Cholche, Jibon: forest

Showing posts with label forest. Show all posts

Potato and Toothpaste Travel

Amber is fossilised tree resin, a yellowish, pellucid gem washed ashore by the waves of the eastern Baltic Sea. Sometimes there are ancient insects within it, or parts of leaves to decorate it. Amber is a souvenir-laden Cretaceous traveller, and precious. Amber is said to be protective, happy-go-lucky and helpful in making the right choices. In Latvian, amber is called dzintars, from which the name Dzintra comes.

I’d nearly not stayed there but fate granted a second chance. As I’d walked away north on that day I’d randomly met Dzintra at the doors of the Science Academy in the Latvian capital, I thought to kick myself for turning down her offer to stay at her home and worse, for not getting any contact details. I knew enough to know I should know more.

It was in the days before mobile phones. My only hope might be to try to re-find her at the Academy, but I didn’t like the chances of dealing successfully with the German-speaking Russian receptionist. It was a very big building and we hadn’t even exchanged surnames.

Yet there was a sliver of hope: I was due to meet her daughter Antra on the following morning. Dzintra had said there was a castle not too far from Riga, that it was worth seeing and I could take the train there. Without any alternative plan it certainly sounded like a plan. She had to work, she said, but if her daughter was not busy with university she could meet me at the entrance to Riga station at 9 a.m. because her daughter would enjoy the trip too. Maybe.

‘How will she recognise me?’ I asked. It wasn’t as if I stood out in the Latvian crowd.

‘She can find you,’ Dzintra assured.

It wasn’t a meeting arrangement to inspire any confidence but there was only to wait and see. What did my intuition say? Unfortunately, it said nothing.

Anyway, there was a more immediate and pressing concern: would I really find the private apartment I’d left that morning, without really taking in properly where it was?

Eventually I did happen to happen upon the right street.

At 9 a.m. on the following day, at the busy Riga station, I thought it quite impossible anybody could find me in the crowd. But sure enough, as I stood waiting, a young woman approached, saying cautiously, ‘Excuse me, you are Andrew?’ It was Antra.

‘How did you recognise me?’ I asked, quite shocked.

‘You look like a foreigner,’ she said, ‘a bit lost.’

The day at the castle was like a meandering flute melody, made easier by Antra’s English skills. The offer to stay was repeated by the daughter. This time I accepted. I fetched my luggage from somewhere North Riga and returned the house keys to the apartment’s owner. By evening I’d been whisked over the Daugava River and up that flight of stairs in the middle block of three.

Events in the Stalin-era apartment were amusing. There was quite a bit of fussing that went on, unexpectedly, over Dzintra’s dinner.

‘Did you eat?’ I heard her school-going younger daughter Anta, ask.

‘I had my dinner,’ Dzintra replied.

‘What did you eat?’ the daughter pressed.

‘Oh, you know…’ the mother said.

‘What about your dinner?’ her older daughter Antra also asked, upon coming home again later.

‘Yes, I ate.’

‘It wasn’t only potatoes, was it?’

‘No,’ Dzintra said, calling me as a witness.

It brought a smile to see the two daughters questioning their mother in the way a mother might normally question a busy daughter. It wasn’t that Dzintra suffered any horrible malady; hers was rather a wonderful disorder: she was a nomad at heart, a jajabor and it was this affliction that encouraged her to save.

About the potatoes: they were cheap and plentiful, a ready match for the generally modest public salaries of Latvia. Well back into the Soviet era potatoes had allowed Dzintra to put a few roubles aside, as she could, as a travel fund. And what did it matter if dinner meant potatoes, now and then, if one could dream of a pending destination? That was the pay-off.

I agreed to help Dzintra with her English: she was nervous although she shouldn’t have been. With the world’s most delightful accent she could have, frankly, gotten away with anything. And she did.

‘Latvians eat much potatoes,’ she told me once.

‘Many,’ I corrected. ‘Many potatoes. Potatoes are countable.’

‘Not in Latvia!’ she said.

If I’d been more observant I could have seen that jajabor sparkle in her eyes when we’d first met, but it was the potato-talk that confirmed her status. Travel hadn’t been easy in the Soviet era but she’d managed to join tours to various places across the Soviet Union and the eastern bloc. Later, she’d visited a relative in Melbourne and her apartment featured Australian souvenirs as evidence. The extended trip was also there in Anta’s English accent: it seemed so out of place in Riga to be hearing the Australian sounding English she’d been young enough to absorb.

