h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes I have a cat too, and she enjoys going out in the garden, now that warmer weather has come. It's great you have a garden. I'm quite keen on gardening stuff. I've been planting things and some of the perenial plants are coming into blossom and flowering, or coming up to flower later. I love this time of year.



It's a while since I've watched Papillon, and cannot remember if the landing stage shown was the actual one in real life. I could see Devil's island from the mainland where Papillon spent some of his sentance, but he also spent time in the main prison on the mainland that I looked around. One of Marc's colonial contacts, in St Laurent told us that Papillon actually used some stories of other prisoners in his book, as if they were part of his own story, because of gossip in the town. Who knows if that is true? And in any case, literary licence is common in many books.



When in town we either ate at many of the Vietnamese restaurants (monkey was actually on the menu in them but as much as I was curious to taste it, my heart and ethics wouldn't let me, and besides, goodness only knows how ballistic Marc would have gone?). We rented a place towards the end on the edge of St Laurent, and so cook normally.

As far as the forest goes we took supplies in like rice and tinned stuff that we cooked on a camping stove. We also supplimented our diet by fishing and tropical fruits of all kinds that we came across in our journeys through the forest to find a suitable study site. Marc was very expert at identifying fruits because he had worked for several years in Surinam forest, (Dutch Guiana), that is adjacent to French Guiana.

We once came across an ancient and overgrown small coconut patch that Marc said may have originally been planted by an indigenous indian tribe or the Boni, years ago. I'll never forget how wonderful the juice tasted in the coconuts there. So dfiferent from the older taste you get from ones in shops in the UK. It felt so amazing to be standing by the river and coming across this ancient little plantation right deep into the forest. It was atmospheric in some ways like the prison.

Our camp in the forest consisted of 2 hammocks slung between a couple of trees, and tarpaulin tied to the trees to act as a shelter from the frequent rain showers. It was pretty dammed 'primitive'. Every morning when we left our camp we had to put sticks in the hammocks to keep them 'open' as it were because if the hammocks close up, mould quickly begins to grow in them because of the rain forest condions of heat and extreme humidity.

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I meant to say that when we were visiting these people's houses, it was difficult for me to go off on own and do much exploring, except like at the prison which was deserted, because as a lone female I was subjected to continuous harassment. I had sensibly brought my nana's old wedding ring to wear, which helped a bit to give the impression of a 'husband' somewhere But being unescorted by 'him' I still got hassle.

I hope that also likes being in the garden, as she didn't come back this morning as I left for the office. Ah well, she's done it before, that will leave her time to chase birds and evil squirrels.



I don't mind literary license in books either (at least in fiction ). It doesn't really matter if 's story is accurate or if some other people have contributed to the character. Yet the book attracted quite some criticism because of that. Maybe the author presented all this as hard fact? I'm not even sure.



You should have tried monkey just to annoy Marc, I guess. And since they were on the menu anyway, I don't know to what extent ethics should play a role. Also, the fact whether it is a culturally accepted food should matter (if they offered monkey here for example, I wouldn't eat. It must be illegal anyway.).

Ooh, fresh tropical fruit from the rain forest I wonder how fresh coconut tastes, too.



Would mould start growing in the hammocks in just one day? You had said it was fast, but it is quite stunning that it is so fast. You could almost see it spreading, eh? More action than sloth-watching



I know a guy called Marc too, and I imagine yours just like him, what with lecturing you about rainforest Effers and not letting you steer the boat. Are you sure it was Marc who wanted to go to the rainforest far from the people, or wasn't it rather that everybody kicks him out of their place all the time?

He sounds just like a tough guy from a movie. If he had been like that in England you might have passed his offer and gone with the Canadian guy. Although, you never know, maybe the Canadian's rainforest self was no better. Wouldn't you want to contact him and go again?

You might find this of interest, Toy box?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_van_Roosmalen

Yes, the man himself. And getting into trouble over monkey business apparently. What a surprise.



Yes it was quite incredible how quickly mould would grow in the forest. The whole decomposition process is quite voracious. I stupidly brought some leather boots for the forest, even though Marc had warned me not to. After a few days they were starting to rot. And of course I got, 'I told you so', thrown at me.

I don't think you are aware how long ago this all happened. I have quite a photographic memory. Good long term memory is common with bipolars, even though the medication needed, annoyingly takes a bit of the edge off it. Yes I really think things might have been very different if I'd gone with the Canadian to Papua New Guinea. Despite my excellent memory I can't remember his name now, except it was Mac something...

