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Hiking Curaçao |
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A Hiker
leaves the town, its monuments and flower gardens. He goes to the countryside, outdoors to Banda Abou. Westward always Westward - where
the rocky landscape overrules man and nature reconquers its domain.
The mondi is everywhere - a world of thorny bushes in a hilly
landscape, green in the wet winter season, grey in the rainless season
of the summer. It is said, the hiker knows, there are singing coral
beaches along the coast, smooth and friendly hills, old mansions on
hilltop, plantations, slave walls and ruins. There are bays,
reflecting lagoons and bird islands, white shining salt pans, small
villages, sometimes a little church and country houses (kunuku). All
dispersed and isolated by the mondi. In between all this, however, there is real life, harsh and lovely life of animals and birds and plants. There are trails to walk, long and winding, disappearing trails. Infinite walks, dead ends and further on.. An invisible spider has woven a cobweb of trails criscross over the ever lasting mondi. And the goats and the sheep and the black swine, they know and they roam around and keep the trails and the mondi open for the hiker. He is alone under the blue or clouded sky. The air is hot and humid, dry and arid the land. A breeze from the sea hovers over the hills and dies out in the small valleys. All of a sudden the hiker is far away. From the town, the harbor, the music, the beaches and the snacks. No houses, no noise, no humans, no nonsense. Not a living thing. He is on his own, lost in the book of nature. In the sky still the sound of an airplane leaving a fine white line in the blue. Silence and a blazing sun. From a salt pan a flamingo takes off, a heron joins him from far. In a valley a bird calls loudly his love. An old car without windows lies lost in the water of the lagoon. Elsewhere a bridge of rusted steel hangs across a wide open field, a disappeared lake. The wind brings a heavy smell of swine and cows over the hilly land. In dark caves bats echo their rooms of stalactites. All around is the mondi, the dry and sandy soil and in front of the hiker the rocky hills with hidden trails and rolling stones. Along side the trail the hiker sees a huge anthill, big and brown and hears its new inhabitants the parkeetchies aloud in the near trees. And the trees are high and evergreen in the scarce low places of water. A forest smelling of fruit. They stand close together, exotic places the hiker is hiding in for just a while. Sweat on his face and his back. He is looking for the tracks of the white tail deer, he’ll just find the footprints of a swine, an iguana, a rabbit and the holes of many black crabs. They know how to climb the hills, jump over roois, to dug holes in the sand and the mud, to find water and food. They never get lost in their paradise - regained. They are living things, the true invaders of the island, the true guards of a secret world. Butterflies, white, brown and yellow dance elegantly around the bushes. A day long, their eternity and that of the hiker today. Birds of all kind sing and sing in the bushes to encourage him walking for ever. The chuchubi sings sadly or frivolous as a clown jumps in a circus. High in the sky the warawara and the kinikini wait for their prey on the ground. The mondi is abounding with life. The hiker is no more alone. He wanders over endless trails in the ever changing landscape of rocks and sand and lava and coral. He squeezes through the bushes and seeks the ever hiding trails. In the shade he takes a sip of water and hears the hummingbirds humming and the safran finches whistling high. After the climb he is a bit out of breath when he stops at the ruins of a mansion, on the top of a hill. He touches softly the slave bell, bends over the broken bathtub and looks up through the missing roof into the darkening sky. Over the top of the hedge of kadushi and datu cactus he watches the far away hills, the winding roads, the red plain along the sea and the blow holes, the suppladó. The bats are not far away awaiting the dusk to fly out. The hiker sees the world and he knows it’s good to walk here on this island - a world of beauty in itself. read more of Derk Cools' writings on: http://www.coolsplanet.com/ A website about Traveling and Writing, proze,verse and haiku; about traveling in Thailand, Java, Bali and other parts of the World.
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