Absolutely Galápagos

by David Fletcher

  He got nowhere with this one, so he turned instead to considering why pistachio ice cream never really tastes of pistachios and why baked Alaskas are never anything like the right shape. He drew a blank here as well – inevitably – which is why he then wondered why anybody had ever thought that Turkey would make a good member of the European Union – or whatever was left of it – and why anybody had ever thought that oysters would make a good addition to the human diet. No. It was no good. All these mysteries insisted on remaining mysteries. As did the mystery of whether Bob Geldof had turned into an obnoxious pillock or had always been one – even as far back as the time of his one and only hit. So, Brian abandoned his contemplation of life’s mysteries and instead had a brief nap. When he awoke, the captain was dropping anchor off Elizabeth Bay.

  This is a large funnel-like and mangrove-fringed bay, leading into a peaceful lagoon, which is itself surrounded by a forest of red, black and white mangroves. It is a wonderful location for a spot of unhurried panga-borne exploration, and this is exactly what the Nature-seekers embarked on just minutes after the Beluga had moored. It then soon became apparent to all of them that as well as hosting mangroves, the bay provided a home to more flightless cormorants, to some brown pelicans, to some grey herons and some lava herons and even to some blue-footed boobies. There was also plenty of marine life here as well, and with their newly acquired swivelling skills, the Nature-seekers were able to make out the odd passing turtle and quite a few ‘golden cownose rays’, a species of eagle ray that hadn’t been spotted before and one that is only distantly related to the golden raynose cow.

  Darwin, as always, was busy providing his charges with all sorts of information about both the fauna and flora on show. However, when the two pangas left the bay itself and entered that ‘peaceful lagoon’, the didactic had to defer to the flora itself – and to the whole ambience of the place. It was indeed as peaceful as billed, not least because its clear, unruffled water was edged with some quite gigantic mangroves, and within the natural cocoon they created there was an abundance of peace – and something else, something that moved its ambience up from the simply tranquil to the simply sublime. And what this something was was, of course, the absence of so many things. Brian felt it – and relished it – straightaway: the absence of noise, the absence of crowds, the absence of haste and even the absence of dissent. And no traffic, no concrete, no litter, no dereliction, no protests, no smartphones and none of the other things that so often blight our lives with their intrusive and unwelcome presence. Yes, this ride into the lagoon of Elizabeth Bay would remain in Brian’s mind as more an expedition into the realms of unblemished soothing calm than into the realms of an unblemished natural place. Although that wouldn’t mean that he’d forget the size of those mangroves or his first encounter with a golden cownose ray…

  Nor would he forget that he had a certain responsibility to provoke his Nature-seeker companions into some lively over-dinner conversation, and tonight he’d decided that he would discharge this responsibility by expanding on one of his thoughts from just yesterday. And this was the thought that a whole generation of humans is currently being infantilised by its embrace of hand-held technology. As regards how he would expand it… well, he thought he might just start by suggesting that the victims of this technology have neither the ability to navigate pavements without bumping into other pedestrians nor the ability to navigate life without the constant intervention of their parents.

  However, in the event, he made a last-minute decision, and this decision was to be just a bit more charitable to the youth of today. He would not, after all, give them another bashing. Principally because they really were the victims and not the instigators of digital lunacy, and also because it just didn’t seem fair to single them out. No. Better to have a go at society in general. So, soon after sitting down to the dinner table he invited his table companions to consider another topic completely. This he did by posing a question, and the question was: ‘What do a number of growth industries in Britain tell us about the nature of our “national community”?’ Then, inevitably, he proceeded to answer this question himself…

