|
Date:
February 10, 2003
Currently, I am in Jodphur, another manic, overcrowded city. The Indian
behind me is using me as a backrest while he surfs the internet,
jamming my face to within 12 inches of my computer screen.
The train ride to Jaisalmer went smoothly. Armed guards patrolled the
train and our coach was full of military personnel being transported to
the Indian-Pakistan border; so, there were no stowaway hermaphrodites
groping my thighs or vagabond beggars. I was relieved to leave behind
the Deccan Plateau It is a rich farmland during the monsoon seasons,
full of crops: sunflower, rapseed, cotton, tomatoes, coconuts, sugar,
chilli, tumeric, potatoes and others I couldnêt recognize. But, now in
winter, it reverts to a landscape reminiscent of the deserts of Central
and South America with the identical cacti and thorn trees that
punctured dozens of tires. I looked forward to the •lush North.ê I was
dismayed to discover that I had just entered an even more barren land,
The Great Indian Desert. It seems the world is mostly desert and daily
I long for a refreshing pine forest.
Jaisalmer was a beautiful fort constructed out of golden sandstone. The
fort was no longer meant to repel invaders but renovated to attract
tourists. Debbie and I spent four days seeing the sites and storing fat
before heading into the barren Great Indian Desert. My journal entries
from the desert:
I am camping in the desert now. Many tourists pay 1600 rupees for a
camel safari which is identical to bicycle touring except that -- if
you can believe it -- the camel is even harder on your ass. The Great
Indian Desert is very barren, even 500 meters from the road, hiding
behind a thorn tree, our tents are still clearly visible. The sun set
half and hour ago and the stars are popping on one by one. The first
star, behind me near the horizon, turned out to be Jupiter -- I can see
the Galillean moons through my binoculars. Then the Dog Star became
visible and slowly the Milky Way. Before me, the sky melds from red
near the through the spectrum to nothingness. The new moon, one or two
days old, is cradled between the violet band and the black night.
Through my binoculars the silver crescent of the moon is perfectly
smooth on the exterior and jagged with craters on the interior, and
even without my binoculars I can see the whole face of the moon dimly
lit by the reflection of the earth. The stark, glowing desert is not
unlike the lunar landscape with the exception of the silhouetted trees.
It is an inspirational sight that I want to soak in, feel, be part of
and record for posterity.
We visited a petrified forest along the way. During the early Jurassic
period this land was a lush tropical forest. I am 206 million years,
plus or minus a million, too late for my coveted ride through the
woods. The petrified remains of trees, barnacles, lichen and moss, were
generally a black hard stone or sparkly white, The golden sand and soft
sandstone have been blown away leaving piles of black stone giving me
the impression the prehistoric trees exploded into piles of rubble.
Today, I played one of my games. I observe my surroundings and try to
find five things I have never seen before. I give myself extra points
if I can relate two objects or facts together in a new way. I am doing
this because I tend to think, •If youêve seen one desert youêve seen
them all,ê and I lose my mind in daydreams or sometimes I even read a
book while I ride my bicycle.
The desert constantly transforms itself. Now it is flat, rose-colored
and interspersed, about 20 meters apart, are trees that have no leaves
but contain the chlorophyll in the branches. The wind picked up around
2 pm and bashed us from the east. A large dust devil bore down on me.
The swirling sand and brush made me fear it was a truck. It passed over
the road carrying the desert with it. I slowed so the eye, as wide as
my bicycle, would pass through me. Sand scoured me first in one
direction and then when I averted my face, it blasted me in the
opposite direction. My presence did not diminish its power as it
crossed the road and scattered a fence of thorn branches and
tumbleweeds. It was sucking dust a 100 meters into the air and looked
like a tornado in sunny skies.
I saw numerous camels, antelopes and peacocks today. Thirty-one
peacocks passed through camp in the early morning sounding like kazoos.
I thought peacocks were tropical birds. I am surprised that they can
survive here and especially surprised that it can find enough food to
support its plumage, the most extravagant of all birds. It is obvious
the women model their colorful, flowery, feathery dresses on the
peacock. It is equally beautiful to see a flock of women flowing across
the road in the desert heat. It appears as if the desert melted a
rainbow and it pooled upon the ground. However, the colorful peacocks
are the males. When the bland female peacocks display their tail
feathers they look remarkable like a butterball turkey. It is supposed
to be bad luck to kill a peacock, despite this I wonder how to capture
and cook one on my stove. I am a good shot with a rock, so the main
problems are getting the feathers off and fitting it in my 2-liter pot.
It is a very dry desert. A man said it hasnêt rained in two years but
this must be untrue because I counted six drops of rain a few days ago
and there are huge dry riverbeds that must have swept the vegetation
and garbage clean recently. I think the plants must get a lot of
moisture from the morning dew and the ground seems to be saturated with
runoff from the nearby mountains. Nonetheless, it is very dry. All the
brush has died, the stems snapped in the wind and the stubs filled with
sand. Another tree seems on the verge of extinction. Its long branches,
or trunks -- the plant is composed of numerous trunks that appear as
branches -- also have died and snapped in the wind. Their bleached
branches, stripped of their bark by goats, appear like camel or cow
skeletons, and there are some of these too. Shepherds with homemade
axes and ladders climb the thorn trees and chop off the branches for
their goats whom calmly nibble the feathery leaves below the falling
thorns.
Another amazing aspect of this desert is that I canêt find two consecutive
moments of peace. Even now, two boys watch me intently while their
bicycle load of greenery awaits their herd. The constant staring
drives me crazy so I will end my ramblings here and retreat to the
safety of my bicycle.
|
