Well, the G&T was fine. However, dinner wasn’t quite as silky smooth. And this was largely because Brian had sneaked his soapbox in again, and he mounted it even before the main course had arrived. Oh, and his subject for tonight was ‘the purpose of life’: what could be the object of us humans living on this planet for three score years and ten – or indeed for rather more? Well, he initiated his assault with a question, asking all those around the table what they thought might be the purpose of life. But in doing so he had neglected that his audience now knew him very well and they therefore knew how to respond. Thelma was first and she suggested to Brian that the purpose of life was to remain seated for as long as possible, but that not many people knew this. Brian was somewhat taken aback by this, but not as much as he was when Josh then announced that the purpose of life was to be a witness to its purposelessness – and to appreciate the amazing diversity of cheese. In fact, Brian was so dumbfounded that he barely took in Mandy’s assertion that the purpose of life was to give some sort of purpose to the act of procreation, rather than leaving it as being just an extremely enjoyable process.
These responses should have knocked that soapbox from beneath his feet. But of course they didn’t. They simply energised him, and caused him to respond with a series of pseudo-philosophical explanations for the purpose of life, all of which he then shot down as soon as he’d introduced them, before he then ended up with the conclusion that life had no purpose other than to be lived. As well and as enjoyably as one could – without causing too much harm. In fact, this conclusion was a little hurried, as Sandra had, without a great deal of discretion, let it be known to her husband that she and the rest of his table companions were losing the will to live, whether there was a purpose to their living or not. And he would do very well to switch to ‘mute’ just as soon as he could. This he did, and only when he and Sandra were back in their cabin did he disengage mute and re-engage vocal. Yes, Sandra was to be unlucky again. Not only had his behaviour not been flawless over dinner, but he had also remembered that he had a list of lectures to complete. And this last one – on Paraguay – wasn’t just fascinating; it was also rather long…
He started, as he so often did, with a question.
‘Sandra,’ he asked, ‘do you know a great deal about Paraguay?’
Sandra, who was sitting up in bed, ineffectively armed with a book, answered promptly and honestly.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t.’
She could have added that she had a pretty good idea that Paraguay would feature as a lecture topic this evening. But that seemed unnecessary, and anyway, Brian had what he wanted: an admission that Sandra was just as unacquainted with Paraguay as are most people in this world, other than Paraguayans. Therefore he responded immediately – and gleefully.
‘Yes. Well, you’re not on your own. You see, Paraguay has something of a reputation for being… well, rather low profile and more than just a little bit insular. In fact, there was a guy called Augusto Roa Bastos, a Paraguayan novelist, who once said that Paraguay was an island surrounded on all sides by land. And then there was some US satirist – I think it was P. J. O’Rourke – who said that Paraguay was nowhere and was famous for nothing.’
‘A little bit harsh,’ observed Sandra.
‘But true. I mean, it is pretty well famous for nothing and as for being nowhere – and being an island surrounded by land – well, that’s got more than an element of truth as well. It is landlocked, and it is ringed by Argentina to the south and south-west, Brazil to the east and north-east and Bolivia to the north-west…’
‘Yeah, but you could say the same about Switzerland or Austria or any number of landlocked countries. But you wouldn’t say they were nowhere – and islands surrounded by land…’
‘No. Because, unlike Paraguay, they haven’t pursued isolationism and protectionism for their entire history.’
Oh dear. Sandra had unwittingly primed her husband’s address without really trying. And now he would launch into it. Probably with a few ‘national facts’ to start with and then with an amplification of those references to isolationism and protectionism. She just knew it. And, of course, she was spot on. Even about the ‘national facts’.
‘Right,’ he started, ‘I suppose it might be a good idea if, to begin with, I told you that Paraguay lies on the banks of the Paraguay River and its capital is Asunción. And Asunción is home to a third of the country’s population of seven million souls. Oh, and it’s probably not true that on early maps, Paraguay was called “Parrot”, in memory of a parrot called Frank, who was first befriended and then eventually eaten by the earliest Jesuit settler in the area…’
‘Well, that’s reassuring to know,’ observed Sandra.
‘Nor that Frank was homosexual… You know, as in “parrot gay”…’
‘Brian…’
‘Yeah. OK. Isolationism and protectionism. And a history of authoritarian dictators who maintained these policies right up until quite recent times. But why?’
‘I thought you were going to tell me.’
‘I am. And it involves my telling you about a most remarkable man. Nay, a unique man, a gentleman who went by the name of José Gaspar Rodriguez de Francis, and who was the guy who ruled Paraguay from 1814 right through to his death in 1840 – which made him the very first dictator of this country – and from what I’m about to tell you, incontestably its most exceptional and most influential – at least in terms of his extraordinary legacy.’
‘I’m all ears.’
‘Right. Well, to start with, José was not your normal common or garden dictator. On the contrary. He was somebody who had been deeply influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment and latterly by what had been happening in the French Revolution. Accordingly, he was disgusted by the class system that had been imposed on Paraguay as a colony – which essentially meant a Spanish caste system where your status was decided by your colour and your birth with, not surprisingly, those with the whiter heritage being granted the higher status. And he desperately wanted to replace this inherited system with what he saw as a utopian society based on Rousseau’s ‘Social Contract’. This was all about recognising that monarchs were not divinely empowered to rule, and that only the people, who are sovereign, have that all powerful right.’
