GALAPAGOS PILGRIMAGE PART THREE: The Book of Nature

“These people have learned not from books, but in the fields, in the wood, on the river bank. Their teachers have been the birds themselves, when they sang to them, the sun when it left a glow of crimson behind it at setting, the very trees, and wild herbs.”

 - Anton Chekhov, “A Day in the Country”
 

 
“We are tossed about by external causes in many ways, and like waves driven by contrary winds, we waver and are unconscious of the issue and our fate.' We think we are most ourselves when we are most passionate, whereas it is then we are most passive, caught in some ancestral torrent of impulse or feeling, and swept on to a precipitate reaction which meets only part of the situation because without thought only part of a situation can be perceived.”

- Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy
 

 
“Thanks, Scott, for your comments. I am grateful.
Very simply, we can encounter God without even reading the Bible. Aquinas says if you want to know something about God, then begin with creation.

- Blessings,Carol”

I'm having trouble finding attribution info for the Pee Wee picture - likely Warner Pictures

Who’s that sexy thang I see over there?
That’s me, standin’ in the mirror…
…If I was you, I’d want to be me too.
—Meghan Trainor

Elvis picture from very cool poster at Rock.com

Cause I’m a model, you know what I mean
And I do my little turn on the catwalk
Yeah, on the catwalk
On the catwalk, yeah
I shake my little tush on the catwalk

— Right Said Fred

Portland to Charlotte, to Miami, to Quito and finally to Baltra Island in the Galapagos archipelago (600 miles off the coast of Ecuador) - Map illustration derived from Google Earth

 

The Ecuadorian flight attendants were uncannily identical in appearance — from their red hats (faintly reminiscent of Hot Dog on a Stick Uniforms) to their tight bun hairdos to their matching lipstick — so that I was unsure whether I had slid into an alternate universe of 60’s stewardesses or a future populated by identical clones. In either case, they performed their jobs with military efficiency and no sooner had the plane landed, then all the doors were thrown open and we passengers spilled down the closest set of ramp- stairs to the sun baked tarmac.

Though I am handicapped by a severe case of monolingualism, the airport personnel were experienced enough, and our cruise guides attentive enough that I merely needed the skills of a cow to be herded to the transfer buses. Languid iguanas watched our little tourist parade with their impassive sidewise gaze, a gaze that because it only half meets our own, manages to seem indifferent…but probably really is indifferent. 

All the buses followed a curvy, dusty road down to what appeared to be the only destination on Baltra, a dock on the side of a small bay, where we were all deposited — a giant bolus of privileged humanity — into a staging area then sifted and spread onto our prospective boats.

While the fleet of excursion vessels prepared to disperse among the different islands, the passengers of the Nemo III were baptized into the equatorial waters of the bay through voluntary self-dunkings as we strove to demonstrate our capacities to regain entry into the kayaks we would soon be using (provided we mastered this skill). For me it perfectly accentuated the idea that I was suddenly immersed into a new environment.

Darwin spent 1 month in the Galapagos (Sept. 17^th – Oct. 17^th), though only 24 days actually spent on just 4 of the islands. Ultimately, I would set foot on 5 different islands and 4 islets over the course of 7 days, only two of which I’d have in common with Darwin. I mention this because when I figured it out, I was surprised at how little time he spent there on a voyage that lasted almost 5 years. Clearly, the ideas that were eventually triggered by observations in the Galapagos occurred only in the context of the rest of his observations on the South American Continent and other island chains spanning the globe — not to mention his academic training. I imagine he had to know very well how things were 'KNOWN' to be, in order to recognize the subtle importance of say, tortoises customized for each island.

The Galapagos Islands are volcanos that arise from the activity of a stationary hotspot underneath the Nazca tectonic plate. As the Nazca plate inches eastward over the hotspot on its way to subverting South America (causing frequent earthquakes in Ecuador) the resulting chain of islands poking above the ocean can be seen as a trace of the plate’s motion over geologic time, the islands to the West being the youngest and the Easternmost the oldest and most weathered. This idea of tectonic plates — drifting and colliding continental jigsaw pieces — would have been of keen interest to Darwin, who was looking for ways to explain why he was finding seashells embedded thousands of feet high in the South American mountains.

