South African Photo Journal

I've been back in South Africa since early December doing some of my favorite things: 

being with my daughter Julia

watching Graham relax and develop a tan 

hanging out with family and old friends 

hiking in beautiful  unspoiled places

 

Walking on beaches

 

eating delicious meals in stunning outdoor settings 

And out in the bay trying to catch above crayfish

 

yoga on a platform in the bush

I feel so blessed, brimming with gratitude

Namaste

A walk in the woods

 A walk in the woods.  A blue Carolina day.  The smell  and crunch of fallen leaves. 

Tree shadow stripes.  Alone on the path. 

 And then a River.   Follow it.

  To the Falls

And we are alone

 Mesmerized

( Crabtree Falls - Blue Ridge Parkway near Little Switzerland)

We rejoice, not only for nature's grandeur 

but also for the small beauties that halt us in our tracks

 Sunrise painted the bare trees.  

An illusion to turn back the clock.

(view from our bedroom at Wildacres Retreat)

Transient Beauty

Sometimes, the surprise and beauty in nature is so extreme, so outrageous

 that it can shift our mood in an instant. 

The sight may lift our spirits. 

It might leave us feeling humbled and in awe. 

Perhaps it helps to re-connect us with some elemental and universal energy.

These small creatures, moths in the night, did all of this for me. 

Imperial female moth laying eggs

Rosy Maple Moth -- much smaller than the others

Known as Regal Moth or Royal Walnut Moth

Luna Moth

Perfect Art Nouveau !

Known as Giant Leopard Moth or Eyed Tiger Moth

I took these photos (with the rather crummy small digital camera that I've owned for years) up in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina while I was at a Writing Course at the Wildacres Retreat in July.  

These moths seemed to appear instantly, miraculously, like a magician's trick. I'd walked down the corridor  (sans moths)  to my room to write a page and get a glass of wine, and on the way back there they were ---a whole showcase of different and breathtakingly beautiful creatures clinging to interior and exterior walls and positioned close to lights.  (I assume the "magician" was ideal conditions: the right time of year, the perfect hour in the night, the lure of light, the correct humidity....) 

 It was live music that was drawing me outside -- North Carolina mountains and music, the perfect match.  I wonder indulgently if the vibrations of the music were also a draw for the moths, a romantic serenade.  For the moths were there to mate.  Not much else they do as adults -- mate and die.  Most of these moths have no mouths -- they cannot even eat!  Their eating is done earlier, when they are caterpillars.  In this adult form they last just a few days, just long enough to produce eggs.  Just long enough to knock us out with their beauty.

Does the transience of this extravagant beauty, its ephemeral nature, somehow ratchet up 

the way it catches in our throats and stays with us?

PS Someone who had grown up in these mountains said that, as a child, the exterior bark walls of his family's house would be almost covered with moths on a summer evening -- making a living wall paper of color and beauty.  He said sadly it was no longer true.  He had not seen so many moths, so many different species together in a long, long time.

Pure magic!

Vieques

I know I’m not in Durham when I am woken by the hurumpff of a horse just outside our window - a glassless window, just wooden louvers and a screen. (In fact there are rows of windows on two walls of our room letting in delightful breezes along with the sounds and smells of this Caribbean island).   As though the horse were the key to the day, a rooster follows in quick succession and then the beat of reggae passing in a car. Loud, insistent.  Before 7 am!  There is the smell of frangipani, and constantly in the background the comforting sound of ocean waves, responsible perhaps for my deep sleep, despite the buzz of mosquitoes and the roving, lumpy mattress cover.

We are at the Hacienda Tamarindo in Vieques, Puerto Rico.  We develop a morning ritual.  Roll out of bed, pull on our swimsuits,  reach for a towel and drive a few minutes to Sun Bay for a long walk on the  (at that time of day) deserted beach. 

