Galápagos: Part II

Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz
At the end of the wharf just beyond the sleek sea lion sleeping on the wake-washed steps, a turtle slowly descends into the depths — a glimpse; nothing more. A yellow warbler flits a few paces ahead, tantalising, never quite allowing the opportunity for a photograph, and above the bay frigate birds circle incessantly: looking, waiting, patrolling. I know of no other birds that look so pointy — everything, bill, forked tail, wingtips, comes to a long, thin point[1] — and so unstable; the slightest change in the air seems to make them tilt and wobble. Yet in truth they're among the most accomplished fliers. I read once that they have the smallest wing loading of any bird; in other words they have the largest wing area in relation to their weight. Perhaps this is why they appear like paper kites, vulnerable to the whims of the wind.

I'd intended visiting Tortuga Bay today but the weather looks ominous, so instead I return to the Charles Darwin Research Centre and stop at the little beach where yesterday I photographed the marine iguanas. Today just a few photographs satisfy that compulsion and I prefer to sit and enjoy them, to listen to the sea breaking on the rocks and white sand, to gaze out at the big cruise boats anchored in the bay. Even in this relative shelter they're rolling and pitching; through binoculars the open sea looks wild. Two hours on that sea tomorrow. Even with dramamine it might be rough.

A movement catches my eye. I should mistake it for the tail of a lava lizard but I recognise it instantly — a small snake. The guide book describes the Galápagos snake as "locally common but difficult to see". This is one of the advantages of simply sitting still; of not being in a hurry, not feeling compelled to be always photographing or even constantly searching. For me, this is not even primarily a matter of patience — I don't think I'm a particularly patient person, although with practice I've learned some degree of that skill — but more a matter of paying attention and being satisfied with the opportunity to do nothing but notice and wonder. Still, being still guarantees neither remarkable sights nor worthwhile insights, and once again I feel blessed with luck — to have seen this small, thin, lithe animal gliding over the rough rock feels like a great privilege, as if the Galápagos has rewarded me for noticing small things.

Out in the bay the National Geographic Explorer pitches and rolls and slowly swings around on its anchor. What is it like to live aboard a huge, luxurious cruise boat like that, to be taken around these islands and shown the sights — the animals, the landscapes, the sea- and sky-scapes, the places significant in the human history of the Galápagos? I admit I sometimes feel twinges of envy; how great it would be to have all the practical things organised for me, not to have spend time trying to work out how to get to some of the difficult-to-reach places — places I'll never see, like Fernandina with its flightless cormorants. But the cost would be prohibitive, and the other cost would be the lack of time to be still, to reflect, to do nothing except live where I am.

A blue-footed booby glides in to join the pelicans at the fish-cleaning station, and through the recently rain-washed air the grey silhouette of the island on the horizon is as clear as I've yet seen it. Last night and early this morning rain pounded the roof, wild gusts howled, and I thought maybe the trip to Isabela would be cancelled, but now in the early morning the sea seems, if not calm, then at least not confrontational; the trip might be bumpy but neither frightening nor sickening (I trust). I'm actually looking forward to the journey — going somewhere new, just going somewhere; going somewhere I trust the wildlife will be just as inspiring. Ten days there. Ten days to relax and think and see and write and photograph unhurriedly.

The ride proves anything but smooth — a progression of leaps and lurches with an occasional huge thump as the sea suddenly vanishes from beneath the boat, leaving it momentarily airborne before the impact. I gaze out at the horizon from my lucky seat near the stern and trust the dramamine, and throughout the two-hour journey I'm not troubled in the slightest by any nausea. In fact, I enjoy the ride — the sight of the deep swell rising and falling, Santa Cruz and the island to the east gradually shrinking towards the horizon, small islands appearing, seabirds circling and gliding, and the unvarying, near-deafening growl of the two massive 225 hp Suzuki outboards. The sky darkens and softens, looks ominous. Soon we're surrounded by rain. The world contracts: above and all around, the indistinct grey sky; beneath it the heaving ocean, dull and leaden and churned white in the wake; through it all the strangely meditative roar of the motors. We pass through the rain and emerge into a brighter day. Isla Tortuga appears; we pass close by a spike of guano-plastered rock pounded by waves; Isabela draws closer. Behind the boat the wake sprays white against the dark raincloud, and a rainbow hangs there, motionless and beautiful among all this movement.

Isla Isabela
The small beach at the Playa del Amor comprises countless shells and broken coral. Mangroves flank one side, a lava tunnel the other, then a long, steep embankment of black boulders, among which rest several of the largest, most colourful marine iguanas I've seen. Two of these beasts flick their heads up and down, apparently at each other in some kind of interaction, punctuating the display with bouts of nose-blowing, snorting salty water violently from their nostrils. A third, close by, looks on like a referee. The surf rolls in, smashes and foams against the boulders but the iguanas take no notice. Evening approaches; a heavy grey sky over an almost-turquoise sea. As far as I know, I'm the only person within at least half an hour's walk, probably more, and except for the information sign saying don't walk on the sand the iguanas nest there, I could have stepped back thousands of years, maybe millions. Before humans arrived, change here must have happened at evolutionary rates — except for the volcanic activity, of course.

When I began walking here in the early afternoon I didn't know how far I'd go. I walked along the beach, stopping to watch the little sanderlings rushing frantically back and forth to check the sand between waves, the whimbrels, the ruddy turnstones, the ghost crabs and the endlessly fascinating patterns they leave on the beach. Eventually I came to a section of sand untracked by humans and realised that beaches without human footprints must be one of the world's great delights. Maybe that's why I feel so reluctant to walk on them, or, if I must, my inclination is to walk where the sea will quickly erase the marks of my passage. Perhaps also this is one of the things I love about the sea: that no matter how badly the crowds might churn up a beach, within a day the sea will have erased those signs.

I crouch in the evening on the rocks of the lava tunnel at the Playa del Amor and admire the iguanas, look along the boulder bank and think about returning tomorrow. But the chances are good that other people would be here, and although I'm no misanthrope places like this have a fragile timelessness that the presence of people can easily destroy. Even my own presence seems too much — I write this back at Puerto Villamil at the little beachfront bar where I've stopped for a beer and a session of writing, and I think of the Playa del Amor now as night falls and no one's there, just the sea, the night, the iguanas; the smell of the ocean and wet rock; the sound of the sea breaking — a sound that pre-dated life itself — and the night breeze in the mangroves; the way it was millions of years ago; and I can't help feeling I'm an intruder despite the care I've taken to tread carefully and slowly, not to disturb anything — if I could have walked without leaving footprints I'd have done so. How much do we need to see and hear and feel and taste for ourselves; to what extent can imagination and the recorded experience of others replace our own experience? Of course imagination can mislead, but experience can also carry a cost: the observer effect is inescapable.

On the way back from the Playa I pass the small cemetery which sits just behind the beach, some distance from town. Few things seem as still and permanent as graveyards, but this one on Isabela seems particularly silent despite (or perhaps because of) the incessant sound of the surf and the occasional calls of birds in the dusk. White graves, each with a cross; bright fake flowers; the sky darkening. Each grave has a story, but how many are still remembered? This morning I woke feeling that perhaps the strongest argument I know for the existence of intrinsic value — the value residing only in the thing itself, not in any usefulness it might have for us — is the knowledge that eventually our universe will cease to exist, and everything it ever contained, including the Galápagos, my time here, and everyone who ever shares it, will be lost, irretrievable. Immortality is an illusion, but the extraordinary grief of knowing what will be lost seems to me to be the strongest argument that those things have value regardless of whether they're "useful" to us, and the value of these things, here, right now on Isabela in the Galápagos, seems immeasurably great.