I think it's about time I continued with this. I'm finding it really good to do this Toy box for *my* benefit. I wasn't able to write about it when I got back because of my state, mentally and physically, and then I put it off and never got round to it...I noticed you haven't been around for a week. Hope all is well.



I thought it would be good to speak a bit more about the good bits. Some of the unexpected experiences I had in the rain forest with the creatures. I've mentioned the sloth and cowbird. And I posted this on one of Ed's journal threads a few weeks ago:-

*******Oh yes deception and mimicry is rife in nature. I've always had a thing about it. It's hugely fascinating.

In the rainforest myself and my collegue, (Marc), were about to get out the boat, and as he was going to step onto the bank, I grabbed him as I spotted a snake. He instinctively slashed it with his machete. Because he said, the pattern on its back was indicative of a deadly poisonous snake. He said you have to turn it over to look at the pattern on its underside to find out if it the trickster or the real thing. He turned it over after making sure it was dead. It was indeed the real McCoy. ************



(I want to keep everything together on this thread. I'm going to compile it all eventually.)



On one occasion, deep in the forest gloom all of a sudden this humming bird appeared a few inches in front of my face. It was at eye level and just hung there in one position, as they do, like it was probing me. (It was almost a star trek sort of moment as this alien, or was it me that was the alien in its environment?). I stood stock still as Marc strode off ahead, The humming bird and myself kind of sharing this intimate moment together.. And then after a minute it abruptly zoomed off like a tiny ufo, at a tremendous speed, and disappeared into the forest again.

Later Marc explained to me that they have specific territories. So as far as the hummingbird was concerned I was a stranger suddenly appearing in its patch. It needed to check me out, examine me.

Another bird experience was equally sudden and abrupt. Because its so gloomy under the canopy, and all the ferns, lianas, epiphytes, not to mention the bloody trees everywhere, you don't have much warning about something appearing. This mother duck kind of chicken, fowl, or whatever it was, ran across in front of me with a whole load of its young running behind it. I don't know the species it was because once again Marc was miles in front of me with his super charged fast machete hacking technique; I was no slouch at it myself. But Marc always had to be focussing on searching for a bloody study site for his spider monkeys. He did love all the animals in the forest, but his heart was well and truly given over to monkeys, spider monkeys in particular.

I should say I never did see a monkey, but I heard plenty, particularly at night, especially the Howler monkeys. That's quite scary, the sound the Howlers make, a kind of very deep toned booming sound to each other. The monkeys spend most of the time very high up in the canopy level, which you can't see from ground level.

Okay must stop.



( Frogs which I thought were birds, ants, water snake, another humming bird I thought was peccary. Natural History Museum, boat trip at night, turtle laying eggs The story of my leaving...).

I'm just making a mental note of things I want to mention in the future..****.And you don't feel you need to read it all, I'm writing it for myself as much now.)

Speak soon I hope And of course we can talk about other things as well.....

Had to post this. I found this on his website

http://www.marcvanroosmalen.org/news.htm

I know he has done a lot of good. .........I'm just not ever keen on extremists; however apparently the cause. And for sure he loves his monkeys far more than we homo sapien apes.

That's quite something to see that.

I met a guy called Van Roosmalen once. Might he be related? If I had known about Marc before I would have asked him.

Regarding this thread - it is good to read you benefit from it, too. I enjoy it very much, it is probably my favourite hootoo (and real life, come to it) thread ever. So even if I don't give much news (please accept my apoplogies), I am still reading on and not missing any new installment.

This humming bird encounter also reminded me of some star trekky moment. What would it have done if you had been deemed dangerous? It is funny that finally you ended up seeing more birds than monkeys (ach, I had been waiting for a simian encounter!). And of course some creepy crawly - the story you tell gives a whole new dimension to that expression by the way. Speaking of which, I didn't see you mentioning any spider (except spider monkeys, obviously)...

I'll have a look through the link to Marc's adventures now. It reminds me of a story, apparently in India (Delhi maybe?) some monkeys are roaming free in the streets, and so sometimes they enter houses and do all sorts of mischief. In particular, I was told that if you have papers and stuff lying around they tend to play around with them and throw them in the air and whatnot. And now I think of cumbersome administrative work as 'monkey work'!

Hey toybox, I am going to be most careful now in how I post here, because I suddenly realised that now he is identified by my links, there are libel issues. I just hadn't thought it through properly. I have actually gone through thread and yikes myself on 3 posts because of that.

I ask you to be aware of that now in what you say.

