What do an environmental grant, a photo equipment company and my first cousin have in common?

They all play an intrusmental part in my forthcoming journey to Sri Lanka. As I prepare, it occurs to me just how auspicious it is to have so much support from so many disparate sources.

First, a resounding thank you to David de Rothschild and his non-profit foundation, Sculpt the Future, who generously awarded me their Creativity for Change grant. The grant is supporting the entirety of this trip and some much-needed equipment back in the studio. How amazing is that? David, whom you might know from his incredible voyage on the Plastiki, also founded MYOO.com, a forward-thinking website bringing together people and fostering ideas about protecting our planet. I'm proud to be working with the talented folks at MYOO, starting with this in-depth interview on OLTW.

My next thank you goes out to Ron Egatz at the Mac Group, who very kindly brokered the loan of a lightweight yet heavy-duty Benro tripod for me to take on the road. Ron wrote up my project on the Mamiya blog last year, and has gone out of his way to see me properly outfitted. I've been lugging around a brick of a tripod, and heavy equipment can really take its toll physically (though I'm sure my years as an acrobat didn't help matters any either.) So on behalf of myself and my osteopath, I'd like to thank them for lightening my load.

And sometimes support comes in the form of sharing your knowledge and connections. It just so happens that my first cousin Laura's husband, Wijitha, is from none other than Sri Lanka. Though they now live in Virginia, Laura and Wijitha have been instrumental in helping me plan my trip. From giving me recommendations on where to stay and helping me find a driver, to discussing local customs and reaching out to their own contacts, I know my travels will be all the richer for their kind and thoughtful support. They also helped put my mind at ease in terms of safety as a foreign woman traveling alone. While the civil war is over, I'm first to admit I know woefully little about the intricacies and brutalities of the war or its lingering effects. (I recommend the New Yorker article from Jan 12th of this year for a thoughtful primer.) Thank you, Laura and Wijitha, and I look forward to swapping stories.

Ok, back to packing. Technology permitting, stay tuned for reports and pictures from the field over the coming two weeks... x

From the B62 to the Anuradhapura Bo tree

The pharmacist told me to take the Typhoid directly home. It was in the 90’s in New York yesterday, and I had just picked up my traveler prescriptions, including anti-malarials and some just-in-case antibiotics. The tiny box labeled “Live Typhoid” needed to stay refrigerated, so I hopped on the bus to spare it a hot walk down Bedford Avenue. Though harmless in its four blister-packed capsules, it was a heightened moment on New York City transit, a la La Jette or 12 Monkeys.

 

This is part of my travel prep for Sri Lanka, my next OLTW journey, which will be underway in a few weeks. Film? Check. Culturally appropriate clothing? Check. Immunizations? Check. I leave on August 1^st, and arrive in Colombo, the capital, on August 3^rd after what I’m sure will be a delirious 12 hours in Dubai, sandwiched by nearly 12-hour and 5-hour flights, respectively. (Sri Lanka, to save you the Google search, is the tear-shaped island off the southeast coast of India.)

And what is it I’m after, you ask? A 2,239-year-old banyan fig tree that lays claim to several distinctions:

• It’s the oldest historically cultivated tree on record
• It grew from a transplanted branch of the tree under which Siddhārtha Gautama attained enlightenment. As the story goes, the branch was brought to Sri Lanka under the specific instruction of the historical Buddha, planted in 228 BCE
• It’s one of the world’s oldest angiosperms. (That’s flowering plants, kids. Look that one up.)  The oldest angiosperm? Probably not. You might remember the ancient Olive and Chestnut I photographed in the fall that also meet that distinction. The Baobabs, too. Ooh, and the Llareta. You get the picture.

As I was calculating the exact age (um, yes: 2011 + 228) of the Anuradhapura Bo tree (which also happens to be a UNESCO site and one of the longest historically inhabited cites in the world), I was reminded of the “year 0” dilemma.  A number of numerical systems skip from - 1 to +1, as it were, without counting the zero. Sort of like buildings that eschew a 13^th floor. The Buddhist calendar does include a year zero, though it begins somewhere between 554 and 483 BCE. Which means that our 2,239-year-old tree just might be 2,240. But who’s counting?

 

Buongiorno Castagno

First look, Castagno dei 100 Cavali (5 exposures)

It's my second morning here in Sicily. Another overcast day, but that's my favorite shooting weather.  After settling in yesterday, I went directly to the Castagno dei 100 Cavali. It seems to be quite happy, large and green and heavy with the season's chestnuts. Today I'm trying to find out how to breach the protective fence which encircles it. I've just been instructed to find the traffic police in the town square -two women in a white car - and ask them to let me in.

I arrived here in Sant'Alfio yesterday afternoon, after a somewhat harrowing drive from Catania, where I had flown in the night before. Street signs, traffic lanes, signals - who needs 'em? Scooters and motorcycles whip by from all directions, pedestrians cross whenever and where ever they see fit, cars push their way towards/into/in front of wherever they're trying to go. One out of five streets seems to have a sign. I laughed aloud while driving up a busy, narrow two-lane street, the scooters scooting comfortably into the oncoming traffic... suddenly joined by an older woman in a motorized chair, wheeling her way up the street as a bus barreled towards them all from the opposite direction. No one seemed to find this unusual except me. 

Good thing I'm not a nervous driver.

And from that frenetic drive in Catania into the country-stillness of Sant'Alfio. It's quiet and peaceful here, birds breaking the near-silence amidst olive, apple, fig and plum trees that dot the still-working farm and one-time monastery where I'm staying. The farm dogs were kind enough to give me a walking tour when I arrived.

And on that note, it's time to get off the computer and back to the tree.  Oh, and feel free to check in on my Flickr stream, where I'm posting more images from my trip.

Ciao for now...

ENCOUNTERS AT THE (OTHER) END OF THE WORLD

so, say you were in greenland and were supposed to meet up with a group of danish archeologists that you had met once on their day off in qaqortoq via the evolutionary biologist that you had met through a planetary biologist that happened to be on the team that discovered the siberian actinobacteria whom you were introduced to at your friend the painter's new years eve party in brooklyn a couple years back. and say those archeologists left a message for you at heidi's hostel via their satellite phone (and say heidi didn't give you the most accurate message nor get their number) , and said that they were probably not coming to pick you up after all because their boat was sort of broken, and perhaps you could find your way up the fjord to sodre igaliku on your own.

lost yet? here's how it went down...

no, wait a second. did i mention martin was leaving for singapore and wasn't coming with? as i walked him over to the helipad he assured me i had the right name for the place, gave me the directive to "look for the yellow house" and laughed when i asked if i should be worried that it might not be so easy to find them and should i bring some food. a local with a power boat had agreed to sail me over. so, it was down to the harbor and all aboard ("all" comprised of myself, the boat's owner and his small son.) about an hour up the fjord we hung a right, entered an inlet that looked much like any other we had passed, and the captain proclaimed us arrived.

there are names for everything in greenland; you turn a corner and you're somewhere else. if there's any sort of structure or identifiable landmark, the place has a name. it reminded me of namibia in that way; if there was an uninhabited shack, it was a town, properly named and marked on the national map. that's how things are done in lands of few and far betweens. a lot of somethings are formed out of all that nothing. or rather, once you know how to look, you start to see what's been there all along.

