Fleeting

Soaring above me, the mountains were truly breath-taking. I've lost count of the number of hours I've spent simply staring at them despite my short time in that country. To one side, our driver shared a story about the construction of the mountain road, and behind me two friends are laughing.

I'd lost track of what they are saying and try to tune back in, but the morning was early and the night long, so I returned to my sightseeing. Dense, lush tropical forest slowly fades into dense, lush, jungle as we cruised down the road.

S informed us that we are here so early that the traffic is all but nonexistent. Later, however, there will be more given that this is a major transport artery. At our exclamations of surprise, major routes being much different back in Canada, he explained that avalanches closed the biggest highway, so the 'scenic route' is now in top spot.

Later, this is proven true with a steady increase in vehicle volume and a few wrecked cars, and transport trucks waiting for a tow. But in the moment, I could only think about the mountains themselves. I love mountains, even more than I do the sight and sound and wind-borne taste of the sea. Standing or driving between their broad shoulders, hiking up or skiing down their slopes, there is nothing in the world better than mountains.

"I want to see mountains again, Gandalf. Mountains!" - Bilbo Baggins, the Fellowship of the Ring. (But maybe just the movie it’s been a while since I read the book.)

Breaking a silence that had stretched long, punctuated by a few yawns from my friends and I, S informed us that he was taking us to one of his favourite hidden gem restaurants. From the back seat, thanks to my long legs I was in the front, R asked with bubbling joy whether this was the hummingbird stop he had promised. S simply smiled and said he thought we would enjoy it.

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The dog was loud.

It stood in the parking lot of the kind of roadside pitstop my eyes normally glide over without really seeing. Legs planted, the scruffy mut let his opinion on our car be known. While he was never aggressive, only rude, he nonetheless made us simple Canadian city folk a touch nervous. - which would probably have put a doggy smile on his face. Dogs are typically polite in Ottawa.

S swept us into the restaurant, which the rest of us weren't certain was even open - again we see a difference in standards. We weren’t used to being in places like That. This is one of the reasons why I love travel as much as I do (and it's a lot), being out of my depth can be exhilarating.

There are times when I struggle to fully grasp what I saw in that place. It's not bad, in point of fact, it is the furthest thing possible from bad. What I mean is rather that my emotions have distorted my recollection of the place to the point where I cannot give a satisfactory description of the location. Blessed be