GL17 sample

#30 get lost! ISSUE #17 get in the know! In July 2007 snow fell in Buenos Aires for the first time since 1918.

chewing away in the pampas, the Argentine loveof sugar or the sticky hot summers, but Argentinaproduces the best ice-cream in the world. AnyItalian tourist will grudgingly admit that. Finally my number is called and I sidle up to the counterlike a delirious lottery winner. “I can’t decide”, I blurt out to the amused ice-cream scooper man,before adding, “Just give me your two favouriteflavours”. He shoots me a flirtatious grin beforescooping up a decadent base of dulce de lecheand then tops it off with a sculpted crown ofchocolate suiza. I walk into the night, clutching my cone, lost in creamy bliss.

FORGET NEW YORK. BUENOS AIRES IS TRULY the city that never sleeps. The Big Apple’ssaucy Southern-Hemisphere sister is a

dizzy, dynamic party hub that throbs 24 hours a day, fuelled by an intoxicating mix of caffeine,beef, dulce de leche (milk caramel), maté tea,beer, tango, passion, vanity and an overactiveimagination. Geographically in South America butculturally in Europe, Argentina’s capital is a city of wide, tree-lined boulevards, grand colonialbuildings, impossibly hip boutiques and so many tango halls, theatres, galleries, museums,markets, restaurants, bars and nightclubs, you’dneed a thousand lifetimes without a wink of sleepto do them any justice.

Midnight Ice-CreamWith fourteen million people living within 1,400square kilometres, sleep was never going to behigh on the agenda. Instead of fighting the noise,porteños – as residents of Buenos Aires areknown – embrace the night. And midnight, even mid-week, is considered a perfectly good time to stroll the streets en route to theubiquitous neighbourhood heladeria (ice-creamparlour). Waiting around in long queues is part of life in Buenos Aires, and the heladeria I findmyself in is no exception. The menu on the walltempts with more than 50 tastebud-tantalisingflavours. Perhaps it’s all those productive cows

text: janine israel

images: janine israel & various

buenosaires24hoursin Janine Israel discovers that slumber is not a highpriority in the humming Argentinean capital.

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get in the know! Tango originated in the working-class districts of Buenos Aires. ISSUE #17 get lost! #31

argentina

12.45amDrinks With The Beautiful PeopleBy Buenos Aires’ standards the night is stillembryonic, so I don a silver lurex dress and bluehigh heels and head out to meet some travellerfriends. Our plan is a sedate, pre-clubbing tipple at Milión, the city’s swankiest bar. Jumping into a cab (they’re ridiculously cheap – you can cross half the city for around A$7), the driversqueals to a halt just north of the city centre at Paraná 1048. I walk through an unassumingentrance and find myself inside a convertedthree-storey mansion with a ground-floorrestaurant, a landscaped back garden and asweeping wooden staircase that leads to a bar fit for a seduction scene in a Bond flick. Scanningfor my friends through the mood lighting, I makeout dozens of gobsmackingly gorgeous peoplewith angular mullet haircuts sprawled elegantly on couches, clutching cocktails, deep ingesticulating conversation.

2.15amHitting The ClubsAfter draining the last of our pricey drinks, we agreeit is now a respectable hour to hit the nightclubs.Leaving Milión, we pile into a taxi. “To Muesum”,we tell the driver. There’s no need for furtherinstructions, he’s already driving south towardsthe San Telmo neighbourhood. It may be a weeknight, but Museum, a three-storey club in a buildingdesigned by Gustave Eiffel (the same bloke whochanged the Parisian skyline) is rammed to therafters with 20- and 30-something office workers,all scoping each other out and shaking their perfectbacksides to a medley of cheesy pop. How theyplan to get up for work in a few hours is anyone’sguess. I can’t help but wonder: does anyone inBuenos Aires actually do any work? An hour later,when the dancefloor is still a heaving, sweatymass of suited bodies locking lips, I begin to get an insight into why Argentina’s economy mighthave crashed so spectacularly in 2001.image: nicolas ferraro c

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talesof the

...they found a placethat seemed to fulfilevery cliche of the exotic,hidden paradise. Perfectlywhite, flat beaches studded with palm treesstretched for kilometres,coral reefs undulatedunder crystal-clearturquoise seas...