and this was sodre igaliku. (actually, the first half of that is danish and the second half the greenlandic. i guess that makes it the equivalent of spanglish. danelandic? anyway.) there was absolutely no one to be found. after climbing across the rocks and through unbelievably sticky glacial mud, i spotted one of the safety orange arctic water safety suits [sic], tell-tale in that they are used only by non-natives. (DIGRESSION: there needs to be a new literary device that functions like "sic" only indicating that yes, i know that i misused/overused whatever it was, that i am not quoting someone else's mistake, but rather am aware of and intentionally employing the misuse. wait, got it! "yik" for "yes, i know." wow, problem solved. [yik].) ahem. so, sure enough, up the dirt road (the only option aside from back into the mud) was the yellow house. i was given a few parting words of advice in halting english -- there might be a sheep farm or two if i needed help...should i find myself alone in the middle of nowhere.

my water taxi now long gone, i strapped my camping backpack onto my back, my camera bag onto my front, and slowly made my way up the hill to the house. the door stuck, but was unlocked. people had been here, but i could see that they weren't staying there now. it was probably 5 or 6 pm. a tatered and very scary doll stared at me from the corner. i was in fact alone in the middle of nowhere. no way to call anyone. not sure of where to look for anyone. unsure if they knew i was coming or arrived.

i decided that i would do a little investigating. i ditched all but the cameras and started walking up the road. i had never been so alone with my thoughts. there were a few other structures around the yellow house, but all seemed to be in the throes of varying degrees of abandonment. but there was a sheep farm. a dog barked as i ascended a steep set of stairs. i knocked on the door and waited. i knocked again. a rather expressionless man opened the door, not in the least bit phased at a lone woman on his doorstep in middle of nowhere. he spoke no english, and i no greenlandic. i mimed looking. i mimed digging (you know, archeologists. digging.) i suddenly remembered that i had snapped a couple of photos of them from when we were back in qoqartoq, pulled out my digital camera, and showed him the people i was looking for. his expression did not change, but he gave an undecipherable nod, pointed down the road and said something about kilometers. and that was that.

the long twilight of the arctic in august had begun, and while i wasn't in any imminent danger of it getting dark, i wasn't exactly prepared to treck out further into the unknown without a tent. i decided to walk over the next ridge to get the lay of the land, counseling myself to sleep in the yellow house that night and start looking for my people the next day. as i started walking up the ridge i heard the sound of a small motor. (you can hear *everything* out there.) i smiled when a child on an all-terrain vehicle came into view. he jumped off and ran down to the river where a couple other children were fishing. children are fishing here. i am not going to die wandering the arctic steppes. i said hello, and they said hello back and smiled. i made the same digging motions and pulled out the digital camera again. they laughed and looked puzzled and tried out the few other english words they knew. i was getting no where, but at least i knew i must not be that far from somewhere. i pointed back towards the yellow house. maybe they would tell someone where to find me.

i walked back and made some food on the gas stove. there was no running water, but there was a jug in the kitchen, probably from the river. i lit candles and put them in the windows. i felt restless and aprehensive, but was trying to coax/coach myself into settling in for the night, and starting a proper search in the morning. a few hours later i heard a truck. a palpable weight lifted as a woman and her husband walked up to the door. the kids were theirs, this was their cabin, and they knew the archeologists. apparently they had split up into two groups since they hadn't found what they were looking for at the nearby dig site. one group was on the other side of the inlet, but the other was in fact down the road. i quickly stuffed my things back into my pack and off we went.

the group on this side was staying indoors in the area schoolhouse. it was dark when we drove up, but as we knocked and entered i realized a TV was on. this half of the team was made up of three CUNY students (yep: city university of new york.) they were watching pirates of the caribbean. they offered me a drink and said they were glad, if not surprised, that i found them.

it was probably the strangest day of my life.

THE 'TOQ OF THE TOWN

[NOTE: a vital part of the experience of being in greenland is a true disconnection from civilization...which is increasingly harder to come by anywhere on the planet. i did my best to embrace that distance while there, including writing the old fashioned way...and so i am transmitting out to the blogosphere now from the comfort and safety of my own digs in brooklyn.]

LOOKING FOR LICHENS NEAR QOQARTOQ

when i last sent word out from greenland, i was stationed at the only computer terminal in the qaqortoq public library, having just bade farewell to martin hebsgaard, the evolutionary biologist whom you might remember from my work with the siberian actinobacteria last summer. this was martin's second trip to greenland, and having learned quite a bit about ancient lichens out in the field last year, this time he was lending his expertise to group of archeologists studying norse ruins. the idea was to use data collected from the growth of slow-growing lichens to help date the archeological structures. lucky for me the dig sites weren't too far from where some of the oldest lichens live (rumored to be up to 5,000 years old), so martin suggested we meet up and go lichen hunting.

lichens, moss and liverwart

more on the lichens later, i promise.

when i arrived at siniffik/vandrehjem qaqortoq hostel (mercifully known as heidi's - greenlandic is practically impenetrable if you weren't born into it), martin was already there. a few of the archeologists had joined him from out at the dig site in order to come in for a hot shower and buy groceries for the week. they were roughing it out there, and if you ran out of food, well, you could always go fishing. qoqartoq, home to around 3,200 people, is the largest town in southern greenland and is a veritable booming metropolis compared even to its nearest runner up.

house, qoqartoq

though a little delirious from all that travel, i was happy to be there and take in the town. the brightly colored buildings hinted at the need to break up a monotone landscape most other months of the year. but it was august and wild daisies and poppies were in their last fits of bloom. short if steep hikes out of town yielded blankets of mosses and lichens, edible flowers and dwarf berry bearing shrubs, punctuated by the occasional succulent, orchid, and carnivorous plant. the surrounding waters looked as inviting as the caribbean, but the occasional iceberg making its way down the jagged fjords told a different story.

GREETINGS FROM GREENLAND

looking back at the blog it looks like i neglected to record the rest of my journey in chile down to patagonia and the alerce trees. guess that will have to wait as now i'm up at just about the opposite end of the earth.

GETTING THERE IS HALF THE BATTLE
aug 1 + 2

it wasn't easy, but i made it to greenland. first was a flight from JFK to rekyavik, iceland. we taxied on the runway for an extra hour, which made me very nerouvs about catching my connecting flight to greenland with less than two hours in between, and at another airport no less. luckily i convinced the airline to seat me right by the door, and i was the first out, running down the jetway, chugging the water in my sigg bottle at security as they scanned us all yet again on the way out, and finally out to the taxi i had arranged while still back at home. we sped away from keflavik to the regional airport, where i arrived 130 USD lighter and just in time to stand in line amidst a spanish tour group for our delayed flight. from there is was off to narsarsuaq. the views flying in were breathtaking, even if i was a bit delirious into my second day of travel. we arrived in town, which is little more than the runway and a youth hostel. my helicopter flight (the final leg of this part of the journey) wasn't scheduled until 6 that evening, and it was only a little after 10 in the morning. i asked, just in case, if their was space on an earlier one, and luckily a spot had opened up on the 11 am. so i was off to qaqortoq, my final destination of the day. the 20 minute trip was my first time in a helicopter, and both the mode of travel and the scenery were thrilling.

icebergs as seen from the helicopter

aug 6

it's now the 6th of august and i've had several days filled with rigorous hikes and lots of ancient lichens. the landscape is like walking in a field guide to arctic flora. it's cold and drizzly and a few icebergs are floating out in harbor. but now i'm about to take a boat out to the camp site at sodre igaliku where a group of archeologists (from Copenhagen and CUNY, of all places) have been studying norse ruins. i'll have to fill in the details of the last few days and the adventures of the week to come upon my return to civilization...

