The Silent Disco in the Clouds
I might have been pushing my luck in more than one sense, but I was hoping I would get away with it. A drive up to the village and the small cafe we’d visited a few days earlier, and then we’d head for the Levada do Risco walk. Finally, I might accidentally on purpose take the wrong turn out of the car park and we might accidentally on purpose end up at Fanal again. And so after taking one of the easier levada walks to the waterfall, where chaffinches fed on seeds pulled from nutty bars and placed on our outstretched palms, we took the road to the forest in the fog once again. Well when I mention chaffinches and outstretched palms, it was mostly Ali drawing the flocks. Wherever we go, small children and animals automatically sense the presence of a gentle soul and gravitate around her. One chaffinch did sit on my palm pecking away contentedly for several moments, but she was the main attraction. A couple of other trekkers tried something similar, but they were wasting their time with St Francesca of Redruth dominating the proceedings.
After a stiff uphill stroll back to the car park, it was a relatively short drive to Fanal. In the last mile of the drive a huge expanse of cloud filled the space below us, but there was nowhere to park. It turned out to be the only inversion we’d see at all in the two weeks we spent on the island. Last time Ali had returned to the car within a few minutes, and this time she didn’t feel inclined to join me at all, instead settling down in the passenger seat with the novel she’d found among our host’s bookshelves. Last time I’d been rescued by a group of Slovenians when I almost lost myself as night poured onto the high fogbound plain of the Serra do Paul. But this time I knew where the big car park was, and as I made my way towards the forest I took regular phone snaps of especially distinctive specimens as a kind of map back to it later. You really don’t want to get lost up here in the mist when the darkness is just around the corner. Even during the daytime it was noticeably chilly here at eleven hundred metres in comparison to the warmer air somewhere down there at sea level. For now it was clear, but I could see that wasn’t going to last. Fantastic from a photography perspective, less so from a getting back to the car safely point of view.
And as I arrived among the characters of the forest, the fog began to swirl in among the trees, swallowing up the hinterland and reducing the world to a space no larger than the size of a modest football pitch, separating the protagonists from one another and wrapping us in an eerie silence. I know of people who’ve been here and come away complaining about the clear conditions, yet I’d been fortunate enough to take my shots in a pea souper on each of the two visits I made. And then there were those amazing forms emerging from the shroud and driving the imagination into the world of Tolkein. Every scene seemed to represent something, such as the silent disco in the clouds here. I see dancers, one of them clapping their hands about their head like Mick Jagger on stage, while Tree Beard in the foreground wears a huge crown of foliage and shimmies across the floor in front of a watching audience.
I could easily have spent entire days up here wandering around, familiarising myself with the cast of this outlandish show in the sky, but it wasn’t a photography trip and I knew this would be the last chance to come here this time. On a clearer day I might have strayed further, to the less visited corners of the forest, but I wanted to make sure I found my way back without having to be saved by strangers this time. For now this was more than enough as the voiceless figures twisted and weaved their mysterious moves in front of me, bridging the distance between dreams and reality in this magical land above the clouds.
The Silent Disco in the Clouds
I might have been pushing my luck in more than one sense, but I was hoping I would get away with it. A drive up to the village and the small cafe we’d visited a few days earlier, and then we’d head for the Levada do Risco walk. Finally, I might accidentally on purpose take the wrong turn out of the car park and we might accidentally on purpose end up at Fanal again. And so after taking one of the easier levada walks to the waterfall, where chaffinches fed on seeds pulled from nutty bars and placed on our outstretched palms, we took the road to the forest in the fog once again. Well when I mention chaffinches and outstretched palms, it was mostly Ali drawing the flocks. Wherever we go, small children and animals automatically sense the presence of a gentle soul and gravitate around her. One chaffinch did sit on my palm pecking away contentedly for several moments, but she was the main attraction. A couple of other trekkers tried something similar, but they were wasting their time with St Francesca of Redruth dominating the proceedings.
After a stiff uphill stroll back to the car park, it was a relatively short drive to Fanal. In the last mile of the drive a huge expanse of cloud filled the space below us, but there was nowhere to park. It turned out to be the only inversion we’d see at all in the two weeks we spent on the island. Last time Ali had returned to the car within a few minutes, and this time she didn’t feel inclined to join me at all, instead settling down in the passenger seat with the novel she’d found among our host’s bookshelves. Last time I’d been rescued by a group of Slovenians when I almost lost myself as night poured onto the high fogbound plain of the Serra do Paul. But this time I knew where the big car park was, and as I made my way towards the forest I took regular phone snaps of especially distinctive specimens as a kind of map back to it later. You really don’t want to get lost up here in the mist when the darkness is just around the corner. Even during the daytime it was noticeably chilly here at eleven hundred metres in comparison to the warmer air somewhere down there at sea level. For now it was clear, but I could see that wasn’t going to last. Fantastic from a photography perspective, less so from a getting back to the car safely point of view.
And as I arrived among the characters of the forest, the fog began to swirl in among the trees, swallowing up the hinterland and reducing the world to a space no larger than the size of a modest football pitch, separating the protagonists from one another and wrapping us in an eerie silence. I know of people who’ve been here and come away complaining about the clear conditions, yet I’d been fortunate enough to take my shots in a pea souper on each of the two visits I made. And then there were those amazing forms emerging from the shroud and driving the imagination into the world of Tolkein. Every scene seemed to represent something, such as the silent disco in the clouds here. I see dancers, one of them clapping their hands about their head like Mick Jagger on stage, while Tree Beard in the foreground wears a huge crown of foliage and shimmies across the floor in front of a watching audience.
I could easily have spent entire days up here wandering around, familiarising myself with the cast of this outlandish show in the sky, but it wasn’t a photography trip and I knew this would be the last chance to come here this time. On a clearer day I might have strayed further, to the less visited corners of the forest, but I wanted to make sure I found my way back without having to be saved by strangers this time. For now this was more than enough as the voiceless figures twisted and weaved their mysterious moves in front of me, bridging the distance between dreams and reality in this magical land above the clouds.