Different worlds

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Islas de Galapagos, Isla Bartolomè,
18-10-1990.

Every waking moment of my time here touring these magnificent islands full with endemic life forms, animal species totally unconcerned with the camara toting foreign humans invading their cherished home, I am reminded of how the wortld would be without the presence and consequent demands of the human race, the impact we have on the world around us...

Sitting here on top of our boat, hot mug of steaming java warming my hands, waiting for the first rays of sun that will herald the beginning of a new day...a brand new day in a natural world only slightly contaminated by the world of mankind...philosofical matters concerning the place of the human race in this world rule my mental thinking

No big mega cities where the dregs of the human species have to survive on a bread bare excistence, sharing their wretched lives in slums at the outskirts of town where huge conglemorates with more wealth and political influence than quite a few third world impoverished states, makes their billions and are clamouring for more wealth ignoring that little girl who just escaped the dirt smeared hands of her mother to have a sh*t in the street...

But I'm not somewhere in the shantytowns of India, nor am I visiting the dusty streets of downtown Nairobi where wintered African prostitutes in down and out local bars will tell me how "beautifull my stupid white skins" is hoping for some foreign American dollars...

I'm not back in my native Amsterdam where I'm well on the way to become a street-wise pusher who grew up in the Dutch deep south, another druggy from the countrysite who would better wise up or else become another loser lost in hectic of the big city...

No, I'm experiencing a totally different life here in this natural paradise where the harshness of life is funtamentally apart from that of a human city dweller. This is the Kingdom of Creation where brown pelicans with wide fingered wings glide across the ocean, flying in a perfect millitary formation, a squadron-like procession they already used long before mankind invented flying machines...

Here I can swim eye to eye with small nosy pinguins, maybe watch a blue-footed booby feed its hungry chick, the barren beauty of volcanic lava formations are mine to enjoy, a huge tortoise lumbering through a cactus forest will be a haunting image inside my Gringo head for the rest of my life, iguanas scurrying across the lava bed will be a sight to behold once back home and uselessly slaving away again for a dominant boss...

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Photos

small volcanic cone
Isla Santiago

scenic photo
Galapagos Islands

scenic photo
Galapagos islands

The fearfull one
sketch from my sketch book