OUT OF ARICA

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

sure...i've been back in nyc for a few weeks now, but i'd hate to just abandon the story at 15,000 feet. when i last checked in i was still up in the altiplano getting a sunburn. (i used the SPF 45 in the morning, but neglected to re-apply after the mud bath. i'll blame the dizzying altitude and a little forgetful post-photographing bliss.) at any rate, after a final night in moutains and feeling very content to have found the llareta, we headed back down towards arica, stopping along the way to visit some old queñua trees which eliana had previously conducted extensive research on. we reached arica in the mid afternoon, tired and dusty, in time to buy some fresher than fresh fruit in one of the best farmer's markets i've ever seen.

i left arica for santiago the following morning after a rather unfortunate misunderstanding about daylight savings time. i had to laugh through my drowsy haze when an entire chilean football team got on the plane, the andes in full view. [to explain: before my trip i had asked my young cousin aiden mantelmacher (is that not the best name?) if he knew where the andes were. indeed he did -- because of his fondness for the movie ALIVE.]

SANTIAGO >> PUERTO MONTT >> VALDIVIA

after another restorative night in santiago in the home of the afore mentioned javier and bruna, i officially headed down to the cooler, rainier south for part II of my expedition: searching out the two oldest alerce trees on the northern borders of patagonia. i flew into the working port town of puerto montt, and after sorting out some problems with the my rental car (yes, i needed a 4x4, no, i couldn't drive stick, that's why i reserved the automatic), i wound my way through construction and detours onto the panamerican highway and got directly out of dodge.

i was relieved to find the drive from PM to valdivia an easy one, the roads well paved and well marked. it was my first time driving in south america by myself and i hadn't been sure what to expect. after the desert in the north, the waters of the rivers region seemed almost decadent. not quite enough so to quell the forest and brush fires that plagued the summer months, however. by mid afternoon i had made it into valdivia proper, a charming college town on a river and near the coast. on the advice of bruna's friend bernie i checked into the hostal above la celesa restuarant which turned out to be a private room in the family home of the folks who run the restaurant. i couldn't have been more pleased. i was their only guest, and an occasional baby crawled or scooted their respective ways into my room. that evening i met jonathan barichivich, colleague of alerce expert antonio lara, who would be my guide to a 3,500 year old alerce the following day.

THE ALTIPLANO

GETTING THERE IS HALF THE BATTLE

ok. so i last left off in arica, where i was getting ready to head up to the altiplano with eliana belmonte, expert in the workings of the atacama, and marisol, our dependable driver. eliana borrowed a camioneta (pick up truck) from the university museum, and we lit out into the desert. as we drove out of arica we were soon in some of the baddest bad lands i´ve ever seen - most assuredly the absolute desert. not a single thing growing. the roads where steep and windy, and we were climbing pretty quickly into higher and higher altitudes.

we stopped along the way at some delightful friends of eliana´s, who run a sort of DIY desert tour and education program. the outside looked a bit like a bright hippie compound, and inside there were all sorts of treasures - fossils, arrowheads, old pottery, star maps, a picture of einstein, and what at first looked like a dialysis machine which was actually oxygen. we were already at 10,000 feet, and i felt my heart pumping faster than usual. i had some oxygen and was taught a breathing exercise: take one hand, cross it in front of you, and hold the opposite nostril shut. breathe deeply. switch sides and do it again. repeat 10 times. after that, some oxygen, and some tea prepared from coca leaves and various twigs from plants retrieved by the kids from right outside, i was feeling right again.


PUTRE

that afternoon we made it to putre, a little town even higher in the altiplano, to acclimate before heading further up and out in search of the llareta. we all stayed in one room at the hotel kukuli, in clean, plain room with 3 beds taking up most of the floor space. after walking around town a bit in the late afternoon light, we headed to la paloma for dinner. its the kind of place that has one thing on the menu for the day, so since i don´t eat meat this posed a bit of a problem. i asked if they could fix me some vegetables to which the reluctantly agreed. eliana suggested they make some pasta as well -- verduras con fideos. what i got was a plate of spaghetti noodles. with nothing else. not so much as some salt and pepper. i tried adding what ever condiments were on the table; salt, salsa picante. it just wasn´t worth it. once back in sanitago i learned that la paloma has all sorts of businesses in putre - the restaurant, the hotel, and store, a postal service...but their primary focus is drug running over the near-by bolivian border. hence their lack of concern about my dinner.


THE LLARETA & PARQUE LUACA

the next day, after a good night´s sleep, it was time to look for the llareta. we drove out of town and further up into the mountains, now onto gravel roads. the landscape had changed significantly on our drive from arica to putre -- we started with the driest area nearest to the coast, eventually reached some candelabra type cacti that reminded me to the quiver tree (actually an aloe) found in namibia, and then into desert shrubs, some even green. when i saw the llareta for the first time i recognized it from photos i had seen immediately. it´s a rich green and as strange as i had imagined. many of them dotted the hillside, some more strangely formed than others, sort of like mutated topiary on steroids. i scrambled up a steep incline to get a better look and had to catch myself. we were up around 15,000 feet, and altitude sickness is nothing to take lightly. i did the breathing exercise and my equilibrium returned.

after i had taken it all in, we drove back to the main road and then on to the amazing parque lauca. as we entered the park flamigoes strolled around in a mountain lake, llamas and alpacas grazed, and enormous snow-topped mountains jutted from the high plains. after a walk along one of the lakes, home to many species of birds, eliana and i went up to the ranger station to ask about more llareta. the ranger agreed to accompany us to a rather steep and rocky site which he said was home to the oldest llaretta. we bounced along a rough road down to a lovely spot. the llareta were big, but probably not so much as the ones i photographed earlier. like many species, the are a number of factors involved in dating them, and a single plant has not yet been declared the oldest. so here´s to the educated guess.


MUD SLINGING

pleased as punch at the successful day of shooting, we drove back towards putre and made our planned stop at the termas, natural hot springs which can be found in the area. while there are some proper pools, my favorites by far were some pits dug into the earth, filled with varying degrees of hot water. better still was the mud pit, where you could add a little more hot water and take a shovel full of mud. exactly what a mud mask was meant to be. unfortunately the scene was slightly spoiled by some locals drinking in the pools. there´s a reason they tell you not to drink in hot tubs. it had definately gone to their heads.


LITTLE EATHQUAKES

i almost forgot to mention -- there are a lot of earthquakes in the region, sometimes as frequently as every day. apparently i experienced a couple while there, but i didn´t feel a thing.

THE ATACAMA DESERT

hola out there!  it´s been pretty much non-stop action since i arrived in chile a week ago.  don´t be surprised if this comes out a little spanglish ¿where to begin?....

ARICA

after a night in santiago (more on my time in santiago mas tarde), i flew to the town of arica , a less than idylic beach town with a lovely view of the ocean and a landscape that might as well be on the moon. the town´s other quirks include a pre-fab church designed by gustave eiffel (yes, the one and the same) and the fact that it plays host to an international surfing championship. there is as much seriously rocky shoreline as there is sandy beach, so one had better be a pro. arica has its charms as well, including one of the nicest markets i´ve ever seen, row after row of stands piled high with fresh fruits and vegetables, huge barrels of olivies, and pretty much anything else you could want.  the desert here has a way of revealing shocks of green, valleys that subsist on water from the mountains, making improbable farming possible.