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’’text: gemma pitcher

images: justin jamieson & gemma pitcher

tanzania

#42 get lost! ISSUE #17

S EXOTIC NAMES GO, ZANZIBAR IS UP THEREwith Samarkand, Marrakesh or Timbuktu.Plenty of people don’t think it exists at all,

that it’s merely a made-up location straight out of an Eastern fairytale.

But Zanzibar is a real place – or, rather, places.Zanzibar is actually the name given to a cluster of islands that nestle in the waters of the IndianOcean just off the coast of mainland Tanzania.The two principal islands in the group are Unguja,also known as Zanzibar Island, and Pemba.

When most of the Western world was stillgrubbing around with primitive tools in dampfields and learning how to write, Zanzibar was

already a meeting place for the well-developedcultures of China, Persia and Arabia. It sat in themiddle of its own trading empire, stretching fromSomalia in the north down the coast of east Africato Mozambique in the south. This kingdom and itsinhabitants were known as the Swahili – ‘thepeople of the coast’. They traded gold, ivory andcloth with visitors from across the Indian Ocean,built handsome stone houses, minted silver coinsand wore fine silk clothes.

Envoys, merchants and even pirates from as far away as Japan and Russia came to Zanzibar insailing ships blown in by the north-east monsoonand returned, their holds laden with skins, ivory

Whether it’s getting lost in Stone Town’s

tangle of narrow streetsor enjoying the pristine

beaches, Gemma Pitcherfinds Zanzibar to be

an arresting place.

get in the know! Freddie Mercury, lead singer of rock band Queen, was born in Zanzibar.

A

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get in the know! Scottish explorer David Livingstone wrote that Zanzibar was “the finest place I have known in all of Africa to rest before starting my last journey”. ISSUE #17 get lost! #43

and slaves, on the south-western wind. Over the centuries that followed, Portuguese soldiers,Indian traders, Omani sultans and Britishcolonialists took it in turns to occupy the islands.Today’s Zanzibar wears the mark of its past.Wander through the markets, for instance, and you’ll see black-skinned ladies wearing the flowing black robes of the Arabic world, buying Indian spices and dried Chinese noodles.They haggle with the stallholders in a languagecalled Kiswahili, a blend of African, Arabic andPortuguese words developed since the tenthcentury to help dozens of different nationalitiesdo business with each other.

The Zanzibaris gained independence from their final occupiers, the British, in 1963, and thesocialist government that followed discouragedvisitors from the West until the early 1990s. Whenthe first backpackers started trickling in, theyfound a place that seemed to fulfil every clicheof the exotic, hidden paradise. Perfectly white, flat beaches studded with palm trees stretchedfor kilometres, coral reefs undulated undercrystal-clear turquoise seas and Stone Town itself was a mysterious tangle of narrow streets,spice markets and whitewashed mosques.

Naturally, the Zanzibaris themselves didn’t see it that way. After years of grinding poverty,

everyone who could start a beach bar, a taxiservice or a guesthouse did so and then waitedhopefully for the tourists to arrive. Word ofZanzibar’s charms leaked around the world and larger resorts for package tourists beganspringing up. Long-time travellers of Africamoaned that the island was being ruined, and in some ways they were right – topless Italians in G-strings paraded through strictly Muslimvillages, souvenir shops lined the once-pristinebeaches and fleets of minibuses buzzed through spice plantations.

Fortunately, however, Zanzibar has beenadapting to foreign cultures for centuries and the

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#54 get lost! ISSUE #17 get in the know! The Indian elephant is considered endangered and the current wild population is numbered at somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000.

astalkonthe

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get in the know! Kerala is India’s most progressive state in terms of literacy (90 per cent of the population can read and write) and access to healthcare. ISSUE #17 get lost! #55

india

wildsideTHE GUIDE LEANS IN TO WHISPER, SO

close I can almost feel the whiskers of his moustache brush my ear: “Shoot the

tusker first”. A hundred metres away, the herdof wild elephants we’ve been tracking all daybrowse placidly at the edge of the forest. Soabsorbed are they in their afternoon snack thatthe sudden arrival of a large number of men incamouflage appears not to phase them. I too am caught gawping for a moment, but dutifullyraise the barrel and take aim at the bull elephant.His leathery grey flank fills my sights.

