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Hi from Barranco de Mogán!
This scenic mountain valley in the southwest of Gran Canaria island, with its always mild weather, serpentine roads, and delicious final rewards (I forgot to take a photo, but head to Casa Fernando for some great food and a refreshing local mango juice!), is all you could ask for from a road trip.
We retracted the roof on our Mini Cooper and joined the cyclists in conquering those curves that offer spectacular views towards the Mogán village, the sea, and a couple of tranquil dams. You can check it out in my 2-min short video.
Nature is often the best therapist. But, at Mirador de Inagua viewpoint, I did lose my temper and said something that put me in the same box with that saint-or-sinner Trump, who thinks that his hunger for territories deserves Nobel prizes and that calling other people stupid somehow reaffirms his IQ (US President openly questions the intelligence of everyone who is not himself, from reporters to his own supporters).
As I enjoyed the view of the Canary pine forest and the Presa del Mulato irrigation dam, a popular hiking spot, a noise nearby stopped my thoughts.
There was a party of five, a Russian family, and the sound of thunder descending the mountain. “Wohooo!!!”, the impressed observers voiced their pride.
Then I saw this teenage boy squatting down, lifting (another) rock with his two hands off the ground. And I figured it out: these relaxed tourists were throwing significant-sized rocks down the forested hill.
“Hey, don’t throw that!”, I shouted, but saw no reaction. “Don’t throw rocks!”, I raised my voice again when I saw the boy was not responding. And finally, I lost it. An angry Trump in me said: “Stop it! Are you stupid, or what?”
At this moment, the teenager’s dad woke up from his sleepwalking slumber and yelled back at me, offended: “Don’t call him stupid. He is a boy!”
My instinctive knee-jerk reaction was not to the idea that a teenager wouldn’t know better than throwing rocks down the mountain, as being a boy is certainly not a sin. But how come that in this Russian family of five, with three adult figures present, none of the grown-ups had anything to say before I shouted the s-word? No, they were practically applauding as the rock was unstoppably racing down the hill, creating an ominous sound.
There was no other explanation for this family’s action but ignorance, yet the boy’s father, the carrier of the smartness gene and the family authority, hearing my comment, stirred up, chest bloated, arms pumped… “Who are you to call someone stupid? You want to have a problem?”
“Well, you already have a problem. That rock could potentially kill someone. You don’t know who is possibly walking down there!”, I responded, while my non-confrontational friend was pulling me on the side, saying, “Let’s leave”.
Did I overreact? Was I so wrong? I don’t know. I would have hoped the boy’s father had a similar instinct, and that the energy he found to give me, a stranger, a lecture on minding my own business, he could have used to educate his own offspring on negligence.
Human-thrown rocks in the mountain can be fatal. The cases are rare, but reckless homicides do happen. For instance, in 2007, hikers in Wyoming‘s Wind River Range threw a rock from a cliff, out of amusement. The rock ended up hitting Pete Absolon in the back of his head. The helmet couldn’t save the acclaimed climbing instructor from the projectile; he was instantly killed.
We all head to the mountains to switch off our brains for a while. But we still have to take basic responsibility for our actions. Just because we are away from the city’s asphalt, it doesn’t mean that the jungle takes over. We are not alone in the universe, and the laws still apply.
If nothing else, the laws of gravity are so obvious. We don’t need to have intentional malice in us to understand that we don’t control a rock thrown downhill in the same way we don’t control a car when we let go of the steering wheel. We are still the responsible drivers of our actions.
One cannot just go into the mountains and claim ignorance as a relief from responsibility. My “insult” was an instinctive one, as I couldn’t believe that none of those adults saw anything but an innocent game when their youngster started throwing rocks. Instead of stopping him, they followed the rock’s echo as it hopped down the hill with laughter and approval.
Of course, I didn’t mean to call anyone stupid. But if the boy became just a bit smarter after pondering my reaction, I have no regrets for calling it out.
By the way, even if you feel that what you do with rocks is creative and not destructive, think again. For instance, stacking rocks into cairns in Maspalomas Dunes is also forbidden. And ignorance is never the best excuse.
Speaking of ignorance, it happens even to the biggest ones. In my latest article, read how the European Broadcasting Union launched their own rock show, the Eurovision Live Tour, an itinerary of summer concerts that didn’t even pretend to want to step further east than Stockholm.
While Director Martin Green did promise to deliver the “magic of Eurovision (…) all across Europe”, he failed to say it would be a disappearing act – Central and Eastern Europe completely vanished from this jubilee concert season.
As they would say it in Hogwarts: Evanesco!
Make some ignorance disappear, too.
Have a well-informed week,
Ivanesco Kralj
Pipeaway.com
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