TACNA, PERU

on day two up north i crossed the border into peru under the guidance of the muy amable marisol, who drove me over and shuttled me through the multi-staged customs paperwork. i was missing a paper on the way in, but apparently it wasn´t a problem.  the drive between these two border towns could haven´t been more starck.  the land (read: sand) is so completely devoid of resources (water, a bit of shade) that the peruvian goverement gives it away for free to anyone who might try to live on it.  small metal shacks sparcely dot the landscape like little ovens baking in the midday sun.  a sign mentioned something about an irrigation project; nearby someone watered a single plant with a bucket of water.

tacna itself, on the other hand, is bustling and bright.  anything and everything seems to be being bought and/or sold. (this includes inscense which claims to ward off bad things of all forms. yeah, i bought some.  marisol informed me it should only be burned on mondays and thursdays.) the chileans often cross the border to shop as it´s much cheaper.  the only trick is that the customs restrictions are pretty tight on what you can and can´t bring in, and violators are stuck with a fine.  worse, however, would be for instance if you were stopped for a long time at a stop light, and when you were distracted, someone bound a parcel of cocaine to the bottom of your car. then they call ahead to their buddies on the other side and tell them to keep a look out for you.  this didn´t happen to me. i´m just sayin.

before we leave peru, i just have to note the delicious lunch that marisol and i had, starting with a traditional multicolored corn kernals, toasted with a little oil and salt, yucca french fries, fresh grilled fish (don´t let all that talk of sand fool you...the ocean´s right there), and a fermented red corn drink, mazamora morada, that could almost be in the sangria family.  super-rico. 

THE ALTIPLANO

so all of that was basically the warm up, the real adventure starting with the trip up to altiplano in search of la llareta.  that definately warrents its own entry....

PHILLY & CHILE

hello out there. it's that time again...i'm heading out into the world in search of more old things.

BUT FIRST, PHILLY

before heading to south america, i'm heading as far south as the city of brotherly love to attend the closing reception for "IN THE BEGINING: exploring origins in contemporary art," an exhibition created by the graduate humanities department at the university of pennsylvania. a 44 x 54" print of one of my 2,000-year-old welwitchias will be on view. feel free to swing by if you're in town...fox art gallery, feb 29th (leap day!), 5 pm - 7 pm.

NEXT UP: CHILE (BY WAY OF CANADA)

i'm getting to chile however my frequent flier ticket dictates, and if that means going to toronto and retracing airspace back towards sanitago so be it. heck, it'll give me a chance to stock up on maple products on the way home. but i digress...

it's the tail end of summer down in chile. once there i'll be popping in an out of santiago several times as i make my way to the atacama desert of the very north and down to the valdivian temperate rain forest of the south. according to the internet, chile is anywhere between 2500 and 7833 miles long. (it really is amazing how difficult it is for people to keep even the driest of facts straight.) but i get the point: as much as a 20- or 30-hour bus trips have their own special charms, i'll be taking some intra-chile flights. chile is lucky to boast both of the oldest living things in south america: the ALERCE and the LLARETA. i want to spend as much time as much quality time with them as possible.

LLARETA (or YARETA)

the llareta might give the welwitchia a run for its money in terms of strange and interesting lifeforms thriving in inhospitable climates. first of all, it calls the atacama desert home. the atacama is the most arid place on earth, referred to as "ABSOLUTE DESERT" at its center. (philosophers: any possible relations to "absolute elsewhere?") some parts have not seen a single drop of rain since record keeping began. but lest we get too philosphical, the absurd comes to the rescue: the llareta is a member of the umbelliferae family making it a cousin of parsley.

so i'm going to find some 3,000-year-old parsley in the absolute desert.

the llareta actually looks more like mounds of moss, growing no more than a centemeter a year. because it is dry and dense, it burns well (like peat.) its function as fuel is actually endangering its survival, as even park rangers charged with protecting it have been know to burn it to keep warm on cold nights. i will find the oldest specimins with the help of botanist eliana belmonte. (eliana is a good friend of my friend tonia steed's step mother. tonia, who lives in seattle, agreed to meet me at the home of her step brother javier brstilo & his wife, artist bruna truffa in santiago which lead to the connection with eliana...but more on that story later.)

so from santiago it's up to arica, which is a stone's throw from the peruvian border. who knows, i may in fact throw a stone over, or perhaps just, uh, go for a visit. (whenever i think of borders now, the bone-dry riverbed separating south africa from zimbabwe in the kruger comes to mind. there is no fence, but there are lions. they tend to be indiscriminate in refusing entry.)

at any rate, more on the llareta from the field. after the desert it's off to the temperate rain forest...

THE ALERCE

the alerce (fitzroya cupressoides to be more precise) is a conifer in the cypress family, related to the giant sequoia found in north america. i'm in search of the "alerce millinarian", thought to be 3622 years old. i'll be meeting with the alerce's foremost expert, dr. antonio lara at the universidad austral de chile to get my facts straight. (many thanks to nate stephenson at the sequoia national park for helping to make that connection -- it's no coincidence that the alerce and sequoia experts are personally acquainted.)

the alerce millianiarn lives in REGION X. (i love the mysterioso, bermuda triangle quality, though i've since learned that the roman numeral has been repaced with the more descriptive "rivers region.") i'll be flying down to puerto montt (gateway to patagonia) and driving back up to the valdivia area before heading out to the national monument where it lives. (i have *got* to learn how to drive a manual transmission. it can be pretty hard to find an automatic 4x4 in certain far-flung places.) after that it's south of puerto montt to the ALERCE ANDINO NATIONAL PARK. the park is home to many old growth alerce, and the stump of what would have been the oldest known specimen.

stay tuned. more on all of this as it happens....

WEEKS 6 & 7: I SEE SCOTLAND, I SEE FRANCE

AUG 5: EDINBURGH (PT. 1)
i arrived in edinburgh in the late afternoon in the rain, returned my rental car, and headed to the center of town where i would meet a group of students from rollins college (where i will give a lecture on this project in september) lead by friend (not to mention professor and talented artist) rachel simmons. (check out rachel's blog for an alternate account of the next few days.) the fringe festival was in full tilt, and the city was buzzing with activity, the locals having long since split town. i slept with ear plugs to muffle an event in an adjacent building which raved on into the wee hours of the morning.

AUG 6: GLASGOW'S HUNTERIAN & THE FOSSIL GROVE
what seemed like mere hours after arriving in ediburgh, rachel and i hopped a train to glasgow. at this point in my travels i was starting to wing it when it came to the small stuff. (looking up directions ahead of time, checking for opening hours, for instance.) travel fatigue was setting in, combated only by my desire not to miss opportunities. i had been looking forward to visiting the fossil grove since i left new york, so that was first up on the day's loose agenda. after getting some completely incomprehensible directions from a scotish bus driver, we finally got to the bus station, chose a stop, and found a less heavily accented local to point us in the right direction.

the fossil grove is fantastic, and unlike anything i'd ever seen. the fossils are the remains of an ancient forest, around 330 million years old. unlike petrified forests, which are formed from the actual wood of the trees (growth rings ofter still in tact), these fossils are actually casts of their former selves, capturing the broken down wood (and other materials that would have entered the stumps) in fossil form, the bark long since broken away. the resulting forms looks more like clay sculptures than wood or rock.

next up was the hunterian museum, where we would meet with jim devine, head of multimedia at the museum and a friend of our friend (and talented artist) diana folsom. there were stuffed pigs with two heads and stuffed deer with two bodies and a single head. there were geological samples and explicit illustrations of the birth of gynecology. it was sort of a natural history museum greatest hits by way of ripley's believe it or not. (oddly enough, my hotel in copenhagen is next store to the danish ripley's. i haven't been in.) though there was something resonant here as well -- it was interesting to think of the oddities in terms of chance and anomaly -- they have that in common with the OLTW.

so the day was lousy with interesting things. i was pretty sure i was reaching my saturation point, however, when i looked out at a panoramic view of glasgow trying to reconcile some missing landmarks in the landscape -- until i realized i was, ahem, looking for landmarks in edinburgh. (the following week i would awake with a start on a plane to copenhagen, certain for a moment that i was in the back of a car in france.)