 

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Notes:
1. The tip of the bill actually curves into a sharp hook, but from a distance the pointy effect remains.

2. Trying to format this post has nearly driven me crazy — large chunks keep disappearing for no apparent reason; the html seems simple and straightforward yet identical strings give completely different results in different paragraphs. I’ll post it anyway and trust the weird and illogical idiosyncracies aren’t visible. Besides, I have more important things to do with my time than sit in front of a computer screen, going nuts.

Photos:
1. Galápagos flycatcher
2. Frigatebird (Magnificent frigatebird, I think)
3. Lava lizard. The red on the throat identifies this as a female.
4. One of the combative marine iguanas at the Playa del Amor.
5. Striated heron.

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor

Galápagos: A raid on the inarticulate

 
What can one say about the Galápagos [1] that hasn't been said so many times before, sometimes by far better writers? The guide books rave; the coffee table books filled with spectacular photos project endless variations of the same images of a place the way it might have been before human ascendancy; occasionally someone mentions the impacts of tourism. This is one aspect of Eliot's "intolerable wrestle/With words and meanings" [2] and perhaps the only approach is what he called "the fight to recover what has been lost/And found and lost again and again". Here on the Galápagos the problem isn't only words: everything has been photographed innumerable times before, often by those with the eye that characterises the exceptional photographer (always supported by equipment I can only lust after), and sometimes I despair of finding a way to present what I feel (not necessarily what I see) in a way that hasn't been presented a thousand times before. Still, I take heart from the similar despair of a man I cannot hope to emulate and find encouragement in his conclusion: "For us, there is only the trying".

A short path leads to a tiny white sand beach bordered by black lava boulders. From the rocks I look out over the dull turquoise sea at the boats pitching and swaying, the grey sky bright with cloud; I look down at the brilliant, sea-washed reds and oranges and blues of the Sally Lightfoot crabs. A sudden memory of those wonderful days at Flounder Bay and the big Leptograpsus there, close cousins of these. This is the kind of place where I can relax and feel alive, where I belong: here in a place owned by animals — by birds and reptiles in particular.

Reptiles. There, just a few metres away, a marine iguana looks back at me. I work carefully, photographing, taking care not to overexpose the scaly white patch on its head. I notice another, close to the first; their camouflage on these rocks is astonishing. Two more; I realise I'm looking at a small group. Later at the Charles Darwin Research Station I photograph the beautiful, bigger, land iguanas with their sulphur-yellows, russets and touches of white and red — spectacular dragons — but it's these little marine iguanas I'm in love with.

At the Station's Interpretation Centre, the main exhibits — the giant tortoises and land iguanas —  are only part of the attraction for me. So much is happening around them: birds, lava lizards, big yellow and brown paper wasps, dragonflies, a Darwin's carpenter bee, a sulphur butterfly, ... how many people pay much attention to these things?Most of the people I see focus on the tortoises, with size seemingly the greatest attraction, and admittedly the fully grown adults are astonishing. But most of these enormous reptiles, not just the famous Lonesome George, who stretches his long, old man's neck to peer hopefully in my direction, have a kind of sadness about them. One in particular, in an enclosure further on with several others, looks back at me with what seems to be a kind of longing for something lost. These tortoises can live more than a century; what might they remember, and what meaning might these memories have for them? A century ago airmail began, Hiram Bingham rediscovered the present-day theme park known as Machu Picchu, and we began bombing our own species from the air. For this tortoise inspecting me, the single most memorable event in its life might be the day it was taken from the wild — or perhaps, if this is one of the products of the highly successful breeding programme, perhaps nothing stands out as memorable among the endless succession of similar days. Most probably, the longing I see in this tortoise is my own looking back at me, but to articulate its nature I need to know what I long for. Without that, I can't even try.

The walk back to Puerto Ayora takes a long time, not because it's far — it isn't — but because so much keeps calling out to be noticed. A Galápagos flycatcher flits among the foliage close by. As I photograph it, it swoops down and snatches a spider. A few quick photographs — then suddenly the bird flies directly towards me and tries to land on the lens. For a few seconds it scrabbles with its little claws on the lens hood then, unable to grip, flies off. This is the Galápagos.

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Notes:
1. Written on Isabela Island, about events on Santa Cruz.
2. T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets: East Coker.

Photos:
1. Blue-footed booby. I never, ever, want to see another T-shirt printed with some bad pun about boobies.
2. Sally Lightfoot crab.

3. One of the very-difficult-to-identify Darwin’s finches. Beak size and shape is apparently the only reliable way to distinguish the species, and even then the overlap means it’s not always possible. Presumably they have it worked out, though.

4. This is the one.

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor

The Amazon: Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve

A bird flies across the evening sky some distance away; Miguel calls out to Jairo and revs the outboard motor, steering the canoe towards the tree where the bird landed. Another of the birds crosses. In silhouette, it looks a little like a small, heavy-billed stork, but the identification doesn't click until Jairo tells us — it's a white-throated toucan, the largest of the toucans in this area. Another first for me; not just the species, but the group — the first toucan I've ever seen.

But I wonder about what it means to say I've seen a white-throated toucan. The silhouettes of birds flying in the darkening sky; a few seconds during which I didn't even know what I was looking at? This is an aspect of the birds, but not the same as a protracted period of watching, noting the shape, the colours, the behaviour; listening to the calls, watching them feed. Sometimes the brevity of an encounter's inevitable — I remember the momentary glimpses of botos (freshwater dolphins) breaking the surface of the river, and the second or two as the otter slipped into the water (a sighting, Jairo says, about as rare in this area as seeing a jaguar) — and perhaps this is bordering on semantics — I saw the bird but don't know it — but the substance of my frustration remains.

Sometimes, however, second chances arrive. At the laguna I finally get a good look at Greater anis, after missing the earlier sightings of these strange, long-tailed, heavy-billed birds. We see botos again, too, as we start fishing for piraña (I catch eight, and try to put them back with as little harm as possible to the fish and my fingers) but if we hadn't seen the documentaries, we'd have no idea what these river dolphins looked like. For us, they're a splash, a gasp, a glimpse of a pale greyish-pink hump, ripples spreading; nothing more. Later we move to the middle of the lagoon and swim in the murky water, with much nervous joking about swimming with pirañas. I'm glad I've seen the documentaries and read Richard Conniff's excellent book, and in truth I don't feel at all apprehensive, even when Jairo tells us the lagoon's also home to stingrays and electric eels. I assume he and Miguel wouldn't be swimming if the risk was worth considering. Besides, the water feels lovely. The laguna has a distinct thermocline, a layer of warm, almost bath-like water over much colder water. After the first few people have stirred it up, the water becomes a patchwork of cold and warm — a curious sensation.


By the third evening I realise I'll miss these swims — the feeling of being in the water, the knowledge I'm swimming in one of the innumerable headwaters of the giant, wonderful Amazon, surrounded by everything from caimans and pirañas to monkeys (we've seen five species: squirrel monkeys, white-throated capuchins, woolly monkeys, sakis, and a pair of night monkeys), gorgeous tarantulas and countless birds, including the weird hoatzins that fascinated me almost from the time I developed an interest in birds, meaning almost as far back as I can remember. I'll miss the social aspect of larking about with friends, too. I've been lucky with this group, some of whom I've known only for a few days, the others a few weeks at most.