And then a swim before heading back for our well-earned breakfast eaten on the second floor under the tamarind tree.  Juice, fruit, Spanish omelet, bacon, spicy hash browns, English muffins.  There are many other choices, but that becomes my usual order.   While we drink vast amounts of coffee and watch birds we cannot name on the feeder by the bougainvillea (a massed froth of white blossom), the kitchen staff make our picnic lunch and pack it with ice in a back-pack.  We add books, suntan lotion, grab our snorkel equipment and decide which beach to head to for the day.    

Again there are many choices. Most are named for colors – blue beach, red beach, green beach – the sign posts looking far more exotic in Spanish.  You need a car to get to them,  ideally, a four-wheel drive.   When you get there there is just the white sand, the warm aqua water, some palm trees or other vegetation, occasionally a couple of other people, but often not.   

 

There are rocks and reefs and bright tropical fish, magical shapes of coral.  I do not have an underwater camera. You will have to visualize this for yourself.  Picture three fan coral growing next to each other, one intense mauve, one pure olive and one almost salmon.  The sun is striking them so the colors are crayon bright and they are waving slightly in the current.  Between them is swimming a vivid yellow fish and a narrow one with a green tail, turquoise head and a dramatic white and black band around its middle.  And then you are distracted by two multi-colored parrot fish crunching on the coral, and, oh my goodness, there is a school of brilliant blue tang. You follow them, trying to count, over sixty for sure! And then, heading back to shore, your heart bursting with the beauty, a leopard ray passes below you, the elegant slow flap of its “wings”, the incredible length of its narrow tail.  You walk up the beach, pulling off your goggles.  It is deserted, no sign of anything man-made except what we carried down the forested path.  Graham is reading under the shade of tree.  No one else is on our secret beach. 

One of the reasons these beaches are so unspoiled and undeveloped is that, for many years, much of Vieques was used by the United States Navy for military exercises.  Protests led to the the Navy's departure almost 10 years ago and the land they used has now been designated as a National Wildlife Refuge.  The navy is responsible for color-coding the beaches. 

Vieques has been on my radar-screen (oops!) for many years.  When we lived in Kenya a friend from Boston waxed lyrical about the place, told us we'd love it.  She used to rent a large and wonderful house there with a group of friends.  Years later, when we moved to Durham, friends here raved about Vieques, made it a family holiday every year, told us we'd love it,  gushed about the house they rented. Turned out it was the same house that our friend in Boston used to stay in!! 

 I am a firm believer in the power of serendipity -- of taking it as a green flag (more color coding).  Knew we needed to go.  

We timed our trip to coincide with our friends.  They were in the house with their extended family, we had a charming room at the Hacienda Tamarindo.  They knew the best of the island -- the character of each beach, the perfect places to snorkle, the best restaurant.  The perfect guides, loving the same things we do.

If you like shopping, a  wide choice of good restaurants, sophisticated night life, TV in your room … what we did is not for you.  You need a car. Many roads were being re-surfaced, others had huge potholes.

You need to be aware of security issues – we were advised not to leave anything of value in the car and to leave it unlocked at all times to avoid the risk of windows being smashed.  We saw nothing that felt threatening.  There are wild horses everywhere, dogs and chickens, flamboyant trees coated with orange blooms.

Main drag of Esperanza early in the morning - usually buzzing with activity

One of the primary tourist attractions is a bioluminescent bay.  You take a boat tour at night and marvel at the dinoflagellates lighting things up – the outline of your submerged hand, the spray of water you kick from the boat, the bucket of water you stir into a flashing blue frenzy, the glowing blue outline of fish swimming away in the dark bay.

 

I know I am somewhere else when I order mofongo with shrimp at a casual outdoor restaurant and when we recline with our whiskey by the hotel pool and see the Milky Way flung out bright across a moonless sky.   But there is also a comforting familiarity.  We could almost be back in Kenya.  I find Scorpio, my constellation.  Clear as day on this dark night.