‘Most Australians had never heard of Latvia,’ she said, ‘So I would explain where it was.’

But it was her tour to Poland that took my fancy. ‘Toothpaste was always more expensive in Poland,’ Dzintra said, so she’d stocked up and seen Warsaw and Krakow on a finance of Soviet toothpaste, stopping off at a Polish market between sites to pay for the trip.

Passion for anything is rare in this world and I admired hers. It was clear we were predestined to get along. It’s perhaps the reason why every minute we’d spent together felt as a month.

She spoke of her daughters, Antra and Anta, explaining that the elder Antra was supposed to be Anta except that Antra’s grandmother was fond of the letter ‘r’ and changed her name; so Anta was born later.

She spoke of the other family member, the cat called Puncis which in Latvian means stomach; an accurate name for the robust feline that lounged about.

We spoke of Australia and many other things besides, as the hours meant years.

And of course more than anything we spoke of travel. It’s a well-known fact that the next best thing for any traveller is to receive another traveller in their home city. It brings with it as close as can be the feeling of travelling, without going anywhere.

‘You can’t leave Latvia without seeing a Latvian forest,’ Dzintra said and I could hardly disagree. I had no experience with Latvian forests.

‘I have a small car,’ she said, ‘It has some mechanical problems, so if I take a day off work, and it might not get us all the way there and back again without breaking down, but would you like to take the chance?’

We left in the little grey Ford that whistled along to every gear change for the length of the chat and laughter that was the way to the Latvian forest and back again. I’d say the whistling Ford enjoyed the day out too; it didn’t break down. And there was another trip to Jurmala and the Baltic Sea, so I could see a Latvian beach.

The days of my planned week in Latvia passed quickly in the way only enjoyable days can. Everything went well, more than well and without complaint until... Well I wasn’t to know how it would be, taking myself off for a day, independently, on that fateful tour to Bauska… It seemed such a simple idea.

But the amber wasn’t with me then.

The story continues here: Was There Any Chance of Wolves?

The first part of the Latvian story is here: The Latvian National Academy of Science.

Follow the Baltic Way, along the sea on a trail of amber...

Or something different? Head for Bangladesh!

This article is also published in Star Magazine, here: Potato and Toothpaste Travel

The Monkeys with Attractive Eyes

If eyes stick out like golf balls, bulbous enough to have inspired a hideous new creature on a Star Wars set; if a head is disproportionately small, looking like an animated sultana atop a skyscraper; if ears are of the larger, protruding variety that give the impression of a pair of satellite dishes in search of a cricket match, it’s probably best not to say anything. Bodies come in all shapes and sizes, fashions change and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There’s no such thing as ugly, only unique or exotic.

Besides, the owners of any differently shaped or sized features would likely have heard all the unfortunate quips and taunts. They may feel self-conscious.

The human species, when at its best, seeks rather to concentrate on the positive, because it’s a nice thing to do.

Indeed, through fashion humans have acquired an understanding of the available techniques for enhancing certain features or accentuating beauty. Everybody knows that the more robust among us can favour vertical stripes to look thinner, that high heels for women are at least sometimes about height adjustment and that the right set of frames can bring emphasis to well-shaped eyes.

It's not so easy for monkeys.

There’s little a female gorilla can do, for example, to make its hands look daintier. It’s difficult to say how a gibbon could give their lanky arms that shorter appearance, and with the swollen red rump of a baboon… well, fashion options are not easy to list. Monkeys are left with the singular hope that those they come across in the forest will have the good grace not to draw undue attention to certain, exceptional features.

In the forests of Brunei Darussalam on the island of Kalimantan is yet another species of monkey in such a predicament. How to describe them?

Well, they have very attractive, brown, almond-shaped eyes. They have suave hairstyles, brushed back, that are almost retro-1950s hip, in a good way. Their longish faces have a welcoming quality, with an endearing heart shape to them, while their mouths are petite and aristocratic, not at all obnoxious-looking. Their eyebrows might not be lacking in bushiness but that could be described as distinguished or intellectual, surely.