Then something – a note of tension carried on theair currents – gives us away. The great male’s headturns. His eyes glare straight down the sights intomine as he begins throwing his trunk from side to side, one massive foot stomping in the dust.“Quickly!” hisses the guide. The herd tenses and

starts to break for the tree cover, and I know that if I don’t get my trophy now, I never will. My shoulder braces, my index finger cocks, and SNAP – I get half a dozen shots in.

It’s no coincidence that elephant tracking inKerala’s Periyar Tiger Reserve carries more than a hint of the hunter’s sport, even if the armourybeing toted by most of our band consists of zoomlenses rather than blunderbusses. In contrast toevery other national park in India, where wildlifeis most often glimpsed from the back of a jeep – or at best, from the back of a lumbering elephant– Periyar’s Tiger Trails program allows a limitednumber of visitors each day to infiltrate its lushforests on foot. It’s a rare taste of how life in thejungle might have been in the days of princes and

their hunting parties, long before the existence of commercial safaris, mass tourism and anyconcept of public liability.

The most remarkable part of the tour is thestory of the camo-clad leaders. They are membersof the 23-strong Ex-Vayana Bark Collectors – EcoDevelopment Committee (EDC), a snappy title for a band of former poachers who gave up theirillegal livelihood of stripping bark from cinnamontrees ten years ago to don the boots and khakis of law enforcement. Now they patrol the forests in search of poachers, as well as taking on theeven more fraught role of guiding tourists throughtiger-infested jungle.

“These fellows have been living in the forest for years. They know the trails better than thepark rangers”, brags CA Abdul Bashir, thereserve’s ecotourism officer, and a leading light

in the sustainable development project that haschanged Periyar’s social and economic landscapebeyond recognition since its inception in 1996.

Before the project, the park and its wildlife were in trouble, threatened by animal poaching,illegal gathering, slash-and-burn agriculture and a culture of corruption that turned a blind eye to violations of the reserve’s legal protection.Preserving the park’s natural assets was nevergoing to be a matter of simply shutting people out of the protected area. Bashir estimates that 35,000 families depend directly on the park and its natural resources for survival.Patrols and fences would have hardly stoppedthem from finding ways of getting at the materialsthey needed.

An Indian safari doesn’t have to mean inhaling dust in the back ofa jeep. David Stott meets the unlikely new heroes in Kerala’s waron poaching during a unique trek into tiger and elephant country.

text: david stott

images: david stott

They’re justifiably wary of leading us into a head-onencounter with a pack of four-tonne ivory bearers whomight recognise a former foe when they see one.

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Instead, the Kerala forest service embarked on a participatory management strategy that aimedto reduce the impact of the park on local peopleas much as to reduce the impact of the locals on the park. This meant giving locals ownership of the conservation process, making formalarrangements to support growers and gatherers ofmarginal crops and, most importantly, proving thatconservation could put rupees in local pockets.

A chain of more than 70 eco-developmentcommittees sprang up around the park, someworking to stop tribal fishermen being ripped off by middlemen, others to gain organic certificationfor their members’ spice crops. The cinnamonpoachers, with their advanced knowledge ofsecret forest footpaths and animal behaviour,had all the raw material to become highlyeffective gamekeepers; all that remained was to train them as guides. By opening the forestpatrols to tourists, the EDC has been able to ramp up its income from ecotourism while allowingvisitors, by virtue of their presence in vulnerableareas of the park, to play a cameo role in thebattle against environmental piracy.

To get a foretaste of what’s to come, Bashirarranges for me to join that evening’s night patrol,one of a series of walking tours run under the TigerTrails program. At 10pm I’m standing outside thepark gates with a trio of jumpy Americans whenthree uniformed rangers stride up, two armed

with high-powered torches, the other with a riflethat by all appearances dates back to before theSecond World War.

We soon leave the road for a leafy path and beginto wind downhill through denser forest. Adrenalineflows every time twigs crackle, though the mostthreatening creatures that cross our path are a black-naped hare, a tiny mouse deer and apossum-sized malabar giant squirrel dropping nut crumbs on our heads. The trail levels out by a small lake, where the spotlight picks out a nightjar posed in a bush, as motionless as amuseum stuffing, and far away on the oppositebank, a smudge of black that the guides insist is a porcupine.

After a shade more than two hours, we’re back in the village, and I feel like I’ve barely seen any of the park. In the context of Periyar’s 777square-kilometre expanse, I feel like a soccerreferee that has merely stood next to the cornerflag for an entire match. I struggle to conceivehow our impact has been anything more thansymbolic but can confidently report that nopoaching occurred on my watch.