That question again — what does it mean to say you know someone? People can go for years without getting past the stage of saying "Hi", yet strong and lasting friendships can develop within a matter of days. Circumstances can influence this; the intensity of the situation can forge friendships remarkably fast, and in the same way, the intensity of an encounter determines what one sees. I could have looked at white-throated toucans in a zoo, but could I justifiably say I'd seen them? The tendency to think of things — animals, in this case — as objects in an environment seems to miss the point: they're part of their environment and when they're removed from it, they're incomplete and so is that environment. Perhaps this is a rationalisation of not having seen white-throated toucans close up and in detail, but for me it's a consolation. I've seen white-throated toucans, not as specimens or objects for inspection, but on their terms, as an integral part of their environment: flying in the warm dusk over the Laguna Grande.

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Notes:
1. "Jairo" is pronounced, roughly, "HAI roh". Our guide for the whole four days, he speaks excellent English, has a degree in ecology, and did an excellent job. 

2. I wrote this post from journal notes while on Isabela Island in the Galapagos. If it’s a little rough and lacks links, it’s because I’d rather be out enjoying the wildlife ;^) [Update: added the link to Richard Conniff's book. I think he's a wonderful writer,]

Photos:

1. Red-bellied piranha

2. Samona Lodge, Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve

3. Ruby dart frog.

4. Jairo and a friend from a nearby lodge wait for night on the Laguna Grande so we can look for caimans. We found them, including a very large black caiman.

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor

Cotopaxi

At the little museum beyond the entrance to Cotopaxi National Park, Pedro gives us a brief tour, speaking in Spanish, which I mostly can't follow, and skipping the tattered, stuffed condor with its outstretched wings. The enormous bird saddens me — dispossessed of its life in every sense. I've seen animals mounted so expertly their eyes seem to retain the memory of life, and although taxidermy raises difficult philosophical questions, at least the care and expertise with which those animals were mounted suggests a respect for the animals, an attempt to retain the life taken from them. I don't know the history of this condor, but can't help feeling it represents (unintentionally, I trust) not the wonder and magnificence of the largest flying bird in the world, but the power of humans over animals; too often, the only reason we do things to animals is because we can. I glance at the dusty bird, its disintegrating primary feathers, its dull dark head and lifeless eyes, and turn away.

Outside, however, I feel more optimistic, particularly after I've tried a cup of coca tea from the little stall. Coca tea's supposed to help one cope with the effects of altitude, but I'm trying it because, ... well, because it's tea; it looks like real tea, with lots of big leaves steeping in the cup. I love it; I'd happily drink more. The flavour differs from the teas I love (and miss here), but at least it has a flavour, unlike the steely tea bags to which I've resorted.

We drive up towards the cloud, along a badly corrugated and pot-holed dirt road. Wild horses graze unperturbed as we pass by; a few fine spots of rains appear on the windscreen, then sleet, then we're bouncing our way up through snow. At the car park (about 4500 m) we change into whatever warm, wind-and-rain-proof gear we have and begin the 300 metre steep trudge up volcanic scoria to the refugio. I'm breathing hard because of the altitude but feel good. I settle into a steady pace and maintain it all the way, loving the feeling of working hard in a wild, cold environment — the kind of environment that reminds me of familiar places in Aotearoa.

Pedro arrives at the refugio and congratulates Mike and me, telling us we're very strong.
"Next time we will go to the top", he says.
But there won't be a next time, not for Mike, who flies home in a week's time, and not for me. An expensive guided climb — a non-technical slog, in fact — as part of a long line of people all intent on the summit holds no interest for me. Even on this day of bad weather, the refugio's crowded and people still trudge up from the car park. This is not a place for me; I don't resent the crowd or deny them their enjoyment — I'm glad to see so many people enjoying the place — but I don't feel at home here the way I would if the hut were much smaller (this sleeps 70 people), with just a handful of people present.

Back at the car park I'm appalled at the number of cars, and they're still arriving. The place reminds me of a skifield car park in New Zealand. The weather closes in, so we drive lower, unload the bikes and try to get them to work. This proves difficult. Mike's has a bald back tyre, so he can't brake effectively and eventually has to stop partway down to change bikes; my gears barely work and when I remount the bike further down the mountain the chain slips off the sprocket and I'm dumped onto the ground, knees first but fortunately into soft volcanic dust; Sean's seat keeps slipping down and his gears eventually fail completely.Nevertheless, I enjoy the fun and the exercise despite the discomfort, although the appeal begins to wear thin while biking on the flat in the rain along a rough, corrugated road.

But by the time we reach the restaurant I'm still mostly dry thanks to the foresight of having packed leggings as well as parka. I've seen a few new birds, too — Stout-billed Cinclodes nesting in a roadside bank; a large raptor circling a long way off and far below; Andean lapwings on the flats.We recover in the restaurant over chips and guacamole, brown bread, slices of banana and apple, a delicious bean soup, and cinnamon tea, then begin the long drive back to Quito. We all sleep well, but Sean sets the record: 14 hours. Even I sleep well, and I need it — the next day I have an overnight bus journey to the Amazon.

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Note: Check the photoblog for more photos of our day on Cotopaxi (and elsewhere)

Photos:
1. The summit of Cotopaxi.
2. The car park when we arrived.
3. Mike rests on the parapet at the refugio as the cloud begins to lift (briefly).
4. (L to R): Phil, Serena and Sean wait partway down the road while Mike gets a replacement bike.

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor

The summit of Rucu Pichincha

Near the summit of Rucu Pichincha, after the hard, slow slog up the soft sandy ash scree — each step a fight to stop from slipping back — I reach solid ground and the walking becomes easier. The man a little way ahead leans on his poles, then heads left, but to the right, splashes of paint suggest a marked route. A small cairn confirms the way, and even if leftwards might be easier, this crosses solid steep rock — apparently not difficult or dangerous, but enough to provide the feeling of active climbing rather than mindless trudging. The route veers across the face, towards the ridge, and as I approach the edge, the feeling of height grows; the land seems to fold away, leaving me closer to sky and swirling cloud. Here the rock steepens, requiring hands as well as feet, and the feeling of easy climbing on sound rock on a high mountain delights me, bringing back memories of the Otira Face of Rolleston years ago with Jono. Different worlds, similar emotions.

Sunlight breaks through the cloud, warming my back. A sudden shadow passes over; I look up and there, only a few metres away, a bird — a raptor of some kind — slips sideways in the air, looks down at me and sails out of sight beyond the summit ridge. In this barren place of dry rock and sandy ash, to see something so alive seems both incongruous and an unqualified joy. What was this bird doing, sailing so close, apparently checking me out? I can't resist the thought that it was waiting for me to fall or just checking to see whether I was dead enough to eat, although this is clearly ridiculous. Later, when I've identified it as probably being a juvenile northern crested caracara (I see two unmistakeable adults later, from the summit), I decide it's probably checking to see if I've discarded anything edible (I haven't, and don't).

A short section of steep rock with enormous holds, then the summit — almost an anticlimax, with its enormous "Bienvenidos" sign, graffitied, lumpy boulders and earth packed hard by the feet of thousands of visitors. The man with his walking poles has just arrived and is already sitting, looking slightly  flushed, with his daypack resting nearby. He removes his large watch, checks it, makes some adjustments, then gets up and hangs it on one of the splintered poles holding up the welcome sign. He wanders off, returns, photographs himself with his phone. I glance across at his pack and notice his Teleferico ticket lying loose on the ground.
"Su tarjeta?" I say, pointing.
He exclaims and rushes over before it blows away. As it turns out, the ticket isn't necessary for the descent, but I don't know that, and judging from his reaction, nor does he.