  First of all, he listed some of the growth industries he had in mind. These included the security industry, the human rights ‘industry’, the asylum claims ‘industry’, the general claims industry, the interminable public enquiries ‘industry’, the deradicalisation ‘industry’ and the trafficking ‘industry’. Then there was the convert-my-garage-into-an-insanitary-home-for-three ‘industry’, the crash-for-cash ‘industry’, the ‘drain-covers-for-cash ‘industry’, the scam marriages ‘industry’, the abuse-of-postal-votes ‘industry’, and finally the plain old drugs industry. And what these burgeoning industries told us about our modern society, he suggested, was that there were now many people engaged in a whole raft of activities that were completely non-productive – or productive, but only for them and at our expense. His answer hardly gave much of an opportunity to anybody else to make a further contribution, other than to Sandra who suggested that he put a sock in it and then kept the sock in it until it was time to retire. This wasn’t a bad suggestion, and if nothing else it reminded Brian that even though he’d been charitable to today’s youth he hadn’t provoked any lively over-dinner conversation among these older members of society – basically because he’d hogged it all for himself. However, it also reminded him of something even more damning of his own behaviour. And this was that just a few short hours ago he had been relishing the peace, calm and tranquillity of a truly unsullied place and, frankly, wasn’t it about time he learnt not to sully the experience of others – particularly when they were going about their meals – with more of his ill-timed and ill-judged observations? Probably so. But that didn’t mean he necessarily had to lay off bothering Sandra. Especially when he had a boster of a country to deal with – like Brazil…

  Yes, he and Sandra were now back in their cabin, and Brian was preparing to deliver to his wife a monologue on what was South America’s largest and arguably most narcissistically inclined country.

  He began with some facts and statistics, pointing out that Brazil was easily the biggest sovereign state in South America, occupying 47.3% of the continental landmass and bordering every other country on the continent other than Chile and Ecuador. And in terms of both geographical area and population, it was the fifth largest country in the world and the biggest Portuguese-speaking country by far. However, this was just preamble, because the main thrust of Brian’s lecture was to be Brazil’s fascination with the body beautiful – even if this involved helping that body to gain and then retain some supposed beauty at any cost whatsoever.

  ‘You see,’ he said, ‘body image in Brazil is all important. It is a part of their national culture. Particularly when, for Brazilian women, exposing as much of it as possible is almost de rigueur…’

  ‘Ah,’ interrupted an unusually engaged Sandra, ‘so it’s not what they’d choose…?’

  Brian grinned.

  ‘Very good,’ he patronised. ‘Because I think you’re right. Far from the penchant for revealing one’s flesh being a sign of liberation, it is much more likely that it is an act of compliance, a way of adhering to a set of preordained body standards that must be maintained with or without the help of pills, creams, potions, various suction devices or any number of surgical interventions.’

  ‘Yes,’ responded Sandra. ‘I remember all those adverts for slimming creams when we were in Rio.’

  ‘Well, they’re still being used,’ confirmed her husband, ‘along with slimming tablets, slimming capsules, slimming coffees and slimming teas, “beverages that without fail will curb your appetite and melt away fat”…’

  ‘But they don’t.’

  ‘No. They certainly do not. Which is why half of Brazil’s population is overweight and 15% of it is obese. And why so many Brazilians, eager to fit into one of those microscopic bikinis – and adhere to the cult
of the body beautiful – resort to surgical procedures. I mean, you would barely believe it, but Brazil has now overtaken the US as the world’s leader for cosmetic surgery. And just to assure you that I’m not making this up, I’ve written down some statistics…’

  At which point, Brian picked up a notebook by the side of his bed and began to read from its back cover.

  ‘Yes. With less than 3% of the world’s population, in 2013 Brazil accounted for 13% of all the world’s cosmetic operations. And these included 515,776 breasts being reshaped, 380,155 faces tweaked, 129,601 tummies tucked, 63,925 buttocks augmented and 13,683 vaginas reconstructed!’

  ‘Well, that’s nice to know.’

  ‘Yes. And because of that increase in obesity, liposuction is now the most popular procedure. With this, the surgeons are able to suck, sculpt and mould to their heart’s content. In fact, they now have the use of one liposuction machine that is apparently able to extract as much as one gallon of fat per hour. And they have another machine with which they are able to suck out fat where there is too much of it and then reinject it back into cheeks, buttocks or breasts or indeed anywhere else that has begun to display too much in the way of unwanted sagging…’

  ‘Well, that’s definitely not nice to know.’

