Nature's gift

Altocumulus standing lenticularis, or lenticular clouds, are "stationery lens-shaped clouds that form at high altitudes". At least this is what wikipedia tells us about these strange cloud formations. Until recently all I knew about these clouds was what I could read on wikipedia (or other sources of information), or what I could see in some photos of my favorite nature photographers.

Most of my favorite photographers are either american or based in America. I have grown looking at magazines like National Geographic or, more recently, Outdoor Photographer, and marveling in the amazing landscape photos published on those magazines. It's only natural that I should want to go to the american continent to visit the same places that I had seen in such beautiful photographs, so last year me and some friends booked a flight to Vancouver, rented an SUV and drove to the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

First stop was Jasper National Park, where we stayed for three nights. The place took my breath away even if I could see very little of it because of the weather. We got low clouds and rain during all three days we were in Jasper. There I was, in a place I knew was absolutely stunning and all I could see were trees and boring gray clouds over those trees. I knew I was surrounded by magnificent scenery and beautiful mountains, but I just could not see them. Frustrating though it was, it was different from anything I was accustomed to in Europe. Due to demographic growth in the old continent, there are no National Parks like in America. In my own country, parks are just some small tracts of land someone has decided to preserve, but you can't really go anywhere without finding a telephone pole or some sign of civilization. In Jasper, and in other places in the Rockies, there are places where you can really get alone in Nature. It can be scary (it's bear country after all), but very rewarding at the same time.

Still, one cannot be immersed in Nature without having to live by the whims of the weather. At some point I found myself thinking that for some strange reason I was being punished with bad weather. Why was Nature doing that to me, who had flown around the world to show its magnificence ? Why wouldn't Nature reveal itself to me as it had done countless times to other photographers ? The answer to these questions is, of course, that Nature is unpredictable. We never know what's going to happen and we just have to go with the flow, take whatever gifts it has to offer, and make the best of them.

My luck (and the weather) started to change when we started going south in the direction of Banff National Park. We drove through the breathtaking Icefields Parkway (that's a subject for another story), and eventually stopped in the town of Banff, just besides the Vermillion Lakes. These lakes have been photographed many times, and my guide said that light there was always worth trying out, so one afternoon we arrived at the lakes, set up our tripods, and started shooting pictures of Mount Rundle reflected in the lake. The sky was a deep blue, with a few wisps of white cloud which worked really nice in the reflections on the surface of the lake, since there was no wind and the water was totally still.

Suddenly I noticed that the wisps of cloud just hung above Mount Rundle. More wisps came and just hovered there as if the mountain held on to them. I suddenly remembered some photos I had seen before and recognized what could only be the forming of lenticular clouds. And what's more amazing, they were forming at the perfect time for photography, just when the sun was setting and lighting them from below. The only thought that went through my head was something like "this is the most amazing sunset you have ever witnessed, so don't mess up and bring home some photos..." Nature was finally handing me a gift.

When I got to the place I was staying at in Banff, the owner asked me what I had been doing. I replied I had just witnessed the most incredible sunset in my life. "Oh, great ! Did you get some good photos ?". My answer was "You know what ? I did try to get some photos, but it doesn't matter... If this sunset is not recorded on film, at least it will live on in my memory". In the end, those photos turned out quite nice. Thanks for the gift, Nature.

We still have some accounts to settle in Jasper, though...

No worries

"No worries, mate" is a sentence that anyone who goes to Australia will most certainly hear more than once, in that slightly nasal accent so typical from the Land of Oz. And in my opinion, there is hardly a sentence that can define the relaxed spirit of australian people better than this one. In his book "Down Under", renowned travel author Bill Bryson states that "Australia has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else", yet the people there are still cheerful and quick-witted. Looks like they really don't have any worries at all.

As I landed in Perth , I was in the airport looking for my friend Kathleen, whom I had not seen in a while, since she moved from London to her homeland. Kath is most definitely a good example of this optimistic spirit in most australian people. She has seen some suffering and has suffered enough herself, and yet she manages to keep a positive attitude and an inspiring optimism.

She is waiting for me at the airport, although I first don't recognize her, because she dyed her hair brown, and I was looking for a blond girl. We greet each other and as we're leaving the airport she tells me that we are having dinner at Andrew and Eudotia's. Eudotia is her sister, and I had already met her and Andrew a few years before in London.

We had a wonderful dinner, a good conversation, and in the end, Andrew hands me his car keys. "You can have my car for the next three days, I'm going to Malasia on a business trip". I was planning to rent a car when I got to Perth, because I wanted to drive to the Pinnacles Desert for some photos. Pinnacles Desert is a place with some bizarre rock formations some 250 km North of Perth, and the only way to get there is either by bus or by car. I just wasn't expecting to go there driving a convertible Mazda MX-5. I was somewhat embarrassed with the offer, because I did not feel comfortable driving Andrew's car to that place and as me and Kath left their place, I told her so, and she just goes "No worries ! He knows you want to go there, that's why he lent you the car".