The next morning, after far too few hours ofsleep, I head through the park gates again. Expertwildlife guide Syam Kumar accompanies me. A former hotel manager, Syam first came to Periyar in the early 1990s and after begging the parkrangers and biologists to teach him everything

there was to know about the ecology of the forest,he spotted a niche for himself as India’s mostenthusiastic wildlife guide. He had proved hismettle the previous afternoon by sprinting across afield full of water buffalo, hauling me back across itby the camera bag, and taking me on his motorbiketo show me a pair of snakes he’d discoveredentangled in a writhing courtship dance.

At the rangers’ office that overlooks Lake Periyar,we join a handful of fellow trekkers trying onstandard-issue khaki gaiters (to keep ticks off,Syam explains, though he doesn’t bother puttingany on himself), and then wander through crowdsof Indian families to the shore, where bamboo raftswait to ferry us across a narrow arm of the lake.Getting our trekking party away is no small exercisein logistics: our modest group of eight walkersrequires a support staff of four Ex-Vayana menplus one rifle-bearing guard.

Our precarious ferry transports us an easystone’s throw across the water, but when wedisembark we’ve already left the realm of millingdaytrippers far behind. We slip from the shore intolush rainforest where trees tower skyward frommighty networks of buttress roots, and Nilgirilangurs hoot from out of sight in high branches. A party of tribal fishermen pass us heading in theopposite direction, carrying their catch in roughcanvas sacks. They are the last people that we willsee until our return to the boat ramp in the evening.

#56 get lost! ISSUE #17 get in the know! Poacher guides in Periyar earn around A$160 a month. A native bison poached from the reserve for meat would sell for around A$220.


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We walk through rolling savannah-likegrassland, punctuated by islands of trees andfingers of rainforest with frequent appearancesof the lapping contours of the lake. It’s not longbefore we find the first evidence that elephantshave passed this way before us: the grass hasbeen trampled flat, deep footprints puncture the soil beneath and, most telling of all, greatcannonballs of moist, strawy elephant dung lie in heaps on the ground.

Having hitherto kept to themselves, our guides – Team Camo – now get forensic. They’rejustifiably wary of leading us into a head-onencounter with a pack of four-tonne ivory bearerswho might recognise a former foe when they see one. Syam, however, doesn’t seem too worried – the poo has long since stoppedsteaming – and he swiftly resumes his role as David Attenborough crossed with SamGamgee, leaping off the trail to demonstrate a tiny frog concealed in the hoofprint of anantelope, gleefully mugging for photos holding balls of elephant shit, then wiping his handsclean, picking up my tripod and toting it for the rest of the day without a word of complaint.

The sun’s high overhead and beating downharshly when we emerge by the lake’s edge. With the heat becoming unbearable, it’s awelcome surprise to round a headland and find three bamboo rafts moored on the shore. We climb aboard, four to a boat, and I let my feet trail in the cool water as the rangers strike up a steady rhythm, paddling through a skeletalwoodland of trees drowned when the valley wasflooded in the 1890s. As well as providing Periyarwith one of its signature images, the dead treesmake a useful perch for cormorants, swallowsand dapper black and white kingfishers, whichobligingly demonstrate their hunting technique,hovering in the air before arrowing into the waterfrom a prodigious height.

We come ashore after an hour’s hot paddling,desperate to flop down in the shade and go for aswim – a prospect that would be easier to achievewithout the confounded laces of the army gaiters.I’ve finally defeated them when a bugle call fromthe ridge behind us signals that we’ve caught upwith the elephants. Everyone stops for a second.Syam cautions those of us in earshot to stay nearthe water, then bolts towards the trees with oneof the anti-poacher platoon.

They’re gone for a tense quarter of an hour,during which the rifleman periodically toys with his safety catch and the rest of us edgesurreptitiously closer to the trees and the source of the sound. Then a black shape emerges fromthe forest edge: it’s Syam, frantically waving for us to follow. By the time we can catch up he’salready bounded out of sight to check the wayahead. A V-formation of craning necks, we line upbehind the gun and creep uphill into the woods.

From somewhere above and to the right comesan almighty crashing. The elephants are hooningthrough the forest, apparently only metres awayfrom us, yet somehow contriving to remain invisible.