AUG 7-9: EDINBURGH (PT. 2)
but back to edinburgh it was. on the 7th we visited the large and pristine botanical garden, where i was happily surprised to see they had a william eggelston exhibition up. the following day was a hike up arthur's seat, a little highland landscape located within the bounds of the city. disinterested in a long walk around it's base to the gently sloping incline, rachel and i decided on a more adventurous route. after passing through a depression filled with some pot-smoking men, we scaled a cliff-like side, the weight of my ever-heavy camera bag strategically leaning forward as not to send me tumbling back down. we made it up (and back) uninjured. i'll have to take in the northern highlands next time. now it was time for france.

AUG 9 - 16: THE SOUTH OF FRANCE & A LITTLE SPAIN, TOO
a little time off couldn't have come at a better time. i won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that i swam in rivers, pools, and the ocean, hiked, biked, and ran, and ho mangiato molto bene. (yes, i know, that's italian.) as for other entertainments, leave it to the french to come up with the world championships of espadrille-kicking. contestants run up to the starting line, an espadrille perched on their kicking foot, and let 'er rip. surprisingly you don't seem to get points for flair, it's all about distance. the current world champ is measuring in at 25 meters. not bad.

DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON
but not all amusements are such fun and games. i also attended my first ever bull fight in bayonne. it was a first for the matadors, too -- it was a novillada, the first time they would fight the bulls publicly in the ring, not to mention all the way through to the death blows.

this was a complex experience, from deciding to attend in the first place all the way through the post-fight discussions. i'm going to have to save this one for a separate posting -- it warrants exploring.

ART IN THE AFTERNOON
since i was a hop, skip and jump from northern spain it seemed downright silly not to take in the guggenheim bilbao. while all the controversy about gehry's involvement in the ratner development in brooklyn has put me off of him (not to the point that i'm wearing a "fuck frank gehry " tshirt, mind you), i have to admit that the guggenheim is worth its salt. (and if you know my feelings about salt you know that i wouldn't say that lightly.) my highest compliments go to how the space compliments the richard serra work. if fact i've never seen it done better. (sorry MoMA, dia, gagosian.) the monumental anselm keefer's also seemed right at home. not surprisingly i was particularly taken by keefer's works incorporating star maps and "the secret life of plants."

it's remarkable that some art and architecture managed to put an old ship building town on the world map.

NEXT UP
the last stop (!) on this OLTW trip: siberian bacteria in copenhagen.

OUT OF AFRICA

WEEKS 4 & 5: LONDON, DUBLIN, KERRY, & DUBLIN

phase 1 of the trip was over. i was back in london, bleary-eyed, navigating heathrow to one tube line to another, out to my friend beverly's house (an old classmate from the SVA photo program and former co-worker at NBC) where i would remain rather firmly planted for the next couple of days. i had made grand plans to visit the tate and kew gardens (at the very least), but realized that recouping from the previous 3 weeks of activity was just about all i could hope for. that, and dealing with the reality that my trip was not yet half way over and i was running out of film.

one would think that a city like london would stock fuji 220 film (i shoot medium format on the mamiya 7 II, in case you were wondering.) i started calling camera stores around the city, figuring it wouldn't take more than a call or two to track some down. i called at least 10 stores. then i started calling dublin. then ediburgh. the film i needed was no where to be found within a 200 mile radius, though they would be happy to special order it for me in a week's time and at twice the price. i was about to start pulling my hair out, but instead put in an order to B&H back home in new york, and had it sent to county kerry, ireland, where i would be the following week. it made it there in time, and i smiled to see that it was shipped from the brooklyn navy yards, where i had been regularly riding my bike before leaving for this trip. now if only i can get a VAT refund...

anyway.

after london i headed for dublin. it was my first time there, and i was lucky enough to have a friend (the lovely and talented bren mcelroy) to stay with, and some friends of friends to meet at project arts centre. (check out the PLAY SAFE show if your in the neighborhood.) and then i was off to county kerry.

the green of countryside and the sudden outbursts of rain were a welcome change after the weeks of african desert. the aforementioned rachel holstead (RH) and her family graciously hosted my visit there. stay tuned for photos from the dingle agricultural festival, one of the highlights of my visit. i was also quite taken by the "film club," which takes place every tuesday night in town. tea and coffee are served, and everyone in the theater seems to know everyone else. each week an arty or otherwise interesting film is introduced by (not to mention selected by) the theater's elderly owner. this particular week he said a few quiet words at the front of the theater in honor of ingmar bergman (who had just passed away) and then pulled out a copy of the new yorker to read a review of the film he would show the following week. as a finishing touch he held up a poster for the film's theatrical release (first upside down, then backwards) before the lights went down.

the week flew by as i got in a combination of much-needed sleep and hiking. i grew used to the fact that there was still some light remaining in the sky at 11pm. then it was back to dublin on august 2nd, which included a repeat visit to project, a first visit to the irish museum of modern art (IMMA), and a stop at cultivate, a sustainable living center with a fantastic selection of books. i wanted at least 4, but restrained myself in light of the fact that i was already traveling over the legal ryan air limit and had already sent two packages home to myself to lighten the load. speaking of flying, please let me know if you're interesting in helping to offset my carbon emissions for this project. i'm taking 14 separate flights on this trip alone -- counterintuitive for environmentally sensitive work to say the least.

NEXT UP:
off to scotland for a visit to the fortingall yew, the oldest tree in europe.

WEEK 3, PART 2: MT. ETJO, WINDHOEK, & CAPE TOWN

JULY 18: MT. ETJO
i awoke on a king sized, rock-hard bed under a synthetic leopard print bedspread, glanced over at the leopard print curtains, and considered a bath in the giant, sunken tub. mt. etjo is an aging safari lodge lodged pretty firmly in the 70's. my room was dubbed "the bachelor pad" on sight. the setup of the place is somewhere between a wildlife park and a disney attraction. right across the lawn, with a little electric fence between us, was a large watering hole teaming with activity. a group of hippos were in residence, along with countless antelope, enormous storks, and baboon. if the water wasn't enough to lure them all to stay within comfortable viewing range of the lodge, salt licks and bales of hay sealed the deal. one can wake up, grab a coffee, and pull up a chair to watch the morning's goings on.

in the afternoon tea and cake is served. next to the flamingos.

the main draw to the lodge are the (dirt cheap) safari drives, where extensive wildlife sightings are guaranteed. while many of the animals on site were once native to the area, they are long since hunted out and the current ones brought in from other locations. elephant, giraffe, zebs, black rhino, white rhino -- they're all there. finding wildlife at mt. etjo is more like finding a needle in a pincushion than a haystack. (don't get me wrong -- it's great if your goal is to set eyes on them, though not exactly 100% natural.) the larger animals even get attention from vets when necessary.

the other main attraction offered by the lodge is a nightly lion feeding. the lions are kept in separate part of the park from the rest of the game, and while they do have space to roam, they are not exactly in a natural habitat. every night, tourists stashed safely in a hide, a skinned carcass of some animal or other (zebra, kudu, etc.) is put out for them to eat -- chained to the spot in front of the hide so they don't do something silly like drag their dinner out of view.

i opted it out of this activity for several reasons, primarily because the unnatural spectacle of the whole arrangement didn't sit quite right with me. RH and CM attended, and after hearing their vivid reports of the sounds and smells of the event, i was not sorry to have missed it.