I drink water and wander around, eating a banana and packing the peel away carefully in my bag, not wishing to add to the orange peel  and other reminders of how many people visit this summit each weekend. Another man arrives and sits a little way off. We've passed each other a couple of times — he taking the slow and steady approach, me the not-quite-as-slow but stop-and-photograph approach. We've exchanged a few words and smiles of acknowledgement, and already he seems curiously like someone I know, someone who could become a friend if my Spanish were much better. Even in his positioning himself at a little distance he seems to share something of my own preference for visiting these places either with good friends or alone.

The latter, however is not an option today. After 15–20 minutes and a few photographs, I hear someone talking below; shortly afterwards a man in his twenties arrives, ebullient with success. He starts calling out instructions and encouragement in English to his friends below, pointing out the easy way up, congratulating them on their accomplishment when they arrive bent over and puffing. Further down the slope, groups of people plod slowly upwards.  Cloud swirls overhead and sends wisps trailing over the pass between Rucu Pichincha and the nearby summit; patches of sunlight race over the páramo between Rucu and the fractionally higher Guagua Pichincha. My hands have begun to chill and the relative solitude of the summit has vanished like the caracara — now only a memory. I sling my bag over my shoulder, put my hands in the pockets of my jacket and start down the mountain.

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Notes:
1. Rucu Pichincha is an extinct volcano near Quito, Ecuador. The usual route is to take the Teleférico (gondola) from the outskirts of the city to the páramo grasslands at 4100 m, then follow the very well-worn trail to the summit at 4696 m. While the power pylons, occasional trail bikes and crowds mean the route feels only marginally like a true mountain environment, the weather's a different matter, and visitors should go prepared for anything.

Photos:
1. Rucu Pichincha from the lower part of the trail.
2. Mike and Serena enjoy the Avenue of Volcanoes from the top of the Teleférico.
3. One of the Bar-winged Cinclodes we watched foraging near the rent-a-horse place.
4. The summit of Rucu Pichincha.

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor

On the bus from Otavalo

At the Cascada de Peguche on the outskirts of Otavalo, people swarmed everywhere along the foot-polished trails; they scrambled over the worn-down rocks edging the big pool and stood triumphantly with upraised arms in front of the waterfall to be photographed; they jammed the wooden bridges. The place seethed with humans, or so it seemed to me. Perhaps I'm too used to places where another person or two comprises a crowd. I tried to look past the crowd, to see the falls, and for a moment saw something incessant, inexorable, something still unaffected, that might outlast us or, if eventually destroyed, would disappear without surrendering. For the moment, the water still keeps falling, even in the dead of night in the middle of the week when the people, presumably, have gone.

But then the crowd reappeared and I turned away, looking towards a tangle of dusty vegetation where a few butterflies flitted about. I'd noted long, orange-yellow flowers, and turned to Sandra.
   "I'd have expected to see hummingbirds around those flowers," I said. I'd hardly finished speaking when a tiny bird, hardly bigger than a bumblebee, shot past and disappeared into the tangle of foliage. We watched intently for a few minutes until the hummingbird reappeared. It hovered, darted, hovered again, then shot up over the canopy and disappeared somewhere into the other side. I had no idea what species it was, but the delight of watching it fly, of seeing something so intensely alive gave me a little hope. One of the things I love about birds is the way they so often either ignore us (within the limits of safety) or regard us as an opportunity to be exploited — in short, they live largely on their terms, not ours. The little hummingbird at Peguche exemplified this perfectly.

Near the entrance to the main trail, youths kicked a football around; fires burned down, perhaps readying themselves for the evening's grilling; large tents occupied spaces between the trees; dogs wandered around, sniffing hopefully. Smoke drifted across a line of stalls packed with colourful souvenirs. We walked on, stopping to look at a small black pig tethered by a much twisted rope knotted around its middle. It tossed aside a disintegrating board with its snout, but in that dry and dusty yard the chance of finding anything edible seemed remote. On the other side of the yard a small, scruffy sheep, also tethered, gnawed at a few dust-smothered weeds. Then, incongruously, a  beautiful, lithe grey cat stepped out onto the cobbled road, crossed it and slipped through a high, iron gate. I went over to say hello but in a manner suited to its bearing the cat ignored me and strolled further into the yard. I didn't mind the snub.

 

Further on, we passed a long, open food stall — little more than a back wall, one end and a roof, sheltering a collection of simple tables and a cooking area where a middle-aged, weathered woman worked at an enormous pot. An old lady sat eating at a nearby table and looking out at the passersby from the elevated terrace on which the stall stood. I smiled; she smiled back and waved. On the spur of the moment I started walking over, realising as I did that I had no idea what I'd say, other than "Buenas tardes".

When I got closer I saw a black and white cat under the table, at her feet. Without thinking, I pointed and said "El gato," and the cat immediately rose and came to the edge of the terrace to bump against my hand. I rubbed its neck and head with my knuckles, trying not to think too hard about what I might be catching and consoling myself with the thought it probably would be nothing worse than something a fungicide would clear up in short order. The old woman was grinning; so was the woman at the pot.

   "Bonito," I said, indicating the cat and hoping it was the right word.

They seemed to appreciate it; I said goodbye and left them laughing, but I needed no knowledge of Spanish to understand the good humour.

On the bus back to Quito I tried to ignore the sporadic stench of some kind of solvent and the hideously awful movie on the screen at the front of the bus — a film seemingly about little more than steroid-poisoned men smashing each other into bloody pulp in variations on cage fighting  — and instead looked out the window at the real lives going on in the late afternoon. The pigs in yards; the tom turkey displaying hopefully and futilely to an oblivious chook; a child running with a couple of dogs to a small stream at the bottom of a sloping paddock partly obscured by wild vegetation. What was the child feeling? The freedom of running in a half wild place, perhaps? The delight of being released temporarily from homework and chores? Maybe, without knowing it, the child was simply enjoying the freedom of not knowing enough about the wider world to be trapped into coveting it?

Later, I saw huge earth-moving machines with work-polished blades devouring the mountainsides, widening roads, straightening corners, improving bridges — gnawing at the Andes  — and I felt momentarily overwhelmed by the relentless, inexorable destructiveness of human beings. The bus drove on into the evening and the lowering sun threw a longer, warmer light. On the side of the road I saw striations in the soft earth  — the marks of the blade of a massive digger. A swirl of wind, and sand fills the marks a little more; the glancing evening sun accentuates the textures  — the raw, brash marks of the machine; the fine, dusty texture of the sand slowly hiding those human-made marks. In the distance, the white cone of a volcano; here, the deep valley with its swift, turbulent river churning far below. A sere, arid landscape of steep mountainsides thorny shrubs, cacti, dust and the long, deep shadows of evening.

The bus drives on, taking us back to Quito, but to what future?

 

---

Photos:
1. The Cascada de Peguche.
2. In the Otavalo market later in the day, when the crowd had thinned.
3. The view from my room one evening. The mountains appear smaller in the photo.
4. Same view, telephoto; this (I think) is one of the routes to Rucu Pichincha (not the usual one, which starts from the top of the teleférico).

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor

The first hummingbird

Outside the El Colibri cafe last Sunday I took a deep breath and walked in, through the tree-shaded courtyard where apparently one could watch the hummingbirds (hence the name: el colibri, the hummingbird) and into the pleasantly cool main seating area. At the counter I explained in Spanish that I didn't speak Spanish; the attempt must have worked because the waitress said no more and slid a menu across to me. At least I understood most of the components of the dishes, so I eventually ordered a vegetarian tortilla and mineral water. The waitress said something I had no hope of understanding.
"No entiendo," I said.
"Sit down," she said, carefully. I assume her English was as rudimentary as my Spanish.