From somewhere above and to theright comes an almighty crashing. Theelephants are hooning through the forest,apparently only metres away from us...

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get in the know! The Sabarimala temple in Periyar attracts up to five million pilgrims a year.


#96 get lost! ISSUE #17 get in the know! Although rabies is usually associated with dogs, among domesticated animals in the US rabies today is more likely to be found in cats.

we would give the family a fistful of rupees before setting off into the arms of the next town’sschoolkids. Thus we travelled, happy and listless.

On the fifth day we heard an echo in a valleythat filled us with dread. Barking. We had seenvicious dogs in the past, but these soundeddifferent. Crazed. With no other path to follow, we dipped into the town and immediately foundourselves surrounded by snarling dogs snapping at our feet. My friend Jonno is a calm man, sowhen he kicked a dog I knew something wasamiss. He showed me blood on his fingers. “This dog bit me”, said Jonno. Our true Indianadventure began.

The RetreatDogs are the other great rabies vessel of north India and the one that bit Jonno had the typicalcharacteristics – unbridled aggression and no vaccination. Our job was to find a hospital within 24 hours where Jonno could get aninoculation. We followed a farmer’s directionsthrough jungle and river to a dirt road that would apparently lead us to the hospital.

Things got difficult when storm clouds dumped an unholy monsoon on our heads theminute we stepped onto the road. We roundeda corner to hear another frightful sound –gushing water. A river had broken its banks and washed out the road to the hospital. It was running onto a 15-metre drop onto rocksbelow. Standing at the edge of the torrent was a stunted old schoolteacher named Amil Su.

“A hospital is indeed at the end of this road”, he said, before pointing to the rocks below. “But you will not be passing here! We must wait until the storm does subside.”

The CrossingThe storm only got more ferocious but on the other side of the river we noticed a pair of schoolchildren unsteadily making the crossing. Jonno, Olly and I nodded at each other. “No!” screamed Amil as we started to cross. The old man stormed ahead of us. “I will go first!” Amil inched towards the middle of the river. Growing impatient and buoyed by his relative success, I charged. Then I stopped. Metres from the end, Amil had slipped and was rushing towards theprecipice. Here would be our first death then. But as he reached the edge, some watchinglocals lunged for Amil’s arm, caught hisshirtsleeve and pulled him to safety.

No sooner had Olly, Jonno and I each safelynavigated the crossing in Amil’s wake, but theclouds parted and the first car we had seen in five days was waiting 100 metres down the roadready to take us to the hospital. There, the doctorhad good and bad news. She did not have thevaccine. But Jonno, in her opinion, did not haverabies. How she knew, we don’t know. But to thisday Jonno remains a healthy young man and the Buddhists in the Dharamsala cafes nowrecommend carrying sausages along with the apples.

Dogs are the other great rabies vessel of north India and the one that bit Jonnohad the typical characteristics – unbridled aggression and no vaccination.

RABIDINDIAThe TownIn the year 2000, two friends and I sat in the cafes of Dharamsala, the adopted hometown of the Dalai Lama in India, and listened to visiting Western Buddhists discuss matters of importance. Their concern was notenlightenment, but how to trick the local monkeys. “Always carry an apple with you”, they would say. “If you see a monkey, throw it. They always chase apples.”

This was not idle chat, but a matter of life andrebirth. Monkeys had been attacking tourists andit was said that some had rabies, a fatal disease spread by animal bite. These Buddhists had cometo Dharamsala to inch a little further down the path of enlightenment. They knew that a singlenip from an irritable monkey would stop that holy

trip short. “Goddamn monkeys”, they would blaspheme. “They don’t like us.” If monkeys didn’t like devoted Buddhists, we reasoned they’d hatebackpacking Aussies, so my friends and I fled forthe unmapped villages of north India. It was herethat we discovered monkeys were not the realdanger in the area. That honour went to the dogs.

The TrekFor a week my friends Olly and Jonno and I wound through the lush hills of McLeod Ganj. Each day curious schoolchildren would lead us into their houses with the promise of salty chai and a bed. Inside, warm-hearted mothers whospoke no English would feed us curry until wecould no longer return their smiles. Each morning

Tom Maclachlan dodges monkeys, dogs and raging torrents in north India.

text: tom maclachlan

images: donall o cleirigh

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