JULY 19: DINOSAUR FOOTPRINTS & WINDHOEK
in the morning we packed up and headed out of mt. etjo for our last full day in namibia. the road which had housed so many dangers two nights before seemed innocent in the daylight. we were driving to see the nearby dinosaur footprints. george, our naturalist friend from the namib desert, had discussed our route and plans with us before we left the swakupmund area. we had mentioned the footprints to him, to which he offhandedly remarked "once you've seen one set of dinosaur footprints you've seen them all." "but we've never seen any," i immediately replied. so off we went, a fitting last stop after all that searching for old things, these in a different age bracket entirely. as george has warned us, they were indeed small, circled in white paint lest you breeze past them. but they were a lovely sight. you could almost imagine being the first person to stumble upon them and the excitement at realizing what it was you had found.

we drove on to windhoek, namibia's capital (population 200,000, to put it in perspective.) it felt like an odd little jolt to be in a city -- even a small one -- after being out in all that openness. somehow time had folded in on itself, and i had been enveloped in those great expanses and experiences of those 3 short weeks. it was almost time to leave.

JULY 20: CAPE TOWN
in the afternoon, having bid adieu to CM in windhoek in the morning, RH and i flew back to cape town. we headed straight to kirstenbosch upon arrival, where i had the aforementioned meeting with ernst van jaarsveld. ernst separated welwitchia facts from fiction for me --and informed me about two other OLTW to add to my list: a leadwood tree in namibia and elephant's foot on the eastern cape, both safely over my 2,000 year minimum age.

looks like i'm going to have to come back.

WEEK 3, PART 1: TWYFELFONTEIN TO MT. ETJO

JULY 16: SWAKUPMUND & TWYFELFONTEIN
satisfied at the previous day's welwichia watching, (or "velvitchia vatching," if you will -- namibia was once colonized by the germans), we finally got to an internet cafe that actually provided internet access, stocked up on water and snacks for the car, and headed towards twyfelfontein (which means doubtful spring, in case you were wondering.) but a few more words about swakupmund before we go:

imagine a german idea of an african beach town. now imagine the abandoned feeling of a beach town just about anywhere in the world in the off season. and then consider the fact that in this particular town, it can get hotter in the winter than in the summer. and so it was: sunny and quite hot, all the shops closed, hardly a person in sight. i saw a poster for the swakupmund high school production of grease...unfortunately i didn't get the chance to take it in. next time.

so off we were headed to tywfelfontein, the draw of which is the concentration of ancient rock engravings and paintings from as recently as 2000 years ago and as far back as 6000, with a lovely lodge near by. (in most of namibia, small enclaves arise at points of interest in what otherwise is the middle of nowhere. the staff often live on site, returning to their actual homes during the intervals between shifts often lasting a few months. namibia is a large country with a small population. people know one another here.) we drove north and inland, having skipped a diversion up the skeleton coast to see seals in order to give ourselves the much-needed gift of a short car ride for the day. (at this point we were nearly 2/3 of the through the country towards its northern border with angola.) we arrived early in the afternoon, just in time to rent some bicycles and ride out into the gorgeous landscape, grasses, sage colored shrubs and small mountains glowing in the low light, and then out to the gravel airstrip as the sun was setting. speaking of airstrips, i should mention that i hardly saw a plane overhead the entire trip through namibia. no contrails, no light pollution. just uninterrupted sky.

that night we signed up for a stargazing trip, where we drove out of range from the lights of the lodge equipped with a small telescope and a german astronomer with a thick accent and dubious credentials. if only i could do justice to the description of the sky. the milkyway stretched, clear as a bell, from one end of the horizon to the other. the only interference was the dust that ringed the horizon, remnants of that sand storm we had heard about earlier in the week. there were shooting stars less fleeting than languishing through space, then succumbing to the darkness. it was a gift of the sublime to be looking at that sky, though little realities creaped back in: it became cold and late, and a group of american retirees ostensibly also out to see the stars were tending more towards carrying on like teenagers. it was a good night, and we were getting up at 6am the next morning for a 3-hour sunrise hike.


JULY 17: TWYFELFONTEIN, THE PETRIFIED FOREST, & AN ORYX IN THE NIGHT
i awoke about 10 minutes before our sunrise hike was to begin, threw on my boots, and hurried over to the lodge to get a few precious sips of coffee before we set out. i had become used to an early-to-bed, early-to-rise routine, and had gone to sleep well past midnight. and if you know me you know how serious i am about my morning coffee. but i digress. we started up a steep and rocky incline, following our guide, thankful to be outside before the days heat took hold. rock paintings were on the route. it's still untouched enough in the area to imagine yourself standing in the same spot thousands of years earlier. i was glad to come in contact with some human elements from the same era as my subjects for my work, a longevity of another sort.

tywfelfontein itself has a visitor center, and guided informational tours are included with the small fee for admission. the site consists mostly of engravings as opposed to paintings, with local animals as almost exclusive subject matter. i found one of a lion with a hand at the end of its tail to be the most compelling, believed to have been created by a shaman. also of particular interest were some engravings of penguins and seals, a sign that they had travelled to the coast, though they read more as sketches done from memory than the confident renditions of more familiar giraffes and antelope.

it was at least 1pm as we completed the tour, sun high and very hot overhead, us having been swept into the walk without a chance to run back to the car for water or proper shoes. i was dehydrated (and apparently delirious, since at the time it seemed like a good idea to drink a pineapple fanta back at the visitors center. i quickly regained my senses and switched back to water.) there was a gift shop as well, filled with local crafts from a community job-building program, each individual item sweetly labeled with the name of the person who had made it. as we lingered, enjoying the shade and admiring the goods, some of the staff approached us and asked for a ride back to the local village. we ended up driving two women a few miles, a favor to them but really a tread for us as they spoke damara nama as we drove -- a wonderful language containing a number of different clicking sounds. (we tried a couple basics, my name is ____, thank you, etc, with little accuracy or hope of retention.) one of the women shared a story (in english) of how she had made a comment about a japanese man who had walked into the center -- "wow, he's tall!" she had exclaimed to one of her co-workers, only to have him retort, without a beat and in her own language, "you should be careful what you say!" she sticks to english now to avoid further embarrassment, though she was also impressed at how well and how quickly this stranger had learned her language.

next on the agenda: the petrified forest, though not before stopping in a ditch on the side of the road to make some sandwiches. we laughed as the dust from passing cars settled on the food and stuck to our hands, sticky with oranges and peanut butter. when we got the petrified forest we asked for the whirlwind tour: i was headachy and tired from the dehydration and lack of sleep, but i certainly didn't want to miss it. and i'm so glad we didn't. i was surprised to learn that the petrified trees are conifers -- incongruous in the desert as there isn't a living conifer in sight. but let's not forget the welwitchia! the following week, at ernst van jaarsfeld's office in kirstenbosch, the very first thing he did was show me a terribly familiar photo he had taken of a welwitchia -- a conifer -- growing at what would have been the crown of the largest of the petrified trees at this very site. what an energizing light of recognition.

so we had really packed in a lot of activity in the last 24 hours, and now we were in for a long drive to mt. etjo safari lodge. as the light crept towards dusk and then into darkness, the small roads got smaller and animals made themselves at home in harm's way. CM was behind the wheel, avoiding rabbits, steinbok, a large male kudu, guinea fowl, and horses. it was dark and getting late as we got closer to the lodge. i saw some eyes on the side of the road, figuring it was a grazing horse or donkey that was likely to stay put as we drove past. it turned out to be neither equine or sensible, but rather an oryx, huge and confused, bolting out in front of our car. i cried out to CM, who had not yet seen it, just in the nick of time, and she swerved and braked us to safety.

shaken and tired, we made it to the lodge, through the security gate (the one that keeps the animals in), and checked in for the night.


