more pictures
Nov. 1st, 2004 11:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lapsedmodernistYesterday I went mountain-biking (that's right, hahahaha, me on a mountain bike) down the Pichincha Volcano and into the Cloud Forest. It was breathtakingly beautiful and I was concentrating very hard on not flying off the bike (I fell twice, and my final verdict is, I prefer horsies), and so the goal of not thinking about the election for a few hours was achieved. Here are some pictures, in order of descent:
This is at 4600 meters (or 15,000 feet) and it's fucking cold
Flora in the vicinity of the top
Flora at about 4000 meters
About halfway down the volcano, there are literally fields of these flowers
The Andes: a view
no, it's not The Shire, it's the Highlands
Approaching the Cloud Forest (yes, that white stuff is clouds)
I love the Cloud Forest because when I visit, I channel my 12-year-old fairy-tale-obsessed self, and really, doesn't it look enchanted? Like the trees in the distances are either covered by enchanted mist, or the whole forest is somewhere in the sky.
This next picture reminds me of a poem...In Russia this poem is known as Lermontov's translation of a Goethe poem, but I think it was actually a Heine poem. I don't think a good English translation exists, so I will post the Russian and the German version, and an English Verbatum (I don't know German so I am translating from Lermontov)...
In German:
Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam
Im hohen Norden auf kahler Höh'.
Ihn schläfert, mit wei&estet;er Decke
Umhüllen ihn Eis und Shnee.
Er träumt von eine Palme,
Die, fern im Morgenland,
Einsam und schweigend trauert
Auf brennender Felsenwand.
In Russian:
На севере диком стоит одиноко
на голой вершине сосна,
И дремлет, качаясь, и снегом сыпучим
Одета, как ризой, она.
И снится ей всё, что в пустыне далёкой,
в том крае, где солнца восход,
Одна и грустна на утёсе горючем
Прекрасная пальма растёт.
In English:
In the wild North a lonely
Pine tree stands on a naked peak
And swaying, it dreams, and the descending snow
Clothes it as if in a riza*
And every time it dreams that in a faraway desert
In the lands where the sun rises
Alone and said, on a bitter cliff
A beautiful palm tree grows.
*"Riza" is a metal covering, applied to icons toward the end of the 17th century. A partial covering of silver, gold, or cheaper metal, the riza covers the entire painting except faces, hands and feet
And finally, when I dragged my sore solf back to Quito I encountered this sheep. The sheep had a look and an attitude and it reminded me of the ornery anarchist sheep in Murakami's Wild Sheep Chase
And also for good measure:
Which Woman of Beauty Are You? Find out! By Nishi.
This is at 4600 meters (or 15,000 feet) and it's fucking cold
Flora in the vicinity of the top
Flora at about 4000 meters
About halfway down the volcano, there are literally fields of these flowers
The Andes: a view
no, it's not The Shire, it's the Highlands
Approaching the Cloud Forest (yes, that white stuff is clouds)
I love the Cloud Forest because when I visit, I channel my 12-year-old fairy-tale-obsessed self, and really, doesn't it look enchanted? Like the trees in the distances are either covered by enchanted mist, or the whole forest is somewhere in the sky.
This next picture reminds me of a poem...In Russia this poem is known as Lermontov's translation of a Goethe poem, but I think it was actually a Heine poem. I don't think a good English translation exists, so I will post the Russian and the German version, and an English Verbatum (I don't know German so I am translating from Lermontov)...
In German:
Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam
Im hohen Norden auf kahler Höh'.
Ihn schläfert, mit wei&estet;er Decke
Umhüllen ihn Eis und Shnee.
Er träumt von eine Palme,
Die, fern im Morgenland,
Einsam und schweigend trauert
Auf brennender Felsenwand.
In Russian:
На севере диком стоит одиноко
на голой вершине сосна,
И дремлет, качаясь, и снегом сыпучим
Одета, как ризой, она.
И снится ей всё, что в пустыне далёкой,
в том крае, где солнца восход,
Одна и грустна на утёсе горючем
Прекрасная пальма растёт.
In English:
In the wild North a lonely
Pine tree stands on a naked peak
And swaying, it dreams, and the descending snow
Clothes it as if in a riza*
And every time it dreams that in a faraway desert
In the lands where the sun rises
Alone and said, on a bitter cliff
A beautiful palm tree grows.
*"Riza" is a metal covering, applied to icons toward the end of the 17th century. A partial covering of silver, gold, or cheaper metal, the riza covers the entire painting except faces, hands and feet
And finally, when I dragged my sore solf back to Quito I encountered this sheep. The sheep had a look and an attitude and it reminded me of the ornery anarchist sheep in Murakami's Wild Sheep Chase
And also for good measure:
Which Woman of Beauty Are You? Find out! By Nishi.