Not wasting any time, our nimble 75 foot catamaran sliced its way to North Seymour which would serve as my introduction to what the islands had to offer. “North Seymour — the island where you will ‘see more’” said Veronica the guide, seemingly embarrassed  before she even started saying it, but determined to share the dubious homophone regardless.

Our arrival at North Seymour was much like approaching a bird-shit stained jetty. I didn’t know if this was going to be a big island or a little island (I did research ahead of time, but my variable memory of 13 major islands with their alternate names didn’t include this one) and I didn’t really know enough to have a preference. In retrospect, I can imagine that this little flat shelf was a remnant of a Santa Cruz lava flow in a long past distant epoch. 

Long before we arrived I could see distinctive birds circling over the island vultures…or perhaps pterodactyls.

The crew took us to shore in what, by common consent, was referred to as a ‘panga’…but having grown up with Jacques Cousteau specials, I thought it resembled a ‘Zodiac’ (and began to wish I had a Steve Zissou style red watch-cap instead of my camouflaged boonie hat).

Nocturnal gull

Andres, our other guide (besides Veronica) soon explained that the circling birds were frigate birds. There were two kinds of frigate birds. Great frigate birds and Magnificent frigate birds. When Andres said it, it sounded like Mag-KNEE-fee-cent frigate birds, which to my mind, sounded somehow more spectacular. Turns out, these birds make a living by stealing from other birds which explains why they patrol the territory from high in the sky like opportunistic drones looking for a vulnerable target.  Andres explained how to distinguish magnificent frigate birds from great frigate birds (something about an ‘M’ on their chests?), but as I was often some distance away frantically searching my backpack for the wrong lens to use during our guide’s comprehensive explanations, I missed this subtle point.

A male frigate bird with red inflated I'm-ready-to-have-sex display

Like a peacock's ridiculous tail, this football sized red balloon shows how bad-assed its owner is since it can still perform all its alpha-bird functions while heavily disadvantaged.

Probably not a male frigate bird

The frigate bird's nest is not very elaborate.

The male frigate bird blows up his throat pouch display which essentially screams, "Pay attention to me! Pay attention to me!" Eventually he will stage a big production with his wings which will unfortunately remind me of Chinese Opera.

At this point, unexpectedly thrown (well, not entirely unexpectedly thrown) into a real life nature documentary, I began to imagine I could hear David Attenborough’s voice commenting about everything I happened to look at.  High above me, a dozen fork- tailed birds wheeled in a haphazard gyre while my audio hallucination whispered  “…frigate birds spend —months — continuously airborne at sea.” in that hushed way he has that makes it feel like you’re conspiring together not to have the T.V. animals over-hear.

Ecuadorians have come to treasure their Galapagos Islands and have grown serious about protecting them and the island’s unique species. To visit the islands, you need to be accompanied by a certified guide, stay on designated trails, refrain from bringing food, and keep a prescribed distance from the animals no matter how they try to interact with you.

Historically, the animals of the Galapagos (even many of the birds) exhibit no fear of humans. It’s as if they are consciously ignoring you. But when it comes to the sea lions, it seems they not only understand they are immune from human disturbance, they like to rub that fact in your face — how else to explain their propensity to nap in the middle of the designated trails? Because of this behavior, and others, it is easy for me to feel kinship with these fellow mammals who have abandoned life on land.

Sea lions are kind of perfect role models if you want to take a lazy vacation. But from what I’ve seen, they share my short-sightedness with regard to career goals.

In the distance, I noted Daphne Major’s abrupt shoreline and appreciated all the more the story of Peter and Rosemary Grant’s research as chronicled in The Beak of the Finch — a book I’d been reading previous to my trip — an amazing account that gives insight into the incredible discipline required to see evolution happen in real time (http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/jonathan-weiner.) 
In their unique island laboratory, they’ve been continuously studying generations of finches for 40 years.

August falls into the Galapagos’ garúa season, cooler weather marked by mist and clouds that shroud the highlands. The guides explained that the Humboldt current (cold water circulating up from the Antarctic) moderates the temperature here to the upper, middle seventies (Fahrenheit) while also infusing the water with a wealth of plankton and krill. Otherwise, there isn’t much precipitation, and the lower landscapes where the clouds cannot reach remain arid and appear desert-like. 

