It's Not a Petting Zoo
This afternoon I decided to go up to the plateau formed by the hills that bisect our little peninsula. I haven't been up there in over a year and I had a yearning for a little solitude with the only sound of the wind and distant mooing of cows.
The road up goes through a lookout point that overlooks all the Ría de Arousa, the bay that reaches inland where I live. When I got to the top it was wall-to-wall cars. None were local. Okay, not here. I continued along the road until the asphalt ran out and it became dirt and gravel. If our cars could talk about all the places we've put them through, they would shame a four-wheel drive. But the road is still quite good for a ways into the plateau.
No dice. Solitude? In August? The tourists that weren't at the beach were all up there. Walking along the road. Hunkered in cars under pine trees. Throwing a frisbee to a dog next to a pristine stream. I decided to turn around and head home. Next month is my vacation month and I can take a day all to myself away from the house then. Going back to the lookout I saw them. A man and a little girl posing for a picture. In front of a group of wild cows.
While these cows are not on a par with the bison in Yellowstone and their sudden aggressiveness, those tourists are right up there with the most ignorant wanderers that exist. There's a good rule of thumb: if it isn't behind a fence, don't go near it. Once upon a time only the locals used to go up there for picnics and such. They would always keep an eye out for the cows. If the cows decided to come near, the locals would pack up and move. A cow or two has been known to be aggressive and charge someone. Especially during the time they have calves.
Another tourist was trying to get near a wild horse. So what can a wild horse do? Bite you? Those horses up on the hills are not the combed, saddled, docile horses you can hire to ride. And I bet that tourist has never been bitten by a horsefly. Because those are wild horses and horseflies are just that, flies that live with horses in their natural habitat. The bite of a horsefly is painful and leaves a raised bump that itches like an unholy obsession for days afterward. Scratch it enough and it will become infected. And you'll be hard put not to scratch.
I decided to leave. The hills will always be there. The idiots, not.
The road up goes through a lookout point that overlooks all the Ría de Arousa, the bay that reaches inland where I live. When I got to the top it was wall-to-wall cars. None were local. Okay, not here. I continued along the road until the asphalt ran out and it became dirt and gravel. If our cars could talk about all the places we've put them through, they would shame a four-wheel drive. But the road is still quite good for a ways into the plateau.
No dice. Solitude? In August? The tourists that weren't at the beach were all up there. Walking along the road. Hunkered in cars under pine trees. Throwing a frisbee to a dog next to a pristine stream. I decided to turn around and head home. Next month is my vacation month and I can take a day all to myself away from the house then. Going back to the lookout I saw them. A man and a little girl posing for a picture. In front of a group of wild cows.
While these cows are not on a par with the bison in Yellowstone and their sudden aggressiveness, those tourists are right up there with the most ignorant wanderers that exist. There's a good rule of thumb: if it isn't behind a fence, don't go near it. Once upon a time only the locals used to go up there for picnics and such. They would always keep an eye out for the cows. If the cows decided to come near, the locals would pack up and move. A cow or two has been known to be aggressive and charge someone. Especially during the time they have calves.
Another tourist was trying to get near a wild horse. So what can a wild horse do? Bite you? Those horses up on the hills are not the combed, saddled, docile horses you can hire to ride. And I bet that tourist has never been bitten by a horsefly. Because those are wild horses and horseflies are just that, flies that live with horses in their natural habitat. The bite of a horsefly is painful and leaves a raised bump that itches like an unholy obsession for days afterward. Scratch it enough and it will become infected. And you'll be hard put not to scratch.
I decided to leave. The hills will always be there. The idiots, not.
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| Taken from inside the car with a zoom. |
In my youth in the 40s to own a dog one needed a backyard and a kennel. Now people are living in apartments with huge dogs and treat them as if they were human. After the animal dies they need counselling to get over their grief. When they visit the countryside they expect to find all animals as furry friends.
ReplyDeleteOnly too true.
ReplyDelete