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i heart the sheep
Date: 2004-11-01 08:55 am (UTC)Me, I got addicted to Murakami after an ex (
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 09:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 09:16 am (UTC)Are you standing surrounded by ice on that first picture? That looks like it would be scary to ride down on a mountain bike. I have to agree that downhilling on mountain bikes is too much for me. I tried it and I too prefer my own feet.
Jungle Beauty: But of course.
Nice to see all the pictures. I promise to get around to posting some pictures in my photohosting area here on LJ sometime soon...
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 09:17 am (UTC)okay, will do, I haven't tasted either yet, although I have eaten snails and tried one lonely grub.
Wanna buy me an ostrich burger in SF and I promise to write about it?
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 09:18 am (UTC)Are you standing surrounded by ice on that first picture
more, like, snow and sleet. But yes, it was slippery. I have bruises up and down my legs today.
I promise to get around to posting some pictures in my photohosting area here on LJ sometime soon...
promises, promises... ;)
p.s.
Date: 2004-11-01 09:23 am (UTC)nerd!
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 09:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 09:26 am (UTC)hah; I guessed as much. But it gave me an opportunity to re-learn the Linnaean name for sheep.
I still have an interview meme pending, actually. But it will happen someday. And we'll have democracy in America again someday too.
panicky laughing in the face of death,
--
Re: p.s.
Date: 2004-11-01 09:29 am (UTC)Nerd and proud, baby!
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 10:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 10:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 10:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 11:10 am (UTC)And thank you so much for the postcard. That was fantastic. I will have to get on your postcard list so I can feel a tad bit closer to the wonderful locales to which you go. When will you be back in NYC? How much longer will you be Quito?
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 11:10 am (UTC)Did you know...?
Eto stihotvorenie "Na severe dikom stoit odinoko..." osobenno pervaya strochka vuzuvaet sredi mnogix rysskih ylubki i smeshki, osobenno esli posle pervoii strochki ostanovit'sya, vuderzhat' pauzy, i dal'she ne prodolzhat'...
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 11:16 am (UTC)Supposedly I have been missing out on all kinds of bush meat here...I'll keep you posted on what comes my way.
Re: i heart the sheep
Date: 2004-11-01 12:14 pm (UTC)Thanks for the interview link!
Have you read his Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World?
Also, on point, I can't remember if I already told you this, but shortly before I left my mother called me and asked if I had read Chronicles. I said, yes, and she said she had just finished it. I didn't even know she was reading it, so I asked what she thought. She said: "you know, on one hand, your read it and you think what a complex, brilliant work. On the other hand, you read it and you think, what a piece of Japanese schizophrenic hallucination."
I procured a poncho that I believe meets your specifications. It's not as trendily cut as the ones in Bazaar, but it's hand-made and I got it at an indigenous crafts market. It's very very very warm. Hope you will like.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 12:17 pm (UTC)What bush meat can you eat there? Are there armadillos? I've always wanted to try armadillos. Or anteaters. I was recently told that they are not the same thing, but in Russia they are. My Soviet education fails me yet again in the World-At-Large. Think about it: I got my first 7 years of schooling in a country that specialized in insane history and incorrect biology, and on top of it all it does not exist anymore.
Re: p.s.
Date: 2004-11-01 12:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 12:48 pm (UTC)and a great sheep :)
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 01:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 01:11 pm (UTC)I won't be back in NYC until July at the earliest. I am not going to be in Quito for much longer either. In a couple of weeks I am going back to the US (but to SF), and then when I come back to Ecuador I am departing for the Upper Amazon (Jatun Sacha biostation at first, then several small communities in that vicinity).
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 01:19 pm (UTC)I don't think I knew that about "Sosna," although I suppose I have heard the first line cited in specific context to make fun of someone acting all Byron-esque. Still, it's one of my favorite poems from childhood...except why were we told it was a Goethe translation, if it wasn's? Does that mean that "vihozhu odin ya na dorogu..." was't Goethe either?
Are you back in the City?
no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 01:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-01 01:28 pm (UTC)who told you it was Goethe in translation? I was never told that!
Does that mean that "vihozhu odin ya na dorogu..." was't Goethe either?
isn't it Lermontov? :)))
Yes, i just got back to the city this morning all sleepy-eyed and energy lacking. If I don't crush after work (i am going on 48th hour without much sleep), I will write to you.