The shrub-like trees that grow here remind me of the krummholz back home that vie for existence at the upper limits of the timberline. Krummholz is the German word that means twisted wood and should never be used in the sentence, “I want to kiss you so please wipe that cheese away from your krummholz.”

Cacti will (unbeknownst to me at this point) greet us in many different forms as we hop from island to island, but for now, this one tempts the local land iguanas with fleshy pads of refreshment…almost out of reach.

(Yes I know. This iguana is not actually eating cactus. But at the evening photo review, it became evident that others had caught it in the act of propping itself on its hind legs to grasp at the lowest hanging cactus pads)

When I shared these pictures at the evening picture review, my serendipitous travel cohorts accused me of being a typical guy — focused primarily on butts and boobies (booby jokes never get old…right? I mean right?).

As I watched the booby set about laying out a poop nest, various questions occurred to me:

Is this a booby dream home?

Do prospective mates find this sexy?

How does one compare this to other poop nests (texture, smell, distance expelled, or symmetrical dispersal)?

Is there a booby vocational college that teaches poop-nests 101 — and if not, what the hell?

How many meals does this represent?

Is there an equivalent human behavior (for instance, in a material culture, do we tend to surround ourselves with a lot of shit?)

Is that anus blue?

…and did you just catch yourself looking?

By strictly evolutionary standards, I’m an abject failure. As an animal standing amidst all my cousin animals, I wonder if my failure is due to succumbing to bad instincts, or overruling good instincts with untested ideologies (free will, individuality, golden rules) springing from an experimental brain. Would I be happier if, in my late teens, I was seized by an overpowering urge to make a poop-nest?

Is my genetic makeup such that I would have better thrived as a Viking, utilizing my bulk to wield a broad-sword or battle axe —“… to crush my enemies, see them driven before me…” — only to be (upon return from raiding parties) forever confounded by smaller, quicker-thinking lawyers and accountants?

A well adjusted blue-footed booby making a living, diving recklessly into the ocean for fish among the rocks and surf.

Boobies doing what comes naturally.

To be continued...



see also:

Galapagos Pilgrimage Part 1
https://thenarrativeimage.blogspot.com/2017/03/galapagos-pilgrimage-part-one.html

Galapagos Pilgrimage Part 2
https://thenarrativeimage.blogspot.com/2017/03/galapagos-pilgrimage-part-two.html

Galapagos Pilgrimage Part 4
https://thenarrativeimage.blogspot.com/2017/05/galapagos-pilgrimage-part-4-truth.html

Monkey-cam Meets Picasso at Cooper Spur

Monkey-cam had been monitoring the internet for weather reports and once he saw the little smiling sun symbols in the weekend boxes, he began begging in earnest for another chance to see Cooper Spur before the onset of serious snow.

Regular viewers may recall that Monkey-cam was in the process of testing some boundaries and chose our last Cooper Spur expedition as the scene for acting out his new found sense of independence.

I kept suggesting lower altitude hikes because I was pretty sure the last weather front had deposited snow down to the 4000 ft. level, but when I got an email from Mr. Lloyd (of Long Shadow Photography - www.longshadowphoto.com) reporting that the road to Cloud Cap was still open, I relented and started rounding up the hiking gear.




Mt. Hood as seen from the Parkdale Ranger Station where you can’t get forest parking permits on Sunday because they’re closed.

It’s a fairly long drive from Portland to Mt. Hood so I was glad to have Monkey-cam’s company. We tried to carry on a conversation, but I’m not very good at it and Monkey-cam can’t talk. I asked him if, in his role as stunt camera-primate, he considered himself an artist. I tried paying attention to his answer, but watching his gestural/sign language meant taking my eyes off the road and I’m afraid I didn’t really catch all that he was saying. He admitted that at first he was into it for the bananas, but hoped that I might soon begin supplementing his rewards with alcohol based beverages.

I found his response somehow depressing and drove on in silence. Out of the corner of my eye, I could tell he was watching me. It made me uncomfortable, but I ignored him for a mile or two. Finally I glanced at him only to find him grinning from ear to ear with one of his fingers stuck inside his cheek like a fishing hook. I recognized this as his symbol for ‘hooking me’ – that is, he had played a joke on me. “So you’re not into photography just for the rewards?” I asked hopefully. He responded by hitting me on the shoulder and doing his gleeful shriek-laugh.