I found a little wooden table under the trees and sipped the water, glad I'd chosen the most effective form of rehydrating. A Great thrush, strikingly similar to the blackbirds I know so well, flew across the courtyard; an Eared dove padded about on the ground. Above me, a small, unidentifiable bird flitted through the foliage of a broad-leaved tree and somewhere else a bird made a sound like two stones being struck together.
"Dondé estan los colibries?" I thought, trying not to translate it into English but understand it directly. "Where are the hummingbirds?"

Still, even if they'd preferred somewhere else, this was a lovely spot —quiet, attractive, with birds clearly used to the close proximity of humans, and with enough trees to diminish the sense of being in a large city.

Another small bird flew across beneath the canopy and settled on a twig. This one, however, wasn't unidentifiable; on the contrary, as soon as I saw the long bill, the posture as it sat upright on the twig, and noted how small it seemed, I knew I was looking at the first hummingbird I'd ever seen. Un colibri at El Colibri, I thought. I watched, fascinated. I couldn't see the colours clearly because I was looking up and the bright sky, even broken up by the leaves, made the shadowed bird difficult to see. But as I watched, I saw it calling and realised this was the bird making the two-stones call. Later, after having enjoyed seeing it in better light and having consulted The Birds of Ecuador, I felt confident identifying it as a Sparkling violetear, and the persistent and potentially annoying "tik tik tik ..." call confirmed the identification.

I sat there, savouring my tortilla and drinking my agua con gas on a quiet Sunday afternoon with a mild breeze on a warm afternoon in the leaf-filtered sunlight, watching the pair of Great thrushes, the Eared doves, the Rufous-collared sparrows, and the little Sparkling violetear, and I thought, this place is idyllic.

When the waitress cleared my table I said, "Me gusta," then "Me encanta los colibries" — I love the hummingbirds.
"Ah!" she said, and thought for a few moments. "Is beautiful."

I couldn't have agreed more.

---

Photo: A poor photo, but the best I can do for the moment. The problem at El Colibri is that I'm trying to photograph from beneath the bird, with a bright sky in the background. Fill flash might be a solution, but would draw attention to me (not something I'm keen on in Quito) and in any case I have only the little built-in pop-up flash on the GH1 (a definite failing of this camera, which has no capability for off-camera flash, thus greatly constraining macro photography).


Update, 19 April 2012: I've posted a slightly better, larger photograph on the photoblog.

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor

Pohangina valley, Aotearoa, to Quito, Ecuador

Last Tuesday I caught a bus from Palmerston North to Auckland  — eight hours through the centre of the North Island, arriving after dark on the first stage of a journey that will return me four and a half months later to the country in which I've lived most of my life. Late on Wednesday afternoon I flew out of Auckland; eighteen hours later I landed in Quito, Ecuador.

My first priority is to improve my rudimentary facility with Spanish; the second..., well, I don't have a second, but if I had a list of priorities, seeing a hummingbird for the first time would be high on it — in fact, so would seeing some of the birds and other wildlife for which Ecuador and South America are famous. Some of that wildlife, like certain spiders, I intend appreciating from a comfortable distance but, perhaps surprisingly, snakes don't bother me — I love them (although I'd draw the line at sharing my tent with an eyelash viper).

Other priorities? Mountains, of course, although my engagement with them will be limited to trekking, possibly a non-technical climb or two, and of course simply appreciating them. When I eventually get to Patagonia I'll do my best to see Cerro Torre — to my mind arguably the greatest mountain on Earth: Reinhold Messner aptly described it as "A shriek turned to stone". However, I'm resigned to the possibility I might be as unlucky as one party who camped near Cerro Torre for a fortnight and never saw it once: Patagonian weather is infamous. Still, since I intend spending most of November in Patagonia, I'll have the time to give a sighting of Cerro Torre my best shot.

But I've leaped from the start of the journey to near its end — although who's to say when a journey begins and ends? So, back to the start. For the first three weeks I'm in Ecuador, I'm at a language school. On my weekends off, I'll be finding my feet and employing them doing short exploratory trips. In fact, on just my third full day here, and still not completely recovered from the debilitating flight nor fully adapted to Quito's altitude (about 2800 m), I visited the lovely little town of Mindo in the cloud forest, a couple of hours' bus journey from here. I'd been lucky to tag along with a couple of students from here; Shannon had spent a year in Spain and therefore spoke fairly competent Spanish (from my perspective, she was fluent), so I avoided the hard work of interpreting signs and attempting to make myself understood (more to the point, I avoided the near impossibility of understanding the replies). A great day with excellent company, and although I didn't make the most of Mindo's great reputation for birds, I'm sure I'll be back.

Now, the jet lag's gone, as have the sporadic but intense headaches (I'd have said they were mind-numbing but they were just the opposite) and today's four-hour lesson proved less challenging than the first two. I even had the faint but highly encouraging feeling that the language was becoming familiar; that even if I got it wrong, I might be roughly right. Doubtless I'll have days when I feel I'm going backwards, but for me the biggest form of encouragement when I'm trying to learn is the feeling that I am in fact learning, moving towards a goal, becoming more proficient.

More updates will follow, although I won't promise they'll be regular, and from time to time I'll post a photo on The Ruins of the Moment (they, too, are unlikely to be up to what I trust is the usual standard, given the shortcomings of this little netbook). To keep you keen, the next post  — when I manage it — will be about the first hummingbird. Whether I can manage a usable photo remains less certain.

Hasta la proxima vez (until next time).

---

Photos: 
1. The rapids Serena, Shannon and I visited below the Cascada Nambilla, the waterfall at Mindo where one can pay to leap from a potentially crippling height into the pool below the waterfall. We didn't, but others were less imaginative. A lovely place in a lovely, albeit increasingly tourist-frequented area.

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor

What the magpies taught me

When I was a small boy magpies terrorised me. After school the bus dropped me half a mile from home and I walked from there past a handful of houses with well established gardens, on past the old quarry and eventually to the short, gravel road that led past the row of old pines and macrocarpas to our gate. I began to get nervous as I approached those old trees. I hurried past, constantly looking over my shoulder, but the magpies never attacked when I was looking; always the assault came from behind, somehow unexpectedly even though I knew to expect it. A sudden rush of wings, the snap of the beak, the electric rush of adrenaline. They never once made contact. They didn't need to — the surprise, the shock of being attacked did the job and I never hung around long enough to find out what might have happened had I hung around. Those magpies were my enemy.

Now my local magpies seem like friends.

Even when they attacked me as a boy, I understood they were just doing what magpies do; I knew they were defending a nest. The knowledge didn't seem like much of a consolation: it seemed like no consolation at all, and if I could have swatted my assailant from the sky and killed it, I'd have been delighted. Not now, though. I don't know much more about magpies than I did then, at least nothing particularly relevant to their propensity to attack people. What, then, has changed, to enable me to tolerate an occasional magpie attack?

Several things, I think. First, over the years I've learned how to tolerate things I would have raged against as a boy. Sometimes I can even appreciate and value those things — being attacked by a magpie, for example, offers me the opportunity to think about my instinctive reactions and replace them with more reasoned responses. The initial reaction's always likely to be outrage, of course, but instead of holding onto that outrage and wallowing in absurd schemes about how to get even, I can now let the fear and anger go quickly and instead think about magpies and the way they behave and the astonishing skill with which they can fly, the way they can swoop silently to within a few metres before letting the air rush noisily through their wings and snapping that beak within a few centimetres of my head even while it's speeding along the road atop my furiously pedalling body. I can think about the way fears conditioned by millennia of evolution can be overridden by reason, and how understanding can be such a powerful counter to fear — xenophobia, for example, can be overcome best not by trying to suppress other cultures but by immersion in them. The opportunities for constructive thinking arising from a magpie attack are limitless.

