isbrand had a camera on his phone by which he was able to capture some fleeting images of the clouds floating around the rocky peaks. it made me want to head back down to santa cruz and buy a camera from one of the electrical stores and come back up and dedicate myself to looking marvelled through the lens and composing and capturing all the subtle little signs of beauty which float through the shifting clouds scenes seen from on high on a rocky peak. the first time we climbed up to the ridge - having walked for two days through the cloud forest, carrying lots of water and resting frequently to lay down our heavy packs - we thought that we had arrived in Paradise. all around us stretched a sea of white fluffy insubstantial clouds mystically rising and transforming, constantly in mystical movement. it was awe-inspiring. nos quedamos boquibiertos. ma come può esistere tanta bellezza? all day we were in a way breathless, inundated by beauty. never had i felt flooded by so much beauty. flooded. it was very exciting. each morning we watched the sun rise from its bed of clouds, flooding with golden light the rare atmosphere of the rocky volcanic world on high and isbrand would look at me with an expression of simple wonder and say: another day in Paradise!
we decided to stay up there for as long as possible, which was made possible by the clouds rising one night and a light rain falling, which i caught in my outstretched tarp, refilling all our bottles of water with delicious pure water from the sky. on day three our food supplies began to dwindle. nevertheless, the prospect of heading back down to earth - the valley - the clouds - did not appeal to us in the slightest. "let us stay up here and fast" the solution quickly came. "instead of food, we shall nourish ourselves on sunlight and pure air!" the ecstatic solution.
"how would real hunger-gatherers survive?" pondered isbrand. he told me he had tried some of the berries on the bushes on the way up, and that he had been licking the water droplets from the leaves when we passed through the clouds.
"hunter gatherers would adapt to their surroundings" i told isbrand when we finally found ourselves down in the village of El Paso, "and would take advantage of any food source they could find." i was carrying a big cardboard box full of brocolli, leeks, oranges, six cartons of milk and bags of rice and pasta, having gleaned the mere surface of what the supermarket was throwing out.
"it is not easy to lead a hunter-gatherer lifestyle nowadays" says isbrand, "to live outside the system" he is referring to the "prohibido hacer fuego" and "prohibido acampar" signs. "they make it almost obligatory that you work for money and pay for accommodation"
however, there are ways and means, and the wild sweet almond trees, the chestnut trees, the oranges and the avocados now ripe on la palma make the woods a very inviting place to stay.
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