‘Oh…’
‘Yes, this Social Contract stuff is all very interesting when you look into it. And the bit I particularly like concerns something called “the state of nature” – which is a set of hypothetical conditions under which people might have lived before societies came into existence – and the view that in many societies people are now in a state that’s much worse. You know, than in the state of nature.’
‘Can’t argue with that,’ offered Sandra. ‘But you do seem to be drifting just a wee bit off the plot…’
‘Ah, yes,’ admitted Brian. ‘And to return to the plot, José reckoned that to create his utopia he first had to break the power of the Spanish establishment – by greatly reducing the power of its resident representative in the new independent Paraguay: the Roman Catholic Church. And that’s exactly what he did – by passing various laws. Only that was just the start. Because he then forbade colonial citizens (the high-caste whites) from marrying one another and allowed them to marry only blacks, people of mixed parentage or natives. And in this way he completely broke the power of the colonial elites and created a genuinely mixed-race society. So much so that in modern-day Paraguay, over 95% of its population is mestizo – or mixed race.’
‘Blimey!’
‘Yeah. Quite a thing, eh? Although given that his utopia was all about freedom and being released from various forms of slavery, being told who you could and couldn’t marry might represent something of a minor contradiction…’
‘But he did it…’
‘Yes. And he did it by keeping at bay any outside influences – and setting in trai
n this national embrace of isolationism, which remained the hallmark of the country right into modern times. Helped to no small degree by Paraguay losing 5,000 square miles of its territory to Argentina and Brazil in the 1864-70 Paraguayan War, along with up to 70% of its population – through disease or the war itself.’
‘I see.’
‘Yeah. Well, anyway, going back to old José, you have to admire him not only because he was able to mould a nation – through his imposition of some fairly draconian marriage arrangements – but also because he was refreshingly honest. I mean, the title he chose for himself was ‘Supreme and Perpetual Dictator of Paraguay’, a title, I might say, that as far as I know, was not adopted by any of the successive dictators of that country, nor by any of the many other tinpot despots that South America as a continent has since had to bear.’
‘So how is he regarded in Paraguay now?’
‘Good question. Because despite imbuing Paraguay with a tradition of autocratic rule that lasted until 1989, he is seen as a national hero. Oh, and despite his idealism inevitably morphing into ever more arbitrary and despotic rule…’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes. It’s always the same, isn’t it? No matter how well intentioned they are to start with, sooner or later it all starts to go pear-shaped. And with old José, it was no different. I mean, he ended up ruling through ruthless suppression and, with the help of a secret police force, through what might be called random terror. He also outlawed all opposition to his rule and executed anybody that plotted against him. And then he went completely bonkers…’
‘How?’
‘Well, when he implemented the death penalty – which was applied increasingly frequently – he insisted that all executions were carried out on a stool under an orange tree outside his window. And to save bullets, most victims were bayoneted, and then their families were not allowed to collect them until hours after the event, just to make sure they were dead.’
‘Lovely.’
‘He also, apparently, kept a ledger of all the women he’d ever slept with, and he sired quite a few illegitimate children. He declared prostitution a decent profession when he discovered his oldest illegitimate child on the game outside his house. He became paranoid about being assassinated and slept with a gun under his pillow. And on top of that he then instituted a rule that nobody could come within six paces of him, and if he went out riding, trees and bushes that could conceal assassins would have to be uprooted, and pedestrians would have to prostrate themselves before him as he passed.’
‘Uhmm, but I bet he sang along to the national anthem and he knew how to dress properly,’ suggested Sandra. At which point Paraguay’s history, Paraguay’s first dictator and Paraguay’s national psyche were all abandoned in favour of a transient consideration of Britain’s current would-be El Supremo. And then both Brian and Sandra fell asleep.
15.
Brian and Sandra awoke to find the Beluga back in the southern hemisphere and moored off Santiago, and Brian found that he felt like an out-of-date taramasalata. In fact, he felt really grotty and in no condition to participate in the morning expedition. This was to a visitor site called Puerto Egas, a place that promised a smorgasbord of rock formations, grotto-like formations, tidal pools, fur seals, marine iguanas, oystercatchers and whimbrels. Anyway, Sandra was not similarly afflicted. So, while she joined the other Nature-seekers on a panga ride to this new display of Galápagos delights, Brian remained on board – and applied himself as best he could to drafting his speech!
Yes, just because he had misbehaved himself again the previous evening with an unwarranted harangue about the purpose of life, his companions had conferred on him the ‘honour’ of delivering a thank-you speech to the crew before he and his companions sat down for tonight’s dinner. This was… well, less an honour and more an exercise in prodding the brain into action when all the brain wanted to do was to coast along without any demands made on it at all, other than maybe entertaining the odd fantasy about Joanna Lumley or Sigourney Weaver – just to keep things ticking over, you understand. Well, coasting and fantasies would have to wait. He could not disappoint his audience, and after breakfast when his fellow passengers had set off for Puerto Egas, he dragged himself from his cabin and up onto the sundeck, and there he composed…
It proved a draining exercise, and when Sandra and the others returned, it took all the energy he retained to show any interest whatsoever in what they had seen and then the use of his reserve tank of energy to make it through lunch. The afternoon, he soon decided, would be spent in his cabin, recharging his batteries as much as possible so that he stood any chance at all of being able to stand and deliver – his speech – as required.
