trip now and then, and the rest of the time to enjoy the town and its environs.  Most people do not stay here long enough to really observe the birds in the forests here, the ones that inspired Darwin.

Posted by: EmmaPele at July 29, 2007 02:55 | link | comments

Cuenca

Since her last report, Emma has scaled a mountain rising from the Andean paramo, where she got slightly windburned and lost in a low cloud, took another salsa class and then went to a salsatech club in the city to try out dance moves with some new amigas, visited an indigenous market in a town where many people proudly wear their felt hats and wool shawls--an archetypal image of the Andes, and is now in the town of Cuenca, being taken around by an octogenarian and former diplomat who is a friend of the family  which whom she has been staying for three weeks.  The hotel is called El Quijote and is filled with images of, well, the man himself, Don Quixote.  Oh, before she climbed Pinchincha--which does have a rather extensive scrambly bit--she visited the museum of Oswald Guayasamin, an artist whose images dominate the city of Quito.  Reproductions of them are absolutely everywhere.  And on the climb up Pinchinca, where Guayasmin liked to sketch, she could see some of his panoramas--that is before the clouds came down.  The paramo is full of flowers--the hardy kind that can withstand the cold and wind.  Much like many people Emma knows here.

Posted by: EmmaPele at July 22, 2007 03:12 | link | comments (1)

The stars everywhere

Last night, Emma took a ride on the trolly towards the old colonial part of Quito.  In a park there is an edifice, painted an ochre color and surrounded by weather gizmos.  This is the astronomical observatory of Quito, built in 1873.  Emma had read in the paper that there would be free star-gazing in the evenings, and so even though she had heard rumor that this part of town was "muy peligroso" after dark, she decided to brave it. It was worth it.  This place, high in the Andes, with peaks marking the points in the heaven, is known for its ancient astronomy. The observatory is also an historical museum, and when Emma entered, she was directed to the secretario to pay $1.  (Ecuador has switched over to U.S. dollars which has caused some resentment here.)  Then she followed a bunch of people up the winding wooden staircase into the observatory, where there was a large, ancient brass and copper telescope. Of the twenty or so people there, many were children.  Others were lovers who kept making out in the dark as they waited for one of the astronomers to wheel the ancient telescope from one viewing point to the other. Sometimes, the astronomers rotated the entire observatory--made out of wood--and the mechanism would creak. Three girls--probably ten years old--took Emma's hand and said, "Venga! Venga!" Emma went out with them and one of the astronomers to a circular balcony, protected by an iron balistrade, and he used a laser pointer to show them La Cruz del Sur (the southern cross, visible only in the southern hemisphere).  Through the telescope, Emma saw Jupiter with three of its moons, Venus, Alpha Centuari (which looks like twin stars), and Saturn with its rings.  Emma did not understand much of what the astronomers said, but she did understand the language of the planets and the stars.

Posted by: EmmaPele at July 14, 2007 04:28 | link | comments (4)

Ecuador

Emma is at the highest point on the equator, in the Andean mountains.  This city, Quito, high up in the mountains, has been settled for thousands of years.  Before the Incans, there were the Shyris.  Before the Shyris, who knows.  Close by, you can stand on the equator and walk along its line.  This is not just a mathematical curiosity.  As you are trying to walk the equator, you feel pulled in both directions, so unless you have a fantastic sense of balance, you feel like a drunk, wobbling along.  Also, right on the equator, water goes straight down the spigot without making a whirlpool.  A foot to the left or to the right, and the water makes a whirlpool--the direction of the spin depends on whether you've entered the northern or southern hemisphere.  So this place is called La Mitad del Mundo: The Middle of the World.

 

Posted by: EmmaPele at July 13, 2007 04:18 | link | comments (2)