Nor could one speak highly enough of their nature-chosen jackets, in coordinated earthy tones from brown to beige, tan, light orange and grey, which give a sense of chic casualness and must belong to the very highest echelons of forest wear. That’s certainly something to focus on.

In Brunei these gentle creatures live in proximity to the capital, Bandar Seri Begawan. They prefer the environs of the mangrove forests that line the riverbanks and channels just beyond the city limits, accessible to humans via easily arranged boat tours. The monkeys are shy, preferring to spend time away from society at large. I don’t know why.

In that neck of the woods are other animals to observe, such as monkey species of less distinctive appearance and maybe large sea otters, seen scampering along the bank. But I digress.

The human species when at its best seeks to concentrate on the positive, but unfortunately the human species isn’t always at its best. Sometimes humans can be rather cruel and biologists, apparently, are no exception.

I’m considering the insensitivity in the naming of this particular primate: the proboscis monkey. The word proboscis refers to a long flexible snout or trunk, or, more specifically, a large nose.

But I ask, with a nose that’s up to ten centimetres long and is odd for a monkey, is it entirely necessary to bring any further attention to it by choosing such a name? It’s not small. It’s hardly to be missed. And to add insult to injury the biologists have placed those gentle simians in the genus Nasalis.

Meanwhile those monkeys with attractive eyes go on living peacefully in groups, groups with overlapping territories. They are among the larger species in Asia, and pursue a diet of leaves and fruit, occasionally insects. Unlike some other monkey species they are rarely aggressive towards each other and tend to mingle when one group in the forest canopy comes upon another. They certainly have great personalities, one could say.

But unfortunately the biologists haven’t been alone in not looking beyond the matter at the centre of things. The locals have likewise demonstrated insensitivity towards these gentle forest dwellers. In Malay there are several names, and it’s the colloquial one, orang belanda, in which there may be an issue. It translates as ‘Dutchman’.

It so happened that at the time when the first Dutch arrived in the Indonesian archipelago, their European heritage pot bellies and comparatively larger noses made an impression on the local people.

And while it cannot be assumed the proboscis monkey minds being called a Dutchman, or even that the Dutch take offence at having a monkey species named after them, the particular reference to the pot bellies and large noses upon which the comparison relies surely has the potential to offend both parties.

It’s as well to assume the kindly beasts remain unaware of what the humans call them. On the other hand, it’s difficult to say definitively just what it is that a monkey knows… I mean, understands.

rat

pigeon

zoobr

red bird

kangaroo

This article also published in Star Magazine, here: The monkeys with attractive eyes

Pura Vida; or, a Coati's Tale

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

– Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden; or, Life in the Woods, 1854

(Guest writer: a Costa Rican Coati)

For a good life, take it from me, nothing will surpass a patch of pristine rainforest and a decent sized public rubbish bin. Sure, a shiny car, ultra-modern, sleek and featuring the latest ergonomics might be enough to make all the other vehicles in the traffic blush. Sure, a long, tree-lined driveway of pebbles capped by gates in swirling wrought iron might be the envy of friends. But it’s not pura vida, that quintessentially Costa Rican Spanish phrase that means ‘real living’ or ‘plenty of life’, and is also used for ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’.

Big experiences aren’t necessary either. While it might be enjoyable to jet off to Cannes for the film festival now and then, to walk the red carpet; or to lounge in the Anguillan sun waiting for chilled refreshments to be brought right to your deck chair, such moments are only fleeting. Take it from a Costa Rican: keep it simple.

But what would I know? I’m only a coati and for those who are not quite the mammal experts they might wish to be, think of me as a cousin of the raccoon.

I’m based up in Monteverde, which is sort of in the middle north of Costa Rica about five hours from the capital, San Jose. It’s not a bad spot: the morning air is crisp and foggy as the clouds roll in over the hills and in the nights there’s a wondrous chorus of insect and frog to promote blissful slumber. Tree and branch, Monteverde is rich in green, within the 26,000 acres of the Cloud Forest Reserve. You could say there’s a bit of a backyard at my place.