NEXT UP:
the quirks and charms of mt. etjo, a night in windhoek, and one last day in cape town.

WEEk 2: TAKE 2

my goodness! please forgive the long delay in my posts -- i had no idea i was going to be offline for so long...but man was it well worth it. namibia is a fantastic country, and i am now back in cape town and heading to london tonight...but let me rewind and bring you up to speed.

JULY 9: SPRINGBOK
we had one last breakfast at lola's cafe in cape town before hitting the road. oh, and a rather comical stop at a petrol station where the 3 of us, 2 petrol station attendants, and 1 helpful bystander all failed to figure out to pop the hood on our new volvo. (it remained a mystery until the following afternoon when CM found the latch behind what seemed like a scsi connection and a mess of wires.) while there we bought a gas can for extra fuel to keep in the boot just in case. (rule of thumb: any time you see a map of an entire country which has little fuel pump icons on it, bring along some extra.) and in yet another comical turn of events, some one drove up to the station and handed the requested gas can out the window and over to one of the attendants in what seemed like mere seconds after i had requested it. last but not least, our car of course needed a name, so we chose "val kilmer," partially for the dark and brooding actor himself (the car being light and airy), and also in homage to the graffitist in williamburg, brooklyn who's been tagging the aforementioned around the neighbourhood.

so we were off to a good start.

we stopped by the lovely, flamingo-filled west coast national park after driving a bit up the atlantic coastline, and made it to springbok, a small blue-collar mining town, after nightfall. it was a long day's drive through beautiful and varied landscape...with much more to come on both fronts. that night, RH and i had dinner in a restaurant called "the godfather," which felt more like a dated eastern european hangout than a restaurant in a small town in south africa. the next day we would cross into namibia. CM and i were already pretty tuckered out from the previous week's adventure, so we were at least glad to find that the road conditions were leaps and bounds better than those in eastern SA, despite the clouds of sand and dust the trailed our vehicle and left us in temporary blindness when oncoming traffic passed.

JULY 10: FISH RIVER CANYON
i started the day with some concern: i had received an email from my contact at the gobabeb desert research center (whom i had been in contact with for some time in order to locate and learn about the oldest welwitchia mirabilis...the very reason i was in namibia in the first place), which stated that absolutely no one would be in the research center during the time i would be in the area. further more, if were to try to locate the plants on my own, i would require a 4 x 4 vehicle, which val was not, in addition to a special permit. there was no way i was going to go all the way to namibia and not get to see what i came for, so i called nicole, sister of a friend of a friend, not to mention a namibian travel agent who had set up our entire itinerary, and asked for help. she called chris, a well-known naturalist in swakupmund, and got things rolling in the right direction again. when i followed up with chris he had answered his cell phone in the middle of a desert sandstorm. it seemed prudent to finish the planning later.

so: off to namibia. the landscape got more and more arid as we drove north, and seemed to give into it completely as we crossed the border, demarcated by the orange river -- one of the few rivers in either country that actually contained any water. (the term "river" is used loosly here -- one river i was told about flows for only about 4 hours a year. "river bed" is more like it.) we were headed for fish river canyon, which may or may not be the second largest canyon in the world after the grand. (it was formed when the bottom dropped out, millions of years ago, as opposed to having had eroded.)

nicole had managed to book us in at the cañon lodge, despite our small budget, and we couldn't have been more appreciative. it was not yet evening when we arrived, and the drive in had been absolutely stunning as we began to view glimpses of the canyon in the expansive landscape. the lodge itself consists of thatched-roof bungalows, nestled into the boulders strewn around the area. they grow a large percentage of their own food, keep their own animals, and bottle their own mineral water (the latter we learned was not at all uncommon.) so we checked in, smiles on our faces at a chance to unwind in such lovely surroundings and glad that the drive had been a short one. we went on a sundowner walk, not the most rigorous of hikes as a cooler of beer awaited at the top, but a lovely way to unwind none the less. i had been on the lookout for clonal aloe on our drive earlier per dr. braam van wyk's suggestion, but had not found any, nor did our guide for the walk seem to be familiar. i guess there was nothing to do but enjoy the quiet beauty of the place.

JULY 11: FISH RIVER CANYON, DAY 2
we all awoke early, excited to be staying another night and to see more of the surroundings. we signed up for the sunrise walk (we would see many sunrises and sunsets over the next two weeks), and then later in the morning, for horseback riding. the walk actually started with a drive, were we parked, had coffee, and watched the sunrise by some quiver trees. the quiver trees are in the aloe family, and can live to be several hundred years old. (not old enough for my project, but photogenic none the less.) they're named as such since their branches are easily hollowed out and were actually used as quivers for bow hunting. we then walked back to the lodge, leaving the safari jeep behind.

next was the horseback riding. they had asked us if we had any experience riding when we signed up -- RH and CM said just a little, and i professed that i was an experienced rider. in retrospect it might have been wise to have considered the context -- while thus far we were having very tame walk-and-beverage service style activities, i hadn't taken into consideration that namibian farm horses might not be as tame as the ones i'd been used to. they put me on a very ornery horse. his ears were plastered back the whole ride (a clear indication of his displeasure), as he was fighting with me (and the other horses) the entire way. this was a trail ride, mind you, and nothing i would have ever blinked twice at, but when the stables were in view again, one of the horses went for a trot, and mine went for a full on gallop. i was not at all pleased, and not in very much control either. he was heading straight for a tree, on which i think he intended to impale me, and when that failed was still going full throttle towards the high fence of the corral. afraid that he might be crazy enough to try the 8-foot jump, i rolled off to the side, off the horse, and into the dirt and bottom rungs of the corral. i was left with some serious bruising to my knees, hip, and nose, but knew that nothing was torn or broken (a good thing since medical assistance was ages away.) just black and blue and shaken up. there was nothing to do but ice down the swelling and sip some scotch. a mighty thanks goes out to gymnastics, trapeze, and streb, all of which played a role in teaching me how to fall safely from high speeds and great heights.

JULY 12: KEETMANSHOOP & SESRIEM
the next morning we had our last breakfast at cañon, made ourselves some PB&J sandwiches for the road, and headed out for keetmanshoop, home of the quiver tree forest. i was limping and in no shape to drive, so CM took on the task for the day. keetmanshoop is a funny little town, complete with a "central park" and a hungarian restaurant. we made a trip to the grocery store, stocking up on rusks, rye crackers, oranges, etc, all of which would be ground into the car at some point or other along with dropped vitamins, dripped sunscreen, and spilled water. (the windshield was cracked, too -- more a chip, really, but once again a rock spit up by a passing car hit us dead center, breaking the glass. this seems so common at the rental car places here that they didn't even charge me for it.)

anyway, we headed out for the quiver trees, me still limping and shuffling in the midday heat. the trees were impressive, but somehow less personal in this touristy campsite then they'd seen on our sunrise walk. they also kept cheetahs or leopards captive on site, which we opted out of seeing. we got back in the car and pressed on towards sesriem, deeper into the desert and home to some of the largest sand dunes in the world.

we drove into the darkness, the landscape transforming from large barren flats back into small mountain passes. we'd have to wait until morning to see what the distance and daylight would reveal to us.