As we vibrated along gravel washboards and dodged pot-holes along the last eight miles to the trailhead, we caught glimpses of the mountain through the eternally besieged timberline forest. Every corner of the road that was in the shade presented melting-wet-slippery-ice-ruts which tested the car’s limited two-wheel-drive capabilities and also tested my limited experience at driving on ice.

Even though you can see Mt. Hood from a distance every day in Portland (weather permitting), from up close, its looming presence inspires… not reverence so much as a kind of excitement. Great beauty, great danger or maybe even both may be ahead.

One of the great things about digital cameras is how you can review your pictures immediately after taking them to see if your exposure settings are proper or if you captured what you thought you did. As we sat on the ridge of the Eliot Glacier Moraine, Monkey-cam turned the tables on me and pantomimed the question, “Do you think, in your role as a weekend photographer/ primate, that you ever actually produce art?” The fact that Monkey-cam can pantomime questions like these makes me wonder if he should be considered a pantomime artist.

So I showed him this picture right after I took it and said, “I don’t know if this is art.” I said it because I’ve never really come up with a good definition of art. But I went on to say that maybe this image at least told a portion of a story. It shows a glacier highway. It shows a mountain decomposing over time – a history of rock-falls traced into the slope at left – an instant of geologic time sufficient to show the inevitable trend. Also, I think this moraine picture is better than the ones I took last trip because the lighting is better, I found an angle that makes it look steep, and it has the added dimension of new but melting snow on top. Maybe it’s not art so much as it is journalism or documentation?

And nowadays, glaciers may be on the road to becoming a thing of the past – a memory - which may be another portion of story contained in this image.

Thinking about documenting vanishing glaciers reminded me of an old Kurt Vonnegut quote. He once wrote:

“I was perplexed as to what the usefulness of any of the arts might be, with the possible exception of interior decoration. The most positive notion I could come up with was what I call the canary-in-the-coal-mine theory of the arts. This theory argues that artists are useful to society because they are so sensitive. They are supersensitive. They keel over like canaries in coal mines filled with poison gas, long before more robust types realize that any danger is there.”

I’ve previously shared the bewilderment I felt upon viewing Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in art history class and how I secretly began to wonder if I wasn’t being forced, metaphorically, to appreciate the emperor’s new clothes (surely Picasso was naked). Ever since then, I occasionally will take a stab at trying to produce something abstract. I showed this image (that I took as we walked across a field of boulders) to Monkey-cam who rolled his eyes and pantomimed the following.

He sarcastically pointed out that you really can’t get much more concrete than a picture of a rock.

I countered by first admitting that, yes, it was a rock, but that my picture was really about primordial, timeless, prehistoric life springing forth from the earth.

He responded with something about it not mattering whether it represented a prehistoric turtle, or an old man’s bony butt crack, the whole point is in NOT depicting objects. Besides, he added with a final complex finger-puppet gesture, you just made the narrative up after you took the picture.

Well, I’m the first to admit that I don’t understand abstract art. I still liked something about the way the crack suggested that the rock may once have had the consistency of cookie dough (though considerably hotter). I let Monkey-cam have the last word and we walked together pondering these things as we approached the Cooper Spur shelter.

Upon arriving at the shelter, we were startled to find Pablo Picasso crouching next to the stone structure, seemingly deep in thought. I don’t know why exactly, but I decided it would be best if Monkey-cam and I pretended like we see naked Picassos all the time. I offered my hand and said, “Mr. Picasso, I presume,” all the while hoping that Monkey-cam would remember how I taught him that his traditional butt-sniff-greeting was not appropriate for humans.

Picasso clasped my hand in his and smiled broadly. His gaze was intense and alive, but he didn’t say anything. I introduced him to Monkey-cam. They immediately began gesticulating together as if they were old friends. It turns out they had shared a few drinks the last time we had come here.

Together, the three of us set off to find and follow the Cooper Spur Trail – not an easy task since much of it was buried in the snow. Picasso and Monkey-cam didn’t seem to care where we went and pretty soon I lost track of them when I started taking pictures of rocks that appeared to have force fields that protected them from the snow.