In pursuit of packaged pura vida the tourists arrive from early morning to take a stroll in our patch of forest. They’ve made trails for themselves with boardwalks and wooden stairs. The tourists can be noisy and nosy when they come, but we don’t mind posing for their cameras, knowing that by habit in their backpacks is likely some portion of our lunch. It’s a straightforward matter to take a break atop the visitor’s centre roof or in a tree, to wait for the tourists to shuffle off into the greenery.

I don’t wish to indulge in needless nationalism but I like being Costa Rican. Well, I write ‘Costa Rican’ but casually we’re known as Ticos, particularly the humans. We coatis are Ticos too and it’s not a bad thing to be. I don’t mean to bore you with facts but our Costa Rica has around 25% of its land area protected in national parks and reserves, more than any other country. Costa Rica’s been recognised as the planet’s greenest nation and since 2007 we’ve had this little goal of becoming the first carbon neutral country by 2021. I don’t mean to sound proud, just because our Tico facts are impressive enough to be printed on t-shirts to sell to the tourists.

Anyway, for me and my coati friends it’s rather more the 2012 ban on recreational hunting that’s the favourite, because we do sport rather pretty jackets and it’s not everyone who can let that be. So we retire to the tranquillity of our cloud forest, and the general dampness and breeziness, let me assure you, is not much of a bother when one has the warmth of fur to rely on. It’s about dressing appropriately, nothing more.

If I mention the sifting through trailhead garbage for food, my pura vida might not sound like your cup of tea. But the tourists are generous in their bread crumbs, shards of vegetables and leftover fruit. It’s incredible the amount of perfectly good food scraps they discard. Better still, the rubbish bin is an ecosystem that attracts insects. It’s a one-stop shop for all the nutritional requirements and the smell isn’t too atrocious on account of the rainforest air. I’ll tell you something else: it’s tiring to wander the pristine wilds on a daily basis; much better to hang around the rubbish bins. You can think of it as recycling, as any good Tico would. Our omnivorous diet is our national contribution.

Down the road a bit the tourists like to watch the hummingbirds that come, attracted by the nectar trays hung out. They’re small birds, hummingbirds, of several species in Monteverde, all with delicate curved bills suited to nectar-feeding. But it’s neither their size nor their shiny feathers that impress the tourists, I suppose, as much as how rapidly they can flap their little wings to hover, mid-air, while they eat, if they wish. At the other end of the scale in terms of speed are the two and three-toed sloths that tourists like to spy on night hikes. They’re so slow that moss can grow on them.

In every respect Costa Rica is a wildlife haven. Being in Central America, species that developed in both the North and the South, separately, learnt to intermingle here when the land bridge formed and the landmasses joined. As I said, our cousins the raccoons prefer up north while in South America are other coati species. As a result, while our Costa Rica might account for only 0.25% of the planet’s land surface it has 5% of the world’s biodiversity, right here! Ah, but I sound like I’m boasting. I would only mention how I like living in a cosmopolitan, multi-species cloud forest society.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect to our lifestyle is how attracted the foreigners have become to our Tico ways. It’s not a decent habit to eavesdrop but I once heard these American girls, mid-twenties at a guess, talking about a retreat down on our Pacific coast where foreigners try to live in harmony with nature. There’s no TV there and I believe as much as possible they grow their own food. I guess even in America the heritage is not only the bright lights of Hollywood, the oil tycoon tiffs of Dallas and the roulette wheels of Vegas. There’s also Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, where Mr. Henry David Thoreau in the nineteenth century once tried to live a pura vida of his own. That’s American heritage too. A secret: Walden’s back in vogue.

There’ll always be critics, those who find my words too 1970s and hippy. I’d remind that if we think of the 1970s it was flower power that ended the Vietnam War. It’s not an achievement to be scoffed at. Not that we could ever have a problem like the Vietnam War here in Costa Rica, because our renowned President José Figueres Ferrer constitutionally abolished our standing army in 1948, leaving more to spend on health, education and culture; making us the most peaceful and politically stable country in Central America. Neighbouring Panama followed our example in 1990 so it’s catching on. There must be another tourist t-shirt in all that somewhere.

I’ll have to leave you there: think I smell some tourist tamale, made of corn, delicious, and there has to be some left on the plantain leaf it’s wrapped in when they toss it out! Do stop by though, if you’re ever lucky enough to visit Costa Rica. No appointment needed: we coatis will be right here, hanging out around the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve rubbish bins. Pura vida!