A cautionary tale
By John Warrington
I mentioned fleetingly last week some of the dangers inherent in the hobby we have, and I will now tell you a cautionary tale. Some time ago I flew to the interior village called Kato in the North Pakaraima Range. The object of this was to walk to another village only an inch-and-a-half away on the map, called Kurukubaru, which I have since grown to know and love. My main purpose was to look at plants en route collecting any that were worthwhile, and then carry them back to Georgetown a few days later. The extremely helpful staff of the small airline hinted that if I wanted, the pilot might drop in to Kurukubaru to save me the walk, but as I was being met at Kato I asked them how far it was from Kato to Kurukubaru, and they replied that it was about three minutes by air. This turned out to be a five-hour route march with full pack for this extremely unfit Englishman. However, the rolling hills and distant mountains and a landscape that didn’t support many trees was magnificent. Unlike the Yorkshire Dales, there was not a pint of beer to be had anywhere, and it was very hot. I stayed the night at the hostel not too far from Kato, and set off in the cool of early morning.
Throughout the walk (a good dry-track so flip-flops were quite good enough), there was a strong and refreshing northeasterly trade-wind blowing against me, and apart from being startled by a rattlesnake progress was good. On my walk I saw quite a few young trees of Calliandra surinamensis, the Powder puff tree, along the sides of the stream, including one with scarlet flowers, and a lot of evidence that owners of what few properties there were took care to plant and maintain very well the little vegetable gardens, and coconut and mango trees they had planted. Each tree was mulched with waste vegetation, and any spare water that could be spared after cooking and washing found its way to the plants.
The final hurdle, designed by the devil himself, was Moonstone Hill. It seemed the size of Everest after four hours of brisk walking in the heat. It took me an hour to crawl my way to the top, during which I lost skin off my elbow (falling) and toes (blisters). My Amerindian friend took ten minutes to get up and had time to cook a ten course meal before I arrived at the top. There are times when close relatives and friends can be absolutely worthless. My injuries which were clearly life threatening to anyone with a halfway decent pair of eyes, caused everyone to fall about with laughter. Normally well-balanced people slapped their knees as the tears coursed down their cheeks. I had expected that one of my best friends – a Jesuit priest no less – would at least say a short mass. Not a bit of it. He was as bad as anyone else.
I limped into my own garden in New Providence several days later festooned with assorted bits of vegetation, got it all into some kind of order, and then strolled around the garden where I found the Veitchia palm in full flower. I immediately received a welcome home kiss on my right knee from one of the hundreds of small black marabunta wasps taking nectar from the palm flowers. The upshot of all of this dear reader, is that for the following week I lay flat on my back in bed unable to get into the garden at all. I was told that one of my workers, a lad who helped me move my mussaendas had managed to get two young shoots off the parent plant of my variegated Screw pine and had planted them in preparation for getting rid of the main plant.
One of the large mussaenda plants which we moved and which had produced new shoots and a flush of flowers died; I don’t think it had any chance to grow any young roots because of the high rainfall just before the ‘dry’ started. Finally, Guysuco burned the cane in the field opposite my home. They very kindly told everyone to close up beforehand, but couldn’t predict the slight change in wind direction which blew the flames across the trench onto many of the ornamental trees in New Providence, including the entire east side and centre of the Queen of Flowers tree (Lagerstroernia flos-reginae).
Wear the right footwear if you go walking and travel light. It’s a great hobby if you don’t weaken. Take care and may your God go with you.
