Reading is the Best Way to do Some Travel
Aside from a great title, Redmond O'Hanlon's "In Trouble Again" is adventure/travel writing of the first order. The author's keenness on the history of exploration of the southern portion of Venezuela, bridging the drainages of the Orinoco and Amazon, is inspiring. However, I doubt I'll ever get around to even laying hands on most of the classic accounts he seems to have almost committed to memory (hazy recall did come to me of Wallace and his erstwhile fellow scientist in this area, probably either from Raby's bio of Wallace or Quammen's "Song of the Dodo"). And it's like having Roger Tory himself as your avatar as the fantastic tropical birds dart and circle:
For the first time we could compare all four green kingfishers, their backs an iridescent, dark, oily green which somehow caught the light even as they hid in the deep shadow of the overhanging foliage. The biggest, the Amazon kingfisher, would grip a twig higher up than the others and furthest from the bank, cack-cack-cack-ing as we drew level and he streaked downstream. The Green-and-rufous (which I only saw once), the next size down, skulked further back behind the leaves. The Green kingfisher, smaller still, was bolder but perched lower, and both birds, when flushed, made a noise like our stonechat, a gritty tick-tick. And lastly, the Pygmy kingfisher, which was difficult to spot, turned out to be quite common if you peered low into the darkest recesses near the bank for several travelling hours. It would flit away, never coming into the open, and peep-peep-ing to itself as it went. Apart from their size the kingfishers varied only in the different proportions of white and rufous and green on their throats and chests, an obvious case of one species evolving into four, a simple adaptation to different niches, to hunt different sizes of fish. It was all very satisfying, a flicker of easily comprehensible, natural logic in the impossibly complicated thrust and tangle of trees and bushes and lianas, of epiphytic orchids and bromeliads and ferns, an overarching presence of thousands upon thousands of different species most of whose names even Juan found it impossible to guess.
Short of being there, that writing seems to me to be close to as good as it gets.
But do not be misled. This is not your destination vacation, nor does the author skate around the difficulties, aside from uncanny ability to maintain a sense of humor and incorrigible appetite for exploration and adventure in the face of challenges that would give Indiana Jones nightmares. One of my favorite books from childhood, probably read at least ten times, was "Swiss Family Robinson," a book I could probably not get through today given its' contrivances. "Trouble" is the de-prettified un-Disneyed SFR. The first few pages of the book limn a number of delightful creatures that could very well be encountered on any visit to this wild region. How about the candiru, the tiny catfish or toothpick fish that has evolved bristles that allow it to invade the gills of larger fish and hold on, but also work well, in the rare event of a human happening along, for securing lodging after the delightful creature has made its' way into whatever orifice it encounters?
O'Hanlon also encounters, among ever so many others, tapirs, anacondas, peccary, coral snake, giant otter, harpy eagle, and bird-eating spiders (possibly the largest spiders in the world and nasty-sounding I would think for even the arachnophile). A treasure of unfamiliar critters, many potentially serious threats for any without direct linkage to Tarzan (or Disney).
But somehow it is the smaller creatures that have stayed with me, sometimes when I do not appreciate it, say when the lights are out. Like the assassin beetle, which a little impolitely defecates while chewing on you, leaving a deposit on skin that may include the necessary ingredients for potentially fatal Chagas' disease, should you indulge in the scratching that is almost inevitable. Or how about those human botflies, larvae that embed themselves in the skin and continue to dine painfully for a good long spell before emerging as inch-long maggots?
And then there are the famously violent tribes that inhabit the area, armed with bow-and-arrow and curare.
Anyway, this book put me in mind of the famous line in Butch Cassidy: "Next time I say let's go to Bolivia, let's GO TO BOLIVIA!" (At least that's how the line has been tatooed on my gray matter.) That line comes to mind at least a couple times a year, for various reasons. It would certainly be great to have the instinctive timing to head for the hills just before "they" (with or without white hats) close in. But remember what happened to Butch and Sundance in Bolivia. So in that spirit, if you go, I wouldn't trouble too much over whether it's Visa or American Express you're carrying - just don't let anyone named O'Hanlon help with the itinerary.
For the first time we could compare all four green kingfishers, their backs an iridescent, dark, oily green which somehow caught the light even as they hid in the deep shadow of the overhanging foliage. The biggest, the Amazon kingfisher, would grip a twig higher up than the others and furthest from the bank, cack-cack-cack-ing as we drew level and he streaked downstream. The Green-and-rufous (which I only saw once), the next size down, skulked further back behind the leaves. The Green kingfisher, smaller still, was bolder but perched lower, and both birds, when flushed, made a noise like our stonechat, a gritty tick-tick. And lastly, the Pygmy kingfisher, which was difficult to spot, turned out to be quite common if you peered low into the darkest recesses near the bank for several travelling hours. It would flit away, never coming into the open, and peep-peep-ing to itself as it went. Apart from their size the kingfishers varied only in the different proportions of white and rufous and green on their throats and chests, an obvious case of one species evolving into four, a simple adaptation to different niches, to hunt different sizes of fish. It was all very satisfying, a flicker of easily comprehensible, natural logic in the impossibly complicated thrust and tangle of trees and bushes and lianas, of epiphytic orchids and bromeliads and ferns, an overarching presence of thousands upon thousands of different species most of whose names even Juan found it impossible to guess.
Short of being there, that writing seems to me to be close to as good as it gets.
But do not be misled. This is not your destination vacation, nor does the author skate around the difficulties, aside from uncanny ability to maintain a sense of humor and incorrigible appetite for exploration and adventure in the face of challenges that would give Indiana Jones nightmares. One of my favorite books from childhood, probably read at least ten times, was "Swiss Family Robinson," a book I could probably not get through today given its' contrivances. "Trouble" is the de-prettified un-Disneyed SFR. The first few pages of the book limn a number of delightful creatures that could very well be encountered on any visit to this wild region. How about the candiru, the tiny catfish or toothpick fish that has evolved bristles that allow it to invade the gills of larger fish and hold on, but also work well, in the rare event of a human happening along, for securing lodging after the delightful creature has made its' way into whatever orifice it encounters?
O'Hanlon also encounters, among ever so many others, tapirs, anacondas, peccary, coral snake, giant otter, harpy eagle, and bird-eating spiders (possibly the largest spiders in the world and nasty-sounding I would think for even the arachnophile). A treasure of unfamiliar critters, many potentially serious threats for any without direct linkage to Tarzan (or Disney).
But somehow it is the smaller creatures that have stayed with me, sometimes when I do not appreciate it, say when the lights are out. Like the assassin beetle, which a little impolitely defecates while chewing on you, leaving a deposit on skin that may include the necessary ingredients for potentially fatal Chagas' disease, should you indulge in the scratching that is almost inevitable. Or how about those human botflies, larvae that embed themselves in the skin and continue to dine painfully for a good long spell before emerging as inch-long maggots?
And then there are the famously violent tribes that inhabit the area, armed with bow-and-arrow and curare.
Anyway, this book put me in mind of the famous line in Butch Cassidy: "Next time I say let's go to Bolivia, let's GO TO BOLIVIA!" (At least that's how the line has been tatooed on my gray matter.) That line comes to mind at least a couple times a year, for various reasons. It would certainly be great to have the instinctive timing to head for the hills just before "they" (with or without white hats) close in. But remember what happened to Butch and Sundance in Bolivia. So in that spirit, if you go, I wouldn't trouble too much over whether it's Visa or American Express you're carrying - just don't let anyone named O'Hanlon help with the itinerary.
posted by Sir Gumbo at 10:46 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home