  ‘So, anyway, Brazilians are just a little bit… misguided, and possibly more than just a little bit naive. And all due to this weird worship of a body image that is either unattainable or unsustainable. And we all know about Brazilian waxing…’

  ‘Quite,’ interrupted Sandra. ‘And on that note I think…’

  ‘Mind, indoor tanning is outlawed,’ reinterrupted Brian.

  ‘Thank you, Brian.’

  ‘Oh, and on a completely different tack, in 2004 the Brazilian government tried to sell an unwanted aircraft carrier on eBay – for £4 million – but they had to take it off because you’re not allowed to sell military ordnance on eBay…’

  ‘Brian…’

  ‘And there are no bridges over the Amazon River proper.’

  ‘Brian!’

  ‘And a bite from Phoneutria nigriventer, otherwise known as the Brazilian wandering spider, can cause priapism in humans. Which, as I’m sure you know, means that their bites can cause some quite serious erections that can last for many hours and be really quite uncomfortable…’

  ‘But they’re not here in the Galápagos?’

  Brian regarded his wife, who was now wearing an expression that fell somewhere between inscrutable, wicked and relieved. This was no great surprise. She had finally brought the latest of her husband’s sermons to an abrupt and permanent end, and she knew it. So too did Brian. His intended postscript on the origins of Brazilian waxing being in Manhattan (in a salon operated by seven sisters from Brazil) and not in Brazil, would have to wait. As would that on all those who had read with glee that there might be some real promise in the exploitation of the venom of Phoneutria nigriventer – but not, of course, for its use as any sort of slimming aid…

  13.

  The overnight sail involved a short hop north as the Beluga tracked the west coast of Isabela to its next destination. It also involved Brian waking during this passage and his considering his past, a train of thought that had been originally triggered by his considering the Beluga and, in particular, its age.

  It was Evan. During the previous evening’s dinner he had been educating Brian and others on the vital statistics of the Beluga and on its construction. It was, he told them, a boat that was 110 feet long and it had a beam of 23 feet (which apparently meant it was 23 feet wide). It had a steel hull, two 530HP diesel engines, a generous total of three generators, and it had been built in Hamburg in 1968! Yes, this wonderful boat was also a venerable boat and it would soon be celebrating its first half-century. This was probably why it felt so solid and why it was quite easy to imagine that it might well go on for another half-century, if, that is, it didn’t fall foul of some new environmental legislation – or an iceberg (which, if it stayed in the vicinity of the Galápagos, wasn’t, thought Brian, particularly likely). Its age also explained why it looked so handsome; why it looked like a real boat and not like a tiny version of an ugly and vulgar gin palace of the sort favoured by such discerning folk as ‘Sir’ Philip Green. Yes, there was no doubt about it: its Hamburg designers had clearly been inspired more by the lines of a WWII German torpedo boat than they had by any of the design ethics of Gucci. And thank God for that.

  Anyway, in the middle of the night it was the age of the Beluga that really captured Brian’s attention and that then set him off along a tangent. And the tangent was a contemplation of what he, the Brian of the current age, had been like when he’d been the Brian of 1968, that year almost five decades previously when the Beluga had been ‘born’ into the world.

  Well, he soon decided that all those years ago, he’d been a very different person. In 1968 he hadn’t any wrinkles, any grey hairs, any missing hairs and not much in the way of reasoned views. It was, after all, a time in which he had yet to develop anything that could be remotely described as wisdom, and a time when he was still only a novice cynic. Indeed, it would be years before he would be ordained as a full-blown celebrant in the much maligned Church of Irredeemable and Deep-rooted Cynicism. And, of course, it wasn’t just his cynicism that he hadn’t got sorted out. Hell, back in 1968, he hadn’t been aware that ‘socialism is a bad thing’ (and a bad thing whether you’re a cynic or not), that liberalism is a well-intentioned but ultimately flawed political doctrine, and that human kind is all too human but not very kind. He also had not been aware that most things never turn out quite as bad as you think they will, that despite the mostly very disappointing nature of mankind, a surprising number of its individual members can be surprisingly good in all sorts of ways – and that olives really are one of the tastiest foods in the whole wide world.

