The road crosses through a gast area of untouched wilderness, only a road and a river penetrate. The rest is left wild, for the most part, and you can see Formosan Macaques, myriad butterfly and bird species, a huge variety of trees and - of course - epic geoplogic variations. totally astounding to 'see' back in time as you bike eastward. We biked one day east...but moved through time into the millions of years. If only the rocks could talk...
Its a beautiful trip, and on the way there the weather stayed mostly dry and cool for us, but on the way back it got up into the "this is stupid...its not even summer yet and its this hot?!?" range. Technically speaking, of course.
Once we got ourselves to the ocean, we found a nifty oceanside coffee shop, grabbed a couple of cups of awsome java and date-ginger tea (which were accompanied by the owner - a local rock carver for jewlery and statues and such - taking us through his collection and showed us the basics of how he does what he does) and took a pause to relax. The hard part was done, and we had the afternoon - what was left - to set up camp and play on the so.... sooooooo..... SOOOOOO... cool rock formations on the coast (our campsite was a 2 minute walk away from possibly the most curious and splendid rock formations on Taiwan...not too bad, eh?)
Camp set up....rocks and tidepools explored (saw the coolest fish....) we went to the little village of Shi-Ti-Ping. The last catch of the day had just come in so we went to see what the ocean gave the village that day - Baracuda...many... and a Shark. Again, we all know where the shark was destined....pesudomedical 'shark fin' pills that people will take to cure their cancer instead of real medical interventions....the rest probably rotting away somewhere. Hopefully it got eaten..it was killed, might as well use it. The baracuda offered us a very interesting glimpse into how the fish markets work...the boats unload their catch (already checked by the Taiwan Fisheries Ministry) to a big bay where people stand and wait...then the big tubs of offloaded fish are dumped into a big tray and....all hell breaks loose. Its an "I touched it first, so its mine" scenario, and all the fish buyers hustle and jostle for teh best ones and leave the scrum with thier mitts full of fish. Then they weigh them, pay and leave. In something like ten minutes it was all over.
After the fish-fest and the resulting petting of the shark (we had both never actually touched a shark before....weird....like a cats tongue said Crystal), we wandered off to find dinner. Again to the "place on the corner" that welcomed us so well last time. The friendly couple took our order, we topped up our rice bowls and set ourselves to perusing all the posters on the wall listing all the fish ot Taiwan. "I think we saw that one" yelled we, "that one is so strange" quipped us...so many fish of such elaborate colours and forms....the power of time and evolution. One tiny island, such devastatingly amazing diversity...
After dinner we made our way back to the campsite, geared up with flashlights and peanuts and headed up to the rocks to spend a couple of hours watching the waves crash and chatting the night away.
Morning...sunshine. Beautiful sunshine. Camp stove on...coffee...tea...porridge...tea...pack and go. We took some more time to check out the tide pools and the coast...crabs, fish and birds. Then on to our bikes, to the road and to the mountains once again for our trek home.
Legs pumped, minds relaxed. Another wonderful weekend in the wonderful backwoods of Taiwan.
Trevor setting out in the morning via the hotel back door in the misty rain; Crystal taking a moment to de-layer (and then re-layer, and then de-layer...!)
Monkey, monkey, in the tree!; roadsign...note the hat.
Crystal and the campsite (in Taiwan there are no campsites that are just plots of grass. People simply wouldnt use them...they need to set up their tent in a wooden A-frame like this! However, we asked for the campsite that had the most free space around the wooden hut so we could set up a reaal campsite...this was nice in the rain, however! Trevor, on the right, by one of the geological pleasantries of the area - beautifully layered sandstone nestled between two towering igneous pinacles.
Crystal checking out the tide pools (so many new species here!! We have been poking around tide pools all over Taiwan and though we had seen the diversity available..and then here we see totally new species. So awsome...)
Trevor by a massive uplifted section of rock that runs along the entire coast (and up into the mountains!!). Exploring here allowed us to realize - and to follow back - the geologic strata into the mountains, across a basals inclusion and back into the background. Totally humbling... millions of years....the power of time.
Crystal again at the pools...we spent a nice long time here trying to see all the critters that live in these isolated environs. Neat, also, to compare the true tidal pools (those that flood with each approaching tidal maximum) to those that only really get to be a part of the ocean (they are elevated, or the rocks around their edge are too tall) and get rainfall and typhoon action. diversity changes, species types changes....crabs are always there, but the rest are totally specific to the type of pool. So cool to see...
Fish market. Baracuda (we are pretty sure of it...tell us if we are wrong!) on the left and the lone shark on the right. We cam back to see if it was de-finned and left to rot like the last one we saw here, but it was nowhere to be seen after dark. Who knows the destination, but for sure the fins are now on their way to be pills that somebody will take instead of getting real medicine. Ancient, Chinese medicine....like acupuncture, chiropractic, snake oil, eccinacea...useless! But, at least acupuncture is only taking money away from the buyers wallett. Shark fin pills and soup are taking peoples money away (they are quite expensive) but also killing off a range of species...
fish market winding down, and us trying to take a serious picture by our campsite.
The ride home...notice the lack of rain!!
I finally got a semi-reasonable picture of this bird!! I have been trying to get one since we got here. The bird is beautiful, but also has the most astoundingly weird habits, movements and flights.
...one of the cooler fish we spotted in the tide pools.