So two days later I took off from Perth to the Pinnacles Desert, in Nambung National Park, near a little village called Cervantes, on the western coast of Australia. Even though I was driving a convertible, the gods showed no mercy because at the horizon I could see some pretty dark clouds. As I approached the place, those dark clouds brought rain (lots of it), and I was thinking that maybe I had just driven 250 Km to stay inside a canvas top convertible looking at the Pinnacles Desert in the rain. But then a certain thought came through my mind: "no worries, lets just get there and see what happens". And about 5 minutes after I started driving in the desert, the clouds started opening up and I could finally see some blue sky. Of course I took my camera and tripod and started snapping away, but about 15 minutes later the clouds closed, this time, not to open up again. I returned to Perth under a dark gray sky and a merciless rain, but at least I had my photographs.

Today, almost two years have passed since I've been in Australia. Still, I think about my australian friends and the time I spent there. I remember the relaxed, optimistic, cheerful atmosphere of most people I met there, and I can't help but feel good with myself and think "no worries, mate".

Ice ice baby

I was having dinner with my traveling companions, Elsa and another little guy. We were discussing what we were going to do next day. There were three options: seabird watching on Ingolfshofdi, glacier walking on Skaftafell National Park, or snowmobiling on the Vatnajokull ice cap. The only option to which we all agreed was bird watching, but in order to do that we had to catch a ride from a tractor-pulled haywagon because Ingolfshofdi is a promontory rising in the middle of a shallow, tidal lagoon through which there is no car access. And we had to be in the correct spot at midday or else we would miss our ride. The people in Iceland, as it turns out, do respect schedules. We arrived two minutes after the hour, only to see the tractor moving away, taking other tourists to see and photograph the puffins, skuas, arctic terns, and other seabirds. We had no other option but to go to plan B: a walking tour in the ice of one of the glaciers in Skaftafell.

Skaftafell National Park is the biggest national park in Europe. It encompasses Vatnajokull Ice Cap, which is the third largest mass of ice in the surface of the Earth (right after Antarctica and Greenland). From this huge mass, several rivers of ice have made their move, forming the glaciers we can see from the road that leads to the park. It was in one of these tongues of ice that we would be spending the next three hours, taking a little stroll.

Ice: now there's a subject everyone's been talking about for the last months. Ever since Al Gore started his campaign against global warming, the melting of the ice in the polar regions of the Earth, and the receding of glaciers have been subjects for conversations all over the world. I have watched the movie "An Inconvenient Truth", and I have often wondered about the climate changes I've been feeling in my own country and whether it's all related. One thing seemed certain: if this all has to do with the earth getting warmer and ice melting, there probably would not be a better place to learn about it than Iceland.

Having learned our lesson from a couple of hours before, this time we arrived at the location on time (a few minutes earlier, actually). As our guide, Bob, was fitting the crampons to our boots, I thought I detected an australian accent. As it turned out, he was from New Zealand, and not too happy about having his accent mistaken for australian. He had worked for a long time as a guide in Fox Glacier in his home country and that was to be his first day on this season in Iceland (he'd been there already in the previous year). Apart from me and the other little guy (Elsa didn't want to go), our group was two austrian girls, their welsh friend, and an italian couple. Bob gave us a ride to the base of Svinafellsjokull glacier on his red land rover, and from there we walked a few minutes through rock until we finally got to the ice.

At first, walking with crampons seemed a bit awkward. Instead of walking normally, I had to stomp my feet, so I could get a good grip on the ice. After a while I got used to it, and was able to stop thinking about how to walk and start enjoying the experience. And what an experience! All I could see was ice. In front of me, behind, to the sides. In some places it was a dirty gray, in other places it was a beautiful sparkling white. We knew that there were dangerous crevasses nearby and occasionally Bob would tell us that in a certain spot we should not get too close to the left or the right side because it was a huge drop. Trying not to think about it too much, I just followed his instructions and enjoyed the landscape.

During the walk, Bob was giving us the normal talk about Glaciers, how they are formed, and the history about this particular one. Like many in the world (but not all), Svinafellsjokull is receding. Some centuries ago it joined with his neighbor Skaftafellsjokull ("Jokull" being the icelandic word for glacier) near what is now the road to the park. At that time, when farmers wanted to take their sheep to the pastures in the mountains that border the glacier, they had to carry the sheep one by one through the glacier in the beginning of summer and do the same thing to fetch them before winter came. Eventually he came to the bit about global warming. It seems that the next sign of global warming will be that Iceland will actually get colder. Now this was something I wasn't expecting to hear, but after the explanation, it made sense. What stops Iceland from getting colder right now is the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean. If the Earth is warming and the ice in the polar regions melts into the ocean, it will disrupt the Gulf Stream, thus causing the temperature in the island to drop.

After a few hours walking we had to come back. Conversation with Bob changed from the subject of climate change issues, to lighter subjects like the rugby world cup and how big would the score be in the game between the portuguese and the all-blacks. We took off our crampons, got back in the red land rover, and headed back to the National Park. After we left, I kept daydreaming about trekking in other glaciers like the Baltoro Glacier in the Himalayas or Perito Moreno in Patagonia. I don't know if I will ever be able to do something like that in my lifetime, but I could not help but think about what we are doing to the planet, and that maybe in the future there will be no more glaciers for our grandchildren to walk on.