JULY 13: SESRIEM: SOSSUSVLEI & DEAD VLEI
we awoke to sweeping desert plains offset by mountains. the were staying in the half wood/half tent structures ("the camp") similar to the platform tents by the kruger and sunland baobabs. they had rattled and bellowed wildly in the night’s winds. we wondered if sandstorms were in our future. but the day was clear and bright (and HOT), and after breakfast we headed for the vleis (a term roughly indicating a place where water collects allowing for plants to grow there...in this case when or if there is some.) we crossed into the namib naukluft park -- the first of many forays into this vast and varied desert park.

the landscape was fantastic, and when we reached the red-hued dunes we were all smitten. we slathered ourselves with sunscreen and headed out, sand blowing off the creases of the dunes against the deep blue sky. we were going to attempt the 2 km walk from the parking area to dead vlei, me still on the slow side, but not in too much discomfort. we were trudging along the sand road in the blazing sun for who knows how long, not there yet, when one of the shuttles (an open safari jeep) offered to pick us up. we accepted. we joked that we must already be there, and the ride would be just around the corner, but was we drove on and on we realized we'd made the right decision in saving our energy for the short walk out to dead vlei. dead vlei, as it sounds, no longer supports any plant life. what it does have, however, are the skeletons of dead trees, which have been standing for over 500 years in the place where they once grew. they were luminous and haunting in the stark landscape.

we were exhausted from the heat as we trudged back through the sand, without a thought of attempting the walk all the way back to the car. amazingly enough we all managed to avoid getting sunburnt, a seemingly impossible feat, us all being fair skinned and having spent an entire day in the direct desert sun. getting back to the car was a little comical, but i'll save that for another time.

JULY 14: WALVIS BAY & SWAKUPMUND
time was up in sesriem, and we headed towards the beach towns of walvis bay and swakupmund, where we would stay for two nights. i was back behind the wheel, and we were looking forward to seeing the ocean. we drove through a different part of the namib desert, stopping in an absolutely charming town called solitaire. (towns in namibia, btw, seem sometimes not to exist at all, or could be a single house. this one had a gas station and restaurant, not to mention was home of the solitaire festival.) i had been told to ask for moose, owner of the establishment, to get instructions for finding some strange grass formations known as fairy rings, but he wasn't going to be in until later in the day. instead we just enjoyed the surprising, sort of nostalgic wabi sabi aesthetic of the place, ate some just baked apple cake, picked up some local crafts and a much-needed hat.

by this stage in the trip i was learning the limits of what i could and couldn't do -- it was much more important to press on towards the welwitchia than wait for moose. it was one of the many times during the trip that i wished i had more time -- it easily could have been 3 months instead of 3 weeks without a moment of boredom.

so the grasslands transformed into down and dirty desert -- nothing but sand and dust as far as the eye could see, then just as suddenly transformed again into dark, craggy mountains, nothing done in small scale. we continued to keep an eye on the horizon, looking for sandstorms which we would not find. it turned out the light we had seen was not a break in the dust, but rather the ocean, spotted from some distance away. as we got close to walvis bay we were stopped at a roadblock. not curious of who we were or why we were there -- the block was for a movie being filmed -- a war film set in the middle east. as we waited two pickup trucks with costumed actors holding machine guns were getting ready to make the scene, fake oil barrels, tanks, the works all strategically placed along the highway. we laughed, took pictures, and drove on to catch the sunset over the atlantic.

later we drove north to swakupmund, where i had still not secured my route to the welwitchias, or even which were the exact ones that i needed to see. i was getting concerned. since our itinerary was all booked and paid for, staying an extra day would mean major hassles and financial repercussions. we finally found an open internet cafe, not having had access for a week, only to find the gmail was down, or at least not accessible on their terribly slow connection. to add insult to injury the phone wasn't working either, but finally i got a phone card and got through to chris (i found in namibia that sometimes you'd have to dial a number a few times to get through -- sometimes nothing would happen, sometimes you'd get the wrong person.) i explained my predicament in more detail and he arranged to have his colleague george take us all on a welwitchia tour the following day. chris convinced me i would see what i needed for my project. i breathed a sigh of relief, if a tentative one. we'd see how it would go in the field.

NEXT UP:
welwitchia, ancient rock engravings and paintings at twyfelfontein, a petrified forest, and a very scary almost-collision with an oryx on the road to the mount etjo safari lodge. but right i have to hop on a plane from cape town to london. more soon from the UK!

WEEK 2: CAPE TOWN TO SWAKUPMUND

phew! there's a lot to report and barely a moment to do it...but just a quick note to say that i'm doing well, loving namibia, and just returned from a sucessful day of photographing ancient welwitchia and acacia. more to come as soon as i can!

r

itinerant

Well, it’s that time again. I am leaving New York in search of the next batch of Oldest Living Things in the World. This trip is a big one – not only will it be my first time in Africa, it will also be the longest trip I’ve taken to date, weighing in at 7 1/2 weeks. Where exactly am I going and why? So glad you asked:

Johannesburg, South Africa: JULY 2 – JULY 7
This stop consists of a round trip road trip to visit several of the oldest Baobab trees and Pyrogenic Geoxylic Suffrutices, known as the “underground forests” of Africa. Classical pianist and neuroscientist-to-be Christine McCleavey will join me in Joburg, where we will meet up with Baobab expert Diana Mayne, who has graciously planned a multi-day Baobab viewing tour, complete with the occasional ranger to keep us safe from lions and leopards and hippos, oh my! Before leaving Joburg I’ll be visiting some underground forests courtesy of biologist Braam VanWyk from the University of Pretoria.

Cape Town, South Africa to Namibia and back: JULY 7 - JULY 21
After spending a few days in Cape Town I’ll be taking another road trip – this time to Namibia to photograph the Welwitchia Mirabilis (with guidance from the Gobab Training and Research Center), hopefully having tracked down some ancient clonal Aloe claviflora (another tip from Braam VanWyk) en route. The lovely and talented composer Rachel Holstead (a friend from my residency at the MacDowell Colony), will join Christine and I for this exciting leg of the trip.

London: JULY 21 – JULY 25
No, there aren’t any oldest living things in London that I’m aware of, but there are good friends and the Tate Modern to visit.

Dublin and Kerry, Ireland: July 25 – Aug 3
No oldest things here either, but I don’t plan on letting that stop me from non-stop photographing. Ireland’s been on my list to photograph for a while, so thanks to the above mentioned Irish native Rachel Holstead I’ve been invited for a visit to photograph, squeeze in some more research, and re-coup.

Edinburgh, Scotland: Aug 3 – Aug 9
And back to old things in Scotland. The town of Fortingall, apparently replete with Roman history, is also home to Europe’s oldest tree, the Fortingall Yew. It’s located not so very far from Edinburgh, where I will be staying with yet another artist named Rachel that I met at a residency – this one is the lovely and talented visual artist Rachel Simmons (who shares my interest in the intersection of science and art), who just happens to be taking some of her students from Rollins College to the Fringe Festival at the time.

Sorde L’Abbey, South of France: Aug 9 – Aug 16
Vacation, pure and simple.

Copenhagen: Aug 16 – Aug 23-ish
The last stop on my trip is Copenhagen, where I will be experiencing another first – photographing the world's oldest viable microbes under a high-powered microscope. This ancient bacteria is from Siberia, but has been transported to Denmark for study at the Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen. Special thanks goes out to Sarah Stewart Johnson at MIT for telling me about the Bacteria, and Martin Bay Hebsgaard of the the University of Copenhagen's Ancient DNA and Evolution Group who will guide me through the lab. I’ll try not to break anything.

I don’t have my return ticket yet, but I plan to be coming home around Aug 23rd.

I hope to keep you posted as I travel, so stay tuned!

- r