Besides, I've grown to enjoy their personalities, even if those include some less than charming aspects. Last summer as I biked back up the road in the late afternoon a magpie swooped at me. After the first attack I knew to expect another, and the magpie didn't understand the significance of the low sun casting my shadow distinctly on the steep bank as I pedalled up the hill. I kept an eye on that shadow and, sure enough, saw the magpie's shadow swooping in behind me. Just before it reached me I flung my arm up into the air; I heard a surprised "Sqrrark!" and the bird veered off and landed in a nearby manuka. Birds, with their solid beaks, have little or no ability to alter their expressions, but this magpie looked at me in a way I swear said: "Okay, truce. Stay away from my nest and I'll keep my beak away from the back of your head." I grinned all the way up the hill, and I've never been attacked since. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, for the last several years I've lived with a family of magpies. The parents, and sometimes a youngster or two, feed regularly in the paddock in front of my little house, and often from the kitchen I enjoy watching them forage in that so-deliberate, calculated way — paused, head tilted, a few steps forward, a moment of peering, then the peck and swallow. Then a few more steps, and the process begins again. They're always wary, but I think they've begun to recognise me; often I can sit out on the verandah in full view while they continue to forage, and when I walk down the drive they'll sometimes watch rather than immediately fly off. They've become individuals, and just as reason can override instinct, so familiarity disarms the desire to harm. Wars are possible because the enemy is an abstraction, not a person.

I just wish the magpies of my early schooldays had understood that.

---

Notes: 
1.The magpies I speak of are Australian magpies, Cracticus tibicen, which are more closely related to butcherbirds and currawongs than to magpies elsewhere. Introduced to New Zealand in the second half of the nineteenth century, magpies now inhabit most of the country. They're central figures in one of New Zealand's best-known poems: Denis Glover's The Magpies.


Photos

1.  They like to sit in the silver birch behind the house, too.

2. One of my friends in the paddock in front of the house.

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor

Pu-erh, the first time

I drink Pu-erh tea for the first time, fumbling in my attempts to work out a system that approximates the traditional gong-fu method. The first steeping's strong and powerful — probably excessively so, but perhaps that's not so bad: the distinctive flavours can't be missed and I'll look for them later as the steepings become more subtle, more what I'm used to. I lean in the doorway, looking out at the clearing afternoon, the sunlight breaking through, the shimmer of vivid green ryegrass in the paddock. The tea makes me think of old Chinese alleyways, someone old and hunched opening a wooden door and stepping into the past, red lanterns hanging in the evening, the smell of yellowing paper and weathered wood, the grunting of a pig behind a fence and the sound of fowls fossicking. I hear voices in a language utterly incomprehensible to me and realise I am alien, a stranger, passing through.

The tea smells like day-old chickens in fresh straw under a brooder lamp — the smell I knew so well as a child in a context unknown to most of today's children; a warm, soft, slightly sweet smell. We're primarily visual animals, but for me, smell is by far the most evocative of the senses. An unexpected scent dismisses decades and calls up old emotions: the smell of ripe apples returns me to my mother's pantry; cold ashes from a wood fire take me to a Ruahine hut; a particular fragrance conjures emotions so sudden and strong I half expect to see the woman who stirred them so long ago. Now I remember the feeling better than I remember her face.

This Pu-erh puts me in a past part lived and part imagined and suggests a future still possible. One day I might drink tea in a shop in that imagined alley and the present will be the past. This tea diffuses time and reminds me my life is less a thread unravelling than a tapestry being woven; when I taste, I'm closer to Christchurch and the sixties than I am to Palmerston North a month ago.

I've known this feeling before. Usually it happens unexpectedly. Some months ago as I drove into town I had that peculiar feeling of having returned to the past — not déjà vu but the feeling I'd recovered the sensation of being back in the South Island before I moved north, decades before the quake crushed Christchurch, before agriculture ruined the rivers, before tourism trashed places like Tekapo and Wanaka and created the abomination called Queenstown. A peculiar quality of the light, perhaps? I don't know; I don't know what evoked it but didn't care; the moment seemed imbued with significance — more like kairos than chronos. I held on to the feeling as long as I could, but without an aid like this tea the moment lasted only a few seconds. I managed to recover it; it disappeared; I dragged it back; it vanished.

Someday that feeling might return, but I have no idea when or under what circumstances. Now I have other things to enjoy: the prospect of travel in a few months; seeing my small, delightful friends in a day or two; meeting friends this evening; the sight of the kahu that moments ago circled low over the paddock; the bright afternoon sun through autumn leaves — and, of course, the taking of Pu-erh tea, which, even in my first encounter, draws the past and the future towards the present and enriches a life.

---

Notes:
1. Many thanks to Jo, from Ya-Ya Teahouse in Christchurch, for his excellent advice, encouragement and tea.

Photos :

1. A starling at the moment of taking flight, Pohangina Valley.

2. The Ngamoko Range, a branch of the main Ruahine Range, on a nor'west evening from the lower Pohangina Valley.

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor

From the Makaroro

I've found it hard to concentrate on finishing this post in light of the Christchurch earthquake tragedy. Fortunately, I know most of my friends are ok, but I think of all those who still wait for word and, particularly, those for whom their worst fears have been realised.

But maybe reading about something enjoyable might provide some relief. In early January I did a three night trip into the north-eastern Ruahine range with two friends: this is what it was like.

 
On Parks Peak Ridge I stop to wait for John and Robb, propping up my pack in the partial shade of the low, gnarled elfin forest and leaning back against it. I take off my boots and socks and enjoy the feel of moss and stones and twigs underfoot, the wind cooling my feet as I relax and look down the track in the hard, flat light of the middle of the day. A tiny fly lands on my hand. Brilliant! It’s an acrocerid, one of those bizarre flies one might encounter in some weird, distorted dream, yet here it is, clinging to my finger, staggering slightly, seemingly uncoordinated, as if conscious of its own strangeness. These flies parasitise spiders, laying countless eggs that hatch into larvae that somehow find a spider, burrow inside and eat it alive. We know little more than that. In Europe the Large Hadron Collider seems poised to disclose some of the most profound knowledge about the very nature of existence, yet this tiny creature wobbling on my finger remains mostly a mystery.

With its tiny head and bulbous body it reminds me of a Larson cartoon. Other acrocerids seem even more like the product of an industrial accident, with hugely distorted bodies that look as if someone's attached the head in the wrong place, and with brighter colours — this one seems boringly black, although at least shiny. I'm reminded of another bizarre group of flies, the pipunculids, which have enormously enlarged heads, and I can't help thinking god must have had a bad day when assembling these two families — "Oops, wrong head for the pipunculids; oh well, I'll just fit the other head to the acrocerids." 

I photograph it, wishing I had the macro gear but not regretting the saving in weight. I'd thought about bringing the 300 mm, too, but the thought of an extra kilo and a quarter in the pack made that decision easy. Later, further along the track a pair of popokatea (whiteheads) follow me a short way, flitting close by and offering what would have been the best opportunity I've ever had for photographs. No use with the short zoom, though, so I just enjoy watching them for a little while. Perhaps they have a nest nearby? They certainly seem to pay me more attention than usual. I move on, not disappointed at being unable to photograph them: my pack's a comfortable weight and I've been able to see the little birds differently, to pay attention to the birds rather than the potential photograph.

...

