Everyone Wants to Know

Tag: animals

  • Peru: An Unforgettable Destination

    Recently, I visited Peru for a once in a lifetime experience. Travelling all the way to South America was a true novelty for me that I do not think will wear off anytime soon. A one-of-a-kind trip like this needed a blog of its own especially as lots of lessons I learnt applies to everyone on a shockingly large scale.

    After an exhausting 35-hour journey, we finally arrived at our hotel in Puno, a small town right next to Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. My first thought when I think of our premier night there is how we greatly underestimated the altitude. We left London thinking an altitude of 3900m was easily manageable.  We were pretty unperturbed until it came to sleeping. I had never had a worse night of sleep. Even while sleeping I could feel a pounding in my head – a headache that could rival Zeus’s. My family and I had to wake up in the middle of the night and take emergency altitude sickness tablets before our breathing became more regulated and the pounding became a dull throb.

    After this oxygen deprived land our bodies were in for a stark contrast, as we headed to the lungs of Earth, the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest. Here we went kayaking down the Madre Di Dios River, an endless river that feeds into the Amazon.

    We also went for long walks into the jungle during the daytime as well as a thrilling night expedition. We observed a stunning array of land, river, and lake animals, including cute furry creatures like sloths and spider monkeys as well as more fearsome creatures like the large black caiman and pink-toed tarantula. Riding upstream to see clay licking of Macau and being five times lucky in sustainable piranha fishing will remain etched in my memory for a very long time.  It was amazing seeing rare animals that you could never see in England, in their natural habitats. We were sad to say goodbye to Puerto Maldonado and our amazing guide but excited for our adventure starting in Cuzco, where we would start the famous Inca trail.

    When we arrived in Cuzco, we had a few days to acclimatise again and enjoy the picturesque city and nearby historic Inca sites. The next day we were hit with devastating news by our travel agent. Due to heavy rain, the campsites of our much awaited 4-day hike on the Classic Inca train to Machu Pichu were completely flooded and unusable in spite of the government’s efforts to fix it as quickly as possible. Not one to give up easily, after much deliberation, we ended up with a bespoke trail – choosing the more challenging, the Salkantay trail followed by 2 days hike on the classic trail to Machu Pichu.

    The Salkantay trail’s second day was by far the most gruelling, a 22km hike at 4,650m altitude was no laughing matter. The group even had emergency horses in case any of us became physically exerted. Thankfully, we did not need it and felt an overwhelming amount of accomplishment as we reached our campsite for the night. When we arrived at Macchu Picchu at the end of our long journey through different terrains (alpine tundra, mountains and rainforest), we were tired but also swept away at the sight of such a marvel. We learnt that it was untouched until 1911 when an American explorer, Hiram Bingham III discovered it after gathering information from indigenous locals. Conservation to restore such a historic wonder was continued until it was declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1984. Now the only protectors are the llamas wondering around the Incas’ greatest wonder. Before we left on this trip, I wrote a blog about the theory behind their spectacular architecture but to see it in person was surreal.

    Upon our return we learnt that the untimely rain followed by flooding could have been caused by the El Nino effect. This happens when the surface temperature of the Equatorial Pacific Ocean rises at least 0.5 degrees Celsius above normal for several months. This warming weakens or reverses the usual East-to-West trade winds, allowing warm water to move Eastward towards South America, especially Ecuador and Peru. This causes heavy flooding in South America and can lead to dry conditions in countries like the UK (which explains the multiple heat waves we have had here this summer).

    Amidst the trip, also came the devastating news of the Nepal flood. A large section of a glacier – the size of 9 football pitches, near Langtang Lirung collapsed, falling approximately 1,200 meters into the valley below. This glacier collapse generated a massive ice-rock avalanche, which melted rapidly due to friction and impact, producing a sudden surge of water. This water then flowed into the river, where mud from the collapse had already formed a natural dam. The build-up of water caused the dam to break, along with many people’s livelihoods. (If you wish to help out, I am raising money for this cause on my home page so please donate.)

    A trip this special made me a storyteller amongst my friends as I told them the stories of my thrilling holidays. All of my friends ask me the same questions, was all those 4am wake ups and long journeys worth it, and my answer any day, every day would be an emphatic yes, most definitely yes!

    (All photos taken by me)

  • Our Perception vs. Reality

    Look around you. You can see millions of colours, different shades, hues and saturations. However, have you ever thought, what exactly is colour? The Oxford dictionary states it as the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way it reflects or emits light. In simple terms it is how the absorbed, reflected or transmitted white light enters your eyes. Visible light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, with red having the longest wavelength and violet light having the shortest.

    The visible spectrum covers a vast range of colours and was originally found by Sir Isaac Newton in an experiment he conducted in the mid-1660s. He tried to split white light through a prism into the entire electromagnetic spectrum, but naturally he could only see the visible part. He discovered that there were 6 main colours and an infinite range in between. The 6 main colours were: red, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. He added orange as an afterthought, simply because he preferred the number 7. Newton’s experiment is an excellent example of the subjectiveness of colour.

    One thing which Newton got slightly wrong was how many colours in the visible spectrum we can actually see. Even though it is known as the ‘visible’ spectrum, we chose not to see some colours. This is simply because our eyes are too sensitive to view the complexities of the world. My favourite example of this is the sky. Have you ever stopped to think, out of all colours, why is our sky blue?

    Rayleigh scattering occurs when the shorter wavelengths of light are scattered in all directions because of the small Rayleigh particles. The colours with the shortest wavelength is purple followed by blue yet we see a blue sky, most of the time. Why is this? Why do we not see a purple sky? Simply because our eyes are too sensitive and do not react well to violet light. Honey bees and other animals which can see ultraviolet, see a purple sky as their eyes receive violet light well. However, for many animals like deer, sharks and whales, the sky can seem grayish blue as they do not have the same number of colour receptors as us. Some birds, on the other hand, have far better eyesight than most species can see the sky in a vivid and colourful blue that we cannot see or imagine.

    Now, I want to conduct a thought experiment. Close your eyes and think of a colour, any colour; but it must be one you haven’t seen before. Go on, pause your reading and really have a try.

    However much you try, you will never be able to think of a new colour. Our brain simply cannot create something that we never have seen and never will be able to see. This is the reason why we could never fathom how birds saw the sky.

    Our perception of colour is based on the combination of three types of cones in our eyes which respond differently to different wavelengths of light. The brain processes these signals to create our subjective experience of colour. Therefore, while we can try to describe colours we have never seen with words, we cannot create or imagine colours that exist outside of the visible spectrum.

    Some women are born with four cones which means they can see a wider range of colours than any other being. Nevertheless, even with three cones, most women can see a wider arrangement of colours. And then there are those who are severely colourblind, during daytime they may see a limited array of colours, but it is proven that they have far superior night vision than any other human.

    This highlights just how subjective colour truly is. Even within our own species, we perceive colour in very different ways. When we begin to consider how other species experience the world, we must ask what does the world actually look like? If each individual sees colour slightly differently, can we really claim that colours exist in any absolute sense? These questions may never be fully answered. After all, how can we definitively explain something that is entirely dependent on perception? Like a paradox, it is something that invites endless thought but no action.