  Back in 1968 Brian would probably have slept through the night as well – without waking up and wasting his time pondering his past. Nor would he have woken feeling just a little bit tired in the morning because he had done this. Nor, for that matter, would he willingly have arisen at five o’clock in the morning for a six o’clock ride in a panga. In the first place he would not have been acquainted with that indecently early time back in 1968 and in the second place he would not have been acquainted with any sort of inflatable back then, let alone a confusingly named ‘panga’. (Wasn’t that something like a machete back in 1968?)

  Well, tough. It was now 2016 and, as the Beluga was moored off the Nature-seekers’ next visitor site, it was time to reconcile oneself to a very early rise and to get oneself into one of the Beluga’s two pangas. In short, it was time to visit Urbina Bay.

  Now, Urbina Bay (or Bahía Urvina) has one particular claim to fame, and this is that as recently as 1954, it underwent a very uplifting experience. Yes, thanks to all the geological activity still in play in the western edge of the Galápagos archipelago, the whole area here was raised by up to ten metres. In fact, a further uplift of ninety centimetres took place in 1994. And these combined uplifts, apart from anything else, have resulted in an old landing dock becoming unusable other than at high tide, and the Nature-seekers therefore having to tackle another wet landing. This was onto a grey-sand beach, at the back of which was a roped-off VIP area, apparently for the exclusive use of Galápagos green turtles. Yes, these guys appear to have adapted to the uplifted conditions of Urbina Bay very rapidly, and now use their VIP area as an all-important nesting site.

  For company they have both land and marine iguanas and a healthy population of giant tortoises. It was not clear to Brian whether any of these chaps are ever given a VIP pass, but he doubted that they would ever want one. The marine iguanas seemed content on the rocks that were a little further along the beach and the land iguanas and tortoises seemed content just to wander (very slowly) within the almost lush vegetation that lay beyond the beach. Here was
where the Nature-seekers would be spending the whole two hours of their visit: on a trail that wound its way between the vegetation and a trail that would reveal evidence of the previously underwater status of the uplifted land – in the form of coral and pebbles. It would also reveal the previously living status of a singular tortoise – in the form of his now empty shell. Yes, according to Darwin, this poor old chap had decided to stop for a rest – on what he hadn’t realised was a nest of fire ants. He had then compounded his error by not reacting to their reaction to his presence. That is to say, he hadn’t moved away when they began to attack him, after which, having incapacitated him with their terrible bites, they eventually consumed him – entirely. What had clearly been a glorious period in the annals of fire ant history, with more available food than they could ever have dreamed of, was, for Mr Unreactive Tortoise, a bit of a disaster, and probably a painful disaster at that. Being struck by a meteorite would have undoubtedly been a better way to go.

  Anyway, it was soon the Nature-seekers’ time to go – to avoid the incoming seaborne invasion.

  They had now returned to the grey-sand beach – and just in time. As Darwin had predicted, a new batch of visitors was now arriving. Not from a small boat like the Beluga or even from a boat twice its size, but from the National Geographic Endeavour, a boat that, whilst not quite the size of the Titanic, was vast. And that is vast in the sense of it being far too large to be let loose in the precious environment of the Galápagos with all its fragile and sensitive sites. It can host almost 170 passengers. That means that when it arrives at most of the visitor sites in the Galápagos, only a fraction of the passenger complement can be landed to enjoy those sites, while the others are obliged to go off kayaking or snorkelling or just to stay on the boat. Furthermore, even that fraction constitutes something of an expeditionary force when it is shipped to shore, and on this occasion quite enough of a ‘threat’ to encourage every last Nature-seeker to make it back to the Beluga as fast as he or she could. And the fact that there were more of those graduates in the art of voice projection within this expeditionary force – and children as well – was neither here nor there…