I'm so pleased you've enjoyed reading it.

I shall certainly now at some point write an account of the whole thing. I'll continue to post here but with the libel issue in mind. This is *most* important I hope you understand.

If you want to contact me personally about anything here, or anything else Feel free to at

[email protected]

(And yes it's a funny address, be sure to spell it right........)

Should I already make a reservation for a copy of the account?

The future is good food, yummy! Thanks a lot for the address; I'll watch the spelling, too. I'll send you an email at some point, I don't know yet whether about here, anything else or nothing specific though.

Also, although I'll be careful about what I write, feel free to yikes anything I post which you find unsuitable.

I did David Attenbrough a bit of a disservice. He does do a thing with sloths. But guess what? You guessed it. He features it in the 1% of the time it's moving around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAHACe0uc64

Ooh, that was almost too much action for me

They're sort of cute, really. I wonder how long David Attenborough's crew had to wait till they got these shots?

Hi Toybox,

I found this image of the Mana river in French Guiana, which we travelled up to do our research.

http://www.superstock.com/imagepreview/1566-0202706



And I found out some interesting information about the language of taki taki, as spoken by the Boni/Bush negroes. The information relates to Surinam, (formally Dutch Guiana), right next door to French Guiana, the Mana river being very close to the border with Surinam. Apparently the Boni or the Maroons as they are known there, were the escaped slaves from plantations within Dutch Guiana, although it had been under English control from 1651 to 1667. The Dutch retained English as Linga franca. There are two main types of taki taki, Sranan and Saramaccan. It's very interesting to read about the mixture of languages that contributed to these two types of taki taki.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/561849/Sranan

and

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/523935/Saramaccan



I coouldn't find any decent doco about the situation in French Guiana, but found a very interesting one about Surinam, which as I say is very close to the Mana river area. The doco is about the situation of the Boni/Maroons in Surinam. It's quite concerning in that foreign companies, particularly from Asia/China, are logging the rain forest for timber and palm oil plantations are being planned. Because Surinam is now an independent country, unlike French Guiana, they are desperate for money. This whole situation is threatening the traditonal culture and living areas of the Boni/Maroons as well as the indigenous American Indians. Mining for gold is also a continuing problem, causing pollution. I told you about the Boni working in the gold mines in French Guiana.

The doco shows just how 'African' the Boni's culture still is. And there is plenty of people speaking taki taki in the programme, both sorts. I can spot the occasional bits of 'English' in their speech.

I thoroughly recommend watching this doco; although it is very concerning. At least the situation in French Guiana is less of a problem at present, supported by France as it still is. It shows that independence for some countries in the third world can also have its drawbacks.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=z5OoPc6_eFE

I finally got around watching the documentary I'll have to watch it again though, just for it to sink in.

Isn't 'independence' a misleading word? Suriname doesn't really seem not to depend on foreign countries. One of the persons seemed quite optimistic about eco-tourism; I wonder if that would be better than palm oil in the long run. In any case I will keep Suriname in mind as a potential travel destination!

Yeah that doco is brilliant. The organisation making those films, British I think, does a lot of excellent stuff from all around the world. I think Surnam would be a great place to visit. But remember to take precautions against the grass lice in the forest floor, when you go into the virgin rainforest. What did I say earlier about no-one ever mentioning them but me. And yet the unbearable itching they caused me, came to dominate my whole experience. They are probably better genned up about it in Surinam if they are developing eco-tourism.

This short piece talks about some of the 'exciting' animals I didn't get to see. It's about the Amazon forest, which is connected to the rainforest systems of the Guinas. So it equally appliesto Surinam forest I think. If you go, you could pop across the border into Fr. Guiana and actually go up the Mana river which is close by. It's said to be the most pristine in Fr Guiana. And as you go upstream deep into the forest, you get to see lots of Boni houses and settlements on the banks, before you get to the uninhabited bits. But you'd see all this in Surinam as well.

http://www.abcarticledirectory.com/Article/Amazon-Rainforest-Animals/128131

I can't recommend it enough as an experience. I must get round to adding to my personal story here.....

And yes, of course, I meant literal 'independance' from the Dutch; I think it was in the 70s.

As an aside, I mentioned the English, ruled Surinam between 1651-1667. They actually swapped it with the Dutch for New Amsterdam. So New York would still be called that today presumably, if they hadn't swapped. The taki taki actually contains a lot of old English, from that period. I find languages, completely fascinating. And remember, if you don't know the word for something in taki taki, just call it sarni - song.....