For the other Nature-seekers, it was different. There was yet another visitor site to be… visited. And this was Isla Bartolemé. This is the small island off the east coast of Santiago, which faces Sullivan Bay (the site of all that wonderful ropey lava that the Nature-seekers had walked across eight days before). It was advertised as quite a place; a small island equipped with a flight of wooden steps that lead to the island’s summit and what is supposed to be the most photographed view in the entire Galápagos. It was therefore somewhere that all those Nature-seekers who were not either indisposed or just plain indolent were keen to visit, and it wasn’t long after lunch before two pangas, each with a full complement of anticipation, had set off from the Beluga in the direction of Bartolemé. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long after this that the two pangas returned – with no anticipation any more but with just a cargo of very damp passengers. The sea had proved far too rough. Although the pangas had been able to approach the stone landing at the foot of that flight of steps, they had not been able to use it to discharge their cargo. The sea had been much too choppy and the swell much too large, and the Nature-seekers had had to return to their boat with no outstanding photos but with just wet clothes. Such is the nature of nature, and such is the nature of the end of holidays…
Yes, tomorrow would see the Nature-seekers returning to Baltra Island and from there they would fly back to Ecuador, and although some of them would then go on to the Ecuadorian Amazon, it would be the end of their expedition to the Galápagos. So it was all running down, and that aborted trip to Bartolemé just seemed to underline it. Certainly, in Brian’s mind, this visit to this wonderful archipelago had essentially run its course. Although, there again, he still had that speech to deliver.
Well, in the event, he was able to revive himself just about enough to make a decent job of it, even though it involved some not quite simultaneous translation… Of the locals, only Darwin and Abel were able to understand his English, and therefore, after a short burst of narrative, Darwin would step in to provide a translation of what had been said. This worked pretty well, other than when Brian had chosen one or two idioms that were clearly not in common circulation among English-speaking Ecuadorians, and he then had to help Darwin out. But anyway, British/Ecuadorian relations were in no way dented, and at the end of the presentation Captain José and his crew all looked just about as pleased as they would in the morning when they all received their tips… And nobody mentioned Julian Assange.
Well, with the speech delivered, Brian was still feeling slightly below par. So he excused himself straight after dinner and retired to his cabin where, before Sandra joined him, he’d decided he would review his time in the Galápagos and attempt to decide what were its high points and what were its low points. This is what he did, and this is what he eventually decided…
First on the list of high points was the Beluga. It had been difficult to find fault with: a beautiful, streamlined vessel, with more than adequate accommodation, a more than competent crew and an offering of food that was more than any of the Nature-seekers had expected. Yes, this tiny boat had become a very cherished home from home, and it would leave Brian with an enduring affection for a life on the waves – just as long as Pedro was there
with him.
Then there was the Galápagos archipelago. And where could he start? Maybe with its natural beauty or maybe with its other-worldliness. Or maybe with its unique complement of animals and birds who, despite what we have done to so many of their cousins around the world – and to so many of their ancestors – still seem able to accept us as harmless visitors and amazingly don’t regard us as a threat. And what a complement! Comical and charming blue-footed boobies. Splendid and literally magnificent frigatebirds. Ponderous and possibly pensive giant tortoises. Primeval and not in the least bit pensive marine iguanas. And then all those creatures of the sea: all those perspicacious sea lions and fur seals, all those colourful fish and sinuous rays, all those lumbering turtles – and all those absolutely fabulous sharks. Yes, even though they couldn’t be classed as Galápagos endemics, the sharks Brian had seen both in the water and from a beach might prove to be the most memorable creatures of all. And without a doubt, the single high point of this trip, which was head and shoulders above all the other high points, was that hammerhead shark off the Devil’s Crown. When Brian had entered the water there and found that he was alone except for a twelve-foot-long marvel of nature just a few feet below him, he had been catapulted into another world, a world of true wonder and a world that encapsulated what all this nature stuff was really all about: enchantment, even enthrallment – and something that can only be called genuine spirituality.
Anyway, returning to this world, it was at this stage of his musings that he remembered that he had shared it for the past two weeks with a group of other people who clearly needed to feature in any list of high points for this holiday. With a couple of New World exceptions – and a couple of self-isolating exceptions – they had proved themselves not just good company but outstanding company – and eminently ‘normal’ company, in the best sense of the word. They had shown humour, kindness, tolerance (for Brian’s interminable lectures), forbearance whenever this was necessary – and a degree of enthusiasm that was no less than inspiring. In fact, Brian was inclined to give them ten out of ten. Even if they might not all have reciprocated this score. And even if they might not all necessarily agree with what was on his list of low points for this expedition.
Absolutely Galápagos Page 21