This week´s blog is a lamentation from the pen of Rod Frew. Here it is, unexpurgated. Ponder on it, mortals, and weep.
A rather late, even than usual, and somewhat gloomy and joyless report.
Once upon a time Aguas
Belas lived up to its name as being probably the most attractive valley in the
Serra de Silves.
The track following
the valley almost to the top used to accompany the stream all the way with
multiple crossings and was shaded by the ancient acacias and medonheiros lining
the river bed. Every curve revealed another lush vista between the trees,
green and shady even if the stream had tried up in the height of the summer,
passing the occasional evocatively ruined farmstead until one eventually came
upon the mysterious old medronho adega long ago abandoned, but still with a
small, grassy meadow alongside where you could relax lying in the shade and
dream of another life long gone.
No more. Eucalyptus
has one again taken its destructive toll. The track has been levelled and
widened to take the massive machinery which the culling of eucalyptus demands,
the valley trees have all been slaughtered by howling chainsaws to make way for
20 ton tractors pulling huge trailers laden with the dead, the ancient ruins and
the medronho distillery now only like gaunt skeletons in the desert. The once
peaceful valley now reverberates with the roar of powerful diesels, and the
screams of armies of chainsaws. The hillsides, now mountains of treeless dust,
crawling with machinery of death. The shady forest trails are now churned and
ground up by massive wheels and tracks into powdery dust bowls waiting for
autumn rains to convert them into torrents of mud and sweep them to the valley
below. Soon the battlefield will be quiet, the dead will have been carried away
but the desolation will remain.
It was to here that
John and Hazel, Terry and Jill, Frank, Myriam, Yves and Rod set off on a still
relatively cool June morning from the Café Para e Fica. The ever chatty and
friendly Ana Maria has now parted from the owner's son and, although we saw her
briefly collecting some of her belongings, the café is now served by other
hands.
We were quickly served
notice of what was to come on the walk when we were obliged to take refuge from
the first of many trucks carrying eucalyptus bodies to the paper mills. It
must be said in small mitigation that the drivers did take the trouble to slow
down so that we were only partially covered with fine dust. We continued through
this scene of ever increasing desolation until we ascended a once shady track to
the near ridge. From there we were able to see the scale of this veritable
desecration of once beautiful countryside. Desecration of a countryside, for the
principal benefit of large industry and opportunist landowners overseen by
totally inept government departments, which will take a generation to recover
and even then dependant on future plantation strategy and destiny. Over the
ridge we began to escape the turmoil although the advance party chainsaw
infantry had been at work leaving the track strewn with fallen trees and
obstacles. Over one of these Frank came a cropper and began losing copious
blood from a damaged knee. Yves, a fully equipped medico as usual, donned his PPE gloves
and leapt into action. Within minutes a tourniquet stemmed the blood loss and
assorted unguents and a dressing was applied allowing Frank to march on
undaunted.
Crossing the bottom of
the next valley, normally impassable, had been opened up by the advance guard
allowing us to reach the track on the other side. This track headed up to a
ridge between us and the beginning of the Aguas Belas valley enabling us to complete a wide
circle. It did however involve a very steep descent to the valley floor, made
even worse by fallen trees across the track. In the end a slow descent but at
least without further incident or accident..
And so back to
the café. There somewhat to our surprise, the good chap now serving customers
announced the 7 tostas were nearly ready. We had earlier enquired merely if they were
available. Perhaps they had a prompt from Ana Maria who would have counted our
numbers whilst she was there. In any event, although there were 8 of us walking and only 6 staying
to eat, we felt obliged to accept all 7. (Why 7 tostas for 8 walkers is a puzzle unlikely to be resolved.) And the tostas kept coming; there was no stopping the tide. No particular hardship as they were
rather good and all were consumed. And so ended what will probably be the last
Aguas Belas walk for a very long time. Perhaps we should invite Greta Thunberg
on a walk there to see what demand for paper does for environmental destruction
and pollution and give her another axe to grind.
Rod Frew.
Rather than break the flow of Rod´s jeremaiad with pictures, I will simply make them an addendum to his text.
Post Script
Well a suitably grave recital for the endpiece, it is the first time I have seen subtitles, which give lie to the dirge.
Regrettably the Alexandrov Ensemble Choir (the main part of the Alexandrov Ensemble) credited with the video is no more. It was established in 1926 in Moscow by Alexander V. Alexandrov as a military male voice choir of tenors and basses who were members of the armed forces. Alexandrov directed the choir until he died in 1946, when it was taken over by his son Boris from 1946 -1987. Since then there have been various directors and in the 1990's the first female (serving army personnel) were permitted to take part usually as soprano soloists.
In 2007 for the first time boy sopranos and altos were allowed to participate, from the associated school choirs.
In 2016, 63 members of the choir died among 90 passengers in a Russian Military aircraft which crashed on the way to Syria, without survivors. I am not sure whether it has been resurrected.
Some lovely purple prose above from Rod and the theme was well illustrated by John and his Sony.
Anyway I have no time to scribble on or it won't be published before tomorrows walk. My coffee journal may be continued in my other WASPS blog.
Ate a proxima,
No comments:
Post a Comment