At Parks Peak hut I sleep outside with the bivvy bag open enough to see the sky. Without contact lenses I can't see the stars clearly, but still enough to see they cover the whole wide, wild, limitless sky, and I drift into sleep thinking about vastness and immensity, our own utter insignificance and the likelihood I'll never know just how alone we truly are. If we knew without doubt we were utterly alone in our universe, that no other sentient or even complex life shared the cosmos with us, would we treat our world with greater respect? Would we truly treasure it at last, knowing these wild forests and the largely unknown inhabitants of our oceans, the countless unnamed insects and all these species vanishing at an enormously accelerated rate have no counterpart on any planet circling any of those billions and billions of stars looking down on me right now? Would the knowledge we have nowhere to escape to frighten us into taking better care of our home?

I doubt it. Thoughts like this seem beyond the ability of many of those whose primary concerns focus on the accumulation of financial wealth, material possessions and status — the most luxurious car, the largest home theatre, an obscene salary  — while too many others struggle simply to stay alive, to find makeshift shelter and enough to eat, leaving no time for these thoughts; for these people, what's important contracts into no further than the next day and the immediate surroundings.

Besides, even if other complex life does exist somewhere out there, we're unlikely ever to be able to reach it (or it us); more to the point, the knowledge should make no difference — surely we should act as if our planet and all its inhabitants are truly unique?

Perhaps, too, the idea that our existence is so precarious frightens many of us into denial? Maybe that's what I'm doing, as I put aside these thoughts and relax into enjoying what I still have, drifting off with the stars overhead, the quiet breeze through snowgrass, the cool night air on my face. I wake often but drop straight back to sleep, comfortable, contented, wishing for nothing other than simply to be here. Shortly before retiring for the night I'd seen a shooting star, and in one of those harmless, possibly even beneficial acts of superstition, made a wish on it — a wish on behalf of someone else because I realised I wished for nothing more than to be where I was.

...

In the morning the bivvy bag's drenched with dew. I walk quietly past Robb's tent, into the elfin forest and along to the top of the track leading down to Upper Makaroro hut. There, last evening, we'd relaxed and watched the kind of sunset for which words always seem inadequate. We'd identified a few features on the main range, listened to the little miromiro singing, watched colour creep across the sky and dusk fill the valley, sipped a little whisky, yarned and photographed. Now the morning sky holds little of the evening’s spectacular colour but white cloud lies like a ragged duvet along the main range and the  near-silhouettes of the ridges and valleys recede in that gorgeous atmospheric perspective that never fails to arrest me. I look towards Ruahine Corner, imagine the long walk there and wonder how it might have changed since my last visit, too many years ago. Then, the hut had been commandeered by hunters who'd helicoptered in with fourteen dozen cans of beer, a twelve pack of toilet rolls and an expectation of ownership. They'd eventually mellowed until even the old grumpy one talked to us in sentences of more than a single grunt, but they never offered us a beer, and we camped out that night, well away from the hut — a good decision, as even from a hundred metres I could hear snoring like the borborygmus of some subterranean god. What a difference to be tramping with Robb and John, for whom the Ruahine represents a place for renewal and appreciation, a place to be respected, a place important in itself. In contrast, the hunters had seemed to treat Ruahine Corner as a playground, an opportunity to get away from the wife, somewhere to be used; as a place to shoot at things and get wasted (in that order, I hoped, but couldn't guarantee — hence our rapid departure the next day).

But not all hunters treat the Ruahine like those four. On that same trip we'd met two hunters at Upper Makaroro hut; we'd arrived first so began making room for them. No worries, they'd said, we've got a tent, we'll camp by the river. They did, and by daybreak they'd packed and gone, keen to make the most of their hunting time. They'd walked up the river, too — no easy flight in for them.

As the sun begins to bleach the subtle colour from the day, I return and rearrange the bivvy bag to dry, eat breakfast and chat with Robb and John. The party of four who’d stayed in the hut last night set off down Parks Peak Ridge on the last leg of their trip. We, on the other hand, head further in, down the track to Upper Makaroro, and in the quiet of the early morning I fall quickly into the rhythm of the steep descent. Time passes easily in this state; thoughts wander; memories rise up and meander, one leading another out from who knows where; focus drifts from the next few steps to glimpses of the valley through the beeches and back to the next few steps. Who else might arrive at Upper Makaroro today? Who might even now be leaving, perhaps starting up the track towards us?

But I meet no one, and when I arrive the hut's empty and clean. I relax for a while, collect water from the river, get cleaned up. Surprisingly, the sandflies seem to be on holiday too, even at the river's edge where they're usually annoying. Back at the hut there's nothing to do but wait and relax. If I had a cooker I'd put a brew on for the others, but Robb's carrying it — two, actually. No wonder his pack's so heavy.

Shortly after Robb and John arrive they head down to the river. A minute or two later an enormous bellow of delight fills the valley as Robb plunges in. Everything about him seems larger than life and here in the Ruahine he’s particularly energised; in contrast, John’s delight seems more restrained but none the lesser, with a serenity and humour that reminds me of an old Chinese sage. These two have shared many Ruahine journeys and complement each other so well that I could easily feel like the odd one out. Yet I don't; I feel welcomed, included, part of the friendship. Tramping alone, as I mostly do, has rewards not attainable in any other way, but the pleasures of good company in wild places can be no less satisfying. Solitude allows a degree of contemplation not possible in even the best of company, but it also denies one the opportunity for enlightening or entertaining discussions, and anyone who's ever lain back on a remote mountainside and looked over range upon range of mountains receding to the blue horizon knows what it means to share that with a great friend. In those situations words seldom add anything worthwhile — the understanding communicates itself. A life lacking either solitude or companionship seems like a life denied its full range of joys. The two can't co-exist in the same place and time — solitude can't be shared — yet each seems energised by the possibility of the other. Tramping alone seems richer because I've tramped with wonderful people, and my solitary journeys will feel richer for having wandered here with John and Robb.

In the afternoon we leave our packs at the hut and explore up the river. Robb's heard rumours about a waterfall, so we wade the cool water, skip from rock to rock along the bouldery beaches, sometimes take shortcuts across terraces dense with toetoe, and peer into deep, clear pools where good-sized trout cruise, lazy and sleek until they see us and speed into the cover of an overhanging bank or deep shadow. As far as I can tell, they’re all rainbows, their colours clear through a metre or more of water. Suddenly I hear Robb call out and I turn, alarmed until I realise he's so excited he can hardly get the words out properly — he's seen a whio, startled, bursting up from the water and disappearing up the river. John catches a glimpse of it but by the time I turn back the bird's gone. No matter; I'm glad the others have seen it, glad they can confirm at least one lives on this stretch of the river.

We walk on, crossing and recrossing until we come to a fork in the river. A line of rocks looks deliberately arranged as a pointer, although it lacks the arrowhead. It seems to indicate the larger of the two branches, so we head that way and argue about how many more bends in the river to negotiate before turning back. Then we strike the inevitable problem of deciding what constitutes a bend in the river. What a joy to have nothing more important to contest.

In fact, we haven't even finished exploring the concept of a bend before we hear a faint rumbling. Robb stops and looks at us.
"That sounds promising," he says.
We push on and the sound grows louder. The river narrows into a tight, slightly eerie little gorge which we wade through, the roar of the falls now unmistakeable. At the far end the gorge widens slightly into a kind of small amphitheatre with the cliff on the true right curving overhead so we're almost in a kind of cave, and there, just around the corner, the waterfall plunges into a deep pool. Robb dives in, finding it shallower than he'd expected; John photographs him then follows him in. I pick up Robb's camera to grab a few more photos, but the battery's exhausted. I've left my camera at the hut and again I don't regret it — one less worry, and I'm loving the freedom of walking with just the Leki poles.

Back at the fork, John and I look down at the line of rocks. Maybe it indicates the distance to the falls, he suggests, with each rock indicating a bend in the river. I point out there seem to be many more rocks than bends, to which he replies that maybe the big rocks represent large bends and the small rocks represent small bends. I compliment him on his ability to bend the evidence to fit his theory, and he grins.
"I've worked for years in a bureaucracy," he says.

Back at the hut the Glenmorangie comes out. A karearea calls several times from upriver and I point out the sound to John, but the bird doesn't appear. We talk about everything from politics to forensic entomology, the right temperature to brew teas and the entertaining but distinctly un-Christian language of one of the Christians at Parks Peak when he'd tripped on an unlaced boot that morning (only a momentary lapse, but we found it difficult to avoid laughing uncharitably at the recollection). All in all, not a bad day.

...

The next day we walk and wade the Makaroro down to Barlow hut. While well built and comfortable, Barlow lacks the character of Upper Makaroro, and even the new Parks Peak hut, although much of the difference might arise from location. Parks Peak and Upper Makaroro sit in wonderful locations — the former among the elfin beech forest, the latter a good day's walk from any road and close to this beautiful river — but Barlow's only a couple of hours from the carpark and already the signs of modification by humans have begun to grate. Here, too much buddleia crowds the banks and islands and the riverbed's beginning to broaden, to lose some of its wildness as if preparing itself for the farmland. Huts this close to a road suffer from too many visits by people intent on partying where they think they won't be interrupted by any authority, or by people who lack experience not just in tramping but in the etiquette of looking after huts. Sure enough, when we get to Barlow we find the floor unswept, bottles on benches, an unwashed pot on the cooker and an opened packet of bhuja mix propped on a bench, but no sign of anyone still around — no sleeping bag or gear or food bag. I’ve seen much worse, but the place needs a good clean. I take the pots and a water bottle to the river, wash the dirty pot, fill everything with water and return to find John sweeping the floor and tidying. The hut and its location lack the character and wildness of the upper reaches of the river, but the wildness in those upper reaches has come at a cost. Robb's sprained ankle, sustained when a boulder had given way and he'd ended up on his back in the riverbed, has begun to stiffen and it hurts when he puts weight on it. I sense he's uneasy about the walk out to the car tomorrow. John hasn't got off lightly either; partway down the river he'd turned to me and remarked on how lovely the river was — how clean, how the boulders were largely free of algae and therefore how good it was to be able to walk freely without having to test every boulder. A minute or two later, while wading shin deep along the edge of a pool, he'd slipped and I'd seen his knee smash hard into the rough rock of the bank. I feared the worst — an impact like that would surely have caused substantial damage — but after a moment or two he'd recovered his composure and carried on. It bled and swelled up but I never heard him mention it, except when I enquired and he shrugged it off, merely acknowledging it was "a bit swollen".

...

In the morning we redistribute our loads and John and I give Robb a headstart while we clean and tidy the hut. By the time we catch up with him I'm feeling relieved because he's made good time down the river, despite limping on a painful ankle. As we pass the foot of Colenso Spur I remember my first trip here, when I'd become caught up in a search for a missing tramper. For four days I'd met search parties and helped out with information, marking boot prints (none, as it turned out, belonging to the missing tramper) and thinking of possible scenarios that might be worth checking. On the last day I'd met two searchers and helped set up a temporary radio mast on Parks Peak Ridge. They offered me a lift out — too tempting, so they winched me up into the Iroquois and flew me down to the base. In the afternoon I went back up in the Iroquois as a spotter and as we began searching in earnest after winching down a dog and handler, I caught a glimpse of something red in a steep, narrow side stream. We'd found the tramper, but by then it was too late.

Could that happen to me, or to Robb or John, on a solo trip? Of course, but with reasonable precautions and the right attitude, tramping alone might be safer than driving — at least one doesn't risk disastrous consequences arising from someone else's bad decisions. But now we walk together, down this wide riverbed in perfect tramping weather — mild, just cloudy enough to shield us from the worst of the sun — with the river crossings no more than shin deep and refreshing. We walk together, adding to our own histories, creating a shared history, becoming part of the history of this place.  If we can know a place, at least to some degree, what might a place know of us, at least to some degree — and how might this place remember us?

 

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Photos:

1.  Robb, still smiling despite the pain of ankle sprained on the way down the river.

2.  The track along Parks Peak Ridge, near the junction with the track down to Barlow hut.

3.  The acrocerid. Location near photo (2).

4. Robb and John enjoy a wee dram and a joke.

5. Elfin beech above the Makaroro valley; evening of the first day.

6. Sunset over Parks Peak Ridge on the first evening.

7. John contemplates the sunset (or something) on the first evening.

Photos and original text © 2011 Pete McGregor

The lives of magpies and others

A magpie flies low and fast across the paddock, through the early morning sunlight, crosses close to the verandah and disappears. I don’t know where it lands, but I can hear the harsh, demanding call of its youngster somewhere nearby. Those magpies have invested a lot in that lanky, scruffy kid. For weeks now the family’s been foraging in the front paddock, and before that the parents would have been feeding the chick in the nest; before that, incubating; before that, nest-building. What else do they do with their lives? When do they finally push the youngster away — when they’re about to start the process all over again?

Is that all there is to a magpie’s life? The irresistible imperative to reproduce, to replace itself? To what extent might it be said that a magpie thinks, rather than responds to some kind of inchoate urge — the wordless voice that says this is what I must do, feed the child, protect it, ensure its survival until it, too, might reproduce?

A month or so ago I walked down the short distance down the road to Tokeawa Stream. I counted the crushed remains of three fledgling magpies on the tarmac, and the enormity of what those flattened forms represented struck me hard. All that effort, wasted. All that potential, gone — none of those three would ever know the joy of harassing hawks (I anthropomorphise, I admit); none would ever know the delicious warmth of morning sun after a cold winter’s night, the brief ecstasy of mating, the appeasement of that urge to raise one’s own young.

In a sense, though, those deaths were necessary, or the world would be overrun by magpies. Still, ... I wonder... One can argue whether what’s good for the many outweighs what’s good for the one, but what’s irrefutable is that the two are sometimes irreconcilable.

I sit here, writing at the kitchen table, thinking about magpies and the lives of animals. A kahu flies with slow wingbeats over the corner of the paddock; the early, warm sun lights its body and the underside of its wings. A pale, faded blue sky behind; the tough, sparsely-leafed branches of the lacebark below. A tui sprints across in the other direction, fast and noisy, and two swallows swoop and jink close to the house. Several starling families forage in the thin paddock where the wiry seedheads of ryegrass and the bolting Californian thistle patch signify the arrival of summer. The starlings move restlessly with that typical jerky movement and those sudden changes of direction as if they’re constantly distracted by another morsel: that one, just over there — or maybe there! Like magpies, their young have calls that could hardly be described as complex, let alone melodious, and I wonder whether all young birds have that same characteristic — they need only one call: “Feed me!” — and whether or to what extent they learn their adult songs or discover their ability to sing. Moreover, to what extent are these birds, or any animal for that matter, aware of their own imperatives beyond the urge to answer them?

 

I wonder — perhaps the characteristic that most sets we humans apart from all other animals is the awareness of our own thoughts, which in turn enables us to wonder. If so, perhaps Salman Rushdie got it right when he argued that doubt is a central condition of human beings, and perhaps conviction and self-assurance might not be the virtues they’re so often claimed to be.

 

I wonder about awareness in the lives of magpies and others.

 

I wonder — is it a blessing or a curse?

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Photos and original text © 2010 Pete McGregor