TRIGLAV - part 1

After the film fest, I blundered into the best experience of my whole trip. You remember that film I described, "The Sunny Side of the Alps"? I suppose it must have planted a seed in my mind, because when I later went to Slovenia, I climbed the same mountain that the father and son climb in that movie (sometimes life imitates art). It's called Triglav, and it's the highest peak in Slovenia, at 2864 metres (almost 10,000 feet), in the Julian Alps.

But I'll remain a slave to chronology, and fill you in on a few other interesting experiences I had before getting to the mountain.

I had a good last day of movies at the film fest, finding at least one romantic comedy to renew my faith in life: Un baiser, s'il vous plait, by "the French Woody Allan", one Emmanuel Mouret

Also saw a half-realized poetic doc called Peace with Seals, made by a Czech about the dying out of the Mediterranian harp seal (tourists are occupying all its beaches). It was ambitious but lacked any narrative arc. There was a scene in it where they're interviewing a white South African man who is a strong defender of the seals there. Then he suddenly breaks off from the interview and yells at someone offscreen, "We're trying to do something here, and you walk through like a bloody idiot!" The camera turns to reveal a black man, looking offended, his expression saying, "What's your fucking problem, jerk?" He wasn't interfering with the shot at all, and the seal defender just comes off looking like a prick. I have to wonder why the filmmaker put that in the film, because it harms the credibility of the save-the-seals message he's aiming at. Later on, the seal defender calls humans "the cancer of the world". It's too bad that most defenders of wildlife are so anti-human, although I understand where they're coming from - if you're a muslim living in Bosnia it's pretty hard not to be anti-Serb, for instance. But I think we have to rise above these group hatreds, whether they be based on ethnicity, or species, or even kayakers vrs. canoeists. I actually agree that taken together, humanity is the cancer of the world. I don't think you can look at the collective impact of us on the non-us world and come to any different conclusion; in almost every case we make life worse for other species (and the few exceptions - pidgeons, some viruses, blue-green algie - have usually succeeded despite our best efforts to control or eradicate them, not because of benevolence towards them). Climate change can easily be analogized to a planet fever, and we are the virus that the Earth is trying to rid itself of. I believe all this, but I still like most humans as individuals.

The final film of the fest was one of the best : Involuntary. It's a Swedish film about how people behave (badly) in groups (and as such has something to do with what I was just talking about). What's really interesting about it is how it was shot: each scene is done in one long take, the camera never moves, and it often doesn't even include everyone involved in the shot. For instance, the first shot of the film is just of people's feet as they arrive for a dinner party and are greeted by the hosts. The scenes switch back and forth between four seperate story lines, with completely separate characters (thankfully, none of the storylines or characters interweave - that's been done to death lately), each one illustrating in an almost clinical manner different examples of the mob mentality. Entertaining, and educational.

I can't wrap up my description of the film fest without mentioning one of the stars of the festival: the dude who came onstage at the end of the filmmakers' introductions before each film in the Grand Hall to lay the mic stands down on the floor so that they wouldn't block the screen. Every time he did so, the mostly young crowd, having recently discovered irony, gave him a rousing round of applause. But perhaps there was more to it than simple irony, because there was a certain decripid charisma to the man; his stooped walk, his wrinkled suit, his fraying hair. And he played his role well, drawing out his performance much longer than necessary, waiting for silence to fall, then murmuring a few well-chosen words into the mic and bowing to the crowd before shuffling offstage.

My favourite film of the fest was definately Tulpan; I noticed that it won a prize in its category. On the whole it was a very good fest. But I do have one beef: no popcorn. What a huge disappointment. When I brought this issue up with Eva, she had a strong reaction: thank god there's no popcorn. All that munching is distracting. Whatever. If your concentration is so compromised that you can't handle a little innocent mastication from the seat next to you, then wait for it to come out on DVD, when you can watch it at home, silent and friendless. Most cinema is not high art, and as such a perfect compliment to eating, drinking, whispering, snoozing, and/or making out.

The film fest over and the canoe mailed to its new owner, Christian, I set off for Prague to meet up with Christian and collect my money. We met up, he bought a couple of paddles and the wheels as well, then invited me to stay at his place just outside of Prague for the night. I had a train ticket to Slovenia leaving at 6 the next morning, and happily agreed to stay at his place. We spent the evening drinking Czech rum and talking about our lives and South American politics. He is Ecuadorian, and I spent 6 months teaching English there almost 10 years ago. He was one of the lucky ones to escape that country's grinding poverty, and had a job in Prague working for Monster.com. He had married and had a child with a Czech woman, but they had seperated, and now his son lives right across the Vlatava river from him - which is partly why he wanted a canoe, to make visits easier. He also wanted to take his son out canoeing.

Onward to Slovenia. I enjoyed this train trip much more than the one to Prague from Amsterdam, because it was only about half the length, and went through some beautiful hills in Austria. When I got to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, I gave my coushsurfing host, Damjan, a call. "Are you the one with the canoe paddle?" he asked. As if he had to ask. He was already in the train station, looking for me.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do in Slovenia, but Damjan did. He quickly intuited my predilections and suggested I go to Bohinj lake, amidst the mountains 2 hours bus ride away, which I did the next day.

I hiked partly up one of the nearby mountains, lost my way on the poorly marked trails, and then walked to the Savica waterfall at the far end of the lake.

From the lake, I could see the Julian Alps to the north, topped by Triglav. The idea of climbing it first entered my mind as an idle fancy. I wanted to see Ljubjana, and the Mediterranian, and didn't have time for a mountain trek.

But pretty soon I started taking the idea seriously, and inquired at the tourist info about doing it. It sounded pretty doable; it's a Slovene national rite of passage to climb Triglav. Everyone here does it at least once in their life. The mountain is even on their flag. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. So I decided to return the next day to climb Triglav.