When I finally caught up with Monkey-cam and Picasso, I found them engaged in a spontaneous ritual dance centered around an apparent phallus totem. The dance was energetic and frenzied and it looked like fun. Monkey-cam motioned for me to join in. “I can’t dance.” I offered lamely. Picasso just rolled his eyes.

Mostly I just didn’t want to take my clothes off. I rationalized that I needed to be a sane authority figure for Monkey-cam and besides, there were lots of other hikers taking advantage of this unusually nice 1st weekend in November – someone might see me. It was probably easy for Picasso to do whatever he wanted – what did he care? – he was already dead.

I tried to decipher the meaning of the dance. I’m still not sure, but I think they were simply symbolically giving Winter the finger – promising that Spring would ‘rise’ again.

(Note: Click on Images to view slightly larger versions)

It’s clear by now that I’m not a hiking expert, but I think I’ve narrowed it down a bit, and I believe this is the feature we’re talking about when we say Cooper Spur.

The line of phallic totems, one of which Monkey-cam and Picasso had danced around, turned out to be the rock cairns that mark the Timberline trail. This realization made it clear that we had missed the Cooper Spur trail. When we changed course and actually found segments of the correct trail, we determined that the trail was useless and possibly dangerous since without snowshoes or crampons, we could easily slide all the way back down to the timberline if we lost our footing. So we headed back to the Eliot Moraine ridgeline and proceeded upward along its clear but steep path.

Ever since noon, the wind had been picking up, and at the ridgeline, the moraine acted like a magnifying funnel and sent the wind whistling over the edge. Only two months ago, the sun had set on the right side of the mountain. But this time, the sun was already disappearing behind the left shoulder of Hood, and it seemed that perhaps Winter was pointedly responding to the FU dance.

Monkey-cam took this picture to capture an impression of how quickly it turned cold. When he showed the picture to me on the review screen, he pantomimed, “You may not be much of a dancer, but you are a wonderful mucous producer.” I think he was just trying to think of something positive to say.

But before I left the edge of the moraine, I watched a crow perform an aerobatic dance in the teeth of the wind. I was kind of hoping it was a raven, because then I could think about all the trickster symbolism from Indian sacred narratives, but either way, it was beautiful to watch. The …bird… started out at the timberline at the foot of the moraine, and then, without so much as beating a wing, it tacked like a sailboat, angled into the wind, gliding, sideways, ascending (perhaps transcending) all the way up the mountain. High towards the peak almost out of sight, it joined a partner and together they executed a kind of circle dance, flew cartwheels, looked around from on high, and then snuck down a back ravine to come around and do it all again.

Essentially, it seemed they transformed an insurmountable force – potential adversity - into an amusement ride. It was almost as if they dived all the way to the top of the mountain.

It is something our species has tried to emulate, albeit clumsily.

Out of consideration for the Monkey-cam, I decided to head back down while there was still light. We said our goodbyes to Picasso at the shelter, and soon entered the landscape of stunted trees or krummholz.

The trees actually look like they’ve been tortured, but it’s really hard to capture it in a picture. To me, it almost looked like this particular tree was bending back from the weight of some past avalanche, protecting itself as best it could with arms of wood.

Here’s another view of the same tree. The former picture shows the bending trunk, this one shows the outstretched arm. I couldn’t figure out how to get both gestures together.

Later, I tried to express the tree’s gesture by experimenting with an interesting (FREE!) 3-d modeling program called DAZ Studio 1.8. It lets you pose virtual 3-d figures and render images from them under customizable lighting situations. (www.daz3d.com).

I showed this image to Monkey-cam and asked him what he thought. “Nice boobs.” He pantomimed back.

Almost back to the trailhead, we continued to note examples of the extreme interface between Summer and Winter, where Fall can descend in one day – where the dance between life and death is both brutal and ingenious…

…where triune water morphs easily from one state to the other - giving life - freezing time - carving and preparing the Earth…

The Monkey-cam asked me what I thought of Picasso.

I said I admired his lack of inhibition, but that he didn’t talk much. Monkey-cam explained that dead people aren’t allowed to talk to self-conscious beings. Well, he added, it isn’t so much that they’re not allowed, it’s more like a general consensus and a courtesy. Dead people know that if they tell you the answers, they deprive you of the journey.

Oh, I said.

He thinks you should try dancing every once in a while.

Really?

And he’s happy that you’re still trying to learn.