Mountains in the Rearview Mirror

Where: Rocky Mountain National Park, U.S.A.

When: July 2010

Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T1i

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A reflection in a crystal-clear mountain pool? A break in the fabric of dimensions? Actually, it’s just an interesting way my camera dealt with my rear-view mirror while I was driving on Colorado’s Highway to the Sky.

/American Road Trip Plus

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Notes from the Cloud Forest

Monteverde Cloud Forest, Costa Rica – June 10th, 2008

When I was a child, I saw a cartoon set in the cloudforest of South America, and I had wanted to go there ever since. I was reasonable about it – I knew one couldn’t truly expect to find ancient ruins, hidden caves behind waterfalls, or the secret sanctuary of the endangered quetzal birds. Still, the name promised enough with its very essence – imagine, a forest set so high in the mountains that it rises into the clouds and is filled with mists… It’s like something out of a story book.

And it really is. Something out of a fairy tale and a sci-fi horror all together. Some of the plants growing in there were like nothing I’d ever seen, like the shoots of wet green, covered in dark spots as though, reaching a certain age, it would rise from the earth as a sentient being… plants whose roots pulled nutrients out of the wet, rich air itself, the monkey tree, which ends in spiralling branches so like the tails of monkeys…  and monkeys themselves, spider monkeys and howler monkeys, crashing through the leaves overhead, making the forest alive. And the mists swallowed everything, enshrouding the forest in mystery and leaving beads of moisture on everything that passed through it.

Lianas like those of a thousand jungle movies hung from the branches above, and disappeared below into the mists as we crossed swinging bridges hung over valleys. It was something from a dream, from another planet, from a fairy tale, from an earlier age in the long lifespan of the world… beautiful.

Perhaps I had learned something from O’Toole’s photography lecture at the volcano. Some things… you just remember. I didn’t take as many photos as usual there in the forest. Of the few I took, most failed utterly to capture the experience. The water everywhere, the wet echoes of footprints and screeching wildlife, the grey mists and sudden, jolting, flash of colourful wings, the heaviness of the air, when I almost expected to see my reflection, hovering in the mists ahead.

And the sloth. I have no picture of him, but that does nothing to diminish the memory. It looked at me, see. It was high up in the trees, covered in shaggy fur, tinged slight green by the fungus that grew there, and it looked down at me from there, the absolute picture of mischievous smugness. Not in a dog, not in a dolphin, not in a monkey, have I ever seen an animal mirror a human emotion so clearly. His little humanoid face peeked out at us through thick green fur with a knowing, mocking gaze – as if he knew he was special, knew we were staring at him in awe, and was laughing at us.

/A Walk in the Clouds

Basque Church

Where: Zumaia, Spain

When: November 2010

Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T1i

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I took this photo on a stormy November day, when a Basque friend had offered to show me some of the small villages that dot her region. Despite the weather, and although her car broke down the day before we’d planned to leave, we decided to press on by foot, bus, and coastal train. As the evening light turned the sky heavy colours, we came across this tiny church by the sea. I love the people huddled in the doorway, stretching out their goodbyes before they leave the cozy building under threatening skies.

Does the British Museum Transcend Liberal Ethics?

London, England – August 2nd, 2010

When I first entered the British Museum, I was ready to be filled with a sense of righteous liberal indignation. On a visit to the Acropolis a few years earlier, the Greeks had been only too happy to tell me where all the missing statues were – the friezes, the caryatids, the pediments – all in London, some ‘British museum’, a world away. But once I entered, I found it impossible to hold a grudge against the museum itself. The circumstances under which it obtained and holds such a diverse and rich collection may be controversial, but everyone agrees the collection is a marvel.

Under one roof, a visitor sees Egyptian wall paintings, the Rosetta stone, viking helmets and chess pieces, turquoise serpents, crystal skulls, records written in cuniform, totem poles, knives carved out of antler and decorated with reindeer, Roman mosaics, Arabic calligraphy wrought in metal, and yes, even the Parthenon exhibit. The museum’s official stance about its… erm… forcibly borrowed goods is that “The Museum is a unique resource for the world” which “exists to tell the story of cultural  achievement throughout the world, from the dawn of  human history over two million years ago until the present day.” It’s easy to question the purity of their true motives, but there’s certainly some truth there. I, for one, found myself enchanted despite myself.

/From the Lowlands to the Highlands

Cumbres Borrascosas

Where: Irati Forest, Spain

When: October 2010

Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T1i

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I took this picture while hiking and picking mushrooms in the Irati forest. The fog was so thick that day that for a long time all we could see was the path at our feet and the occasional feral pony. The cold,  white damp was eerie and isolating, like the setting of Cumbres Borrascosas – that’s Spanish for Wuthering Heights. I wondered vaguely how so much fog could form in a forest. Months later, while driving in the mountains, I was shocked to realize that I’d been on that road before. That day in the fog, we hadn’t realized we were surrounded by 2,000 foot high mountains!

/A Semester in the Basque Country of Spain

The Castle of Olite

Where: Olite, Spain

When: November 2010

Camera: Canon EOS Rebel T1i

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One morning at dawn, I climbed all the way up to the highest tower of the Castle of Olite for this view of the palace, the sleepy village below, and the wide agricultural fields that are just becoming visible on the horizon. According to the history books, the castle was once home to Navarre’s royal family, exotic pets like giraffes and lions, and hanging gardens modeled after those of Babylon. Today, the castle stands empty save for a modest number of tourists and a thick layer of rich, red ivy that spreads like a red carpet for kings long gone.

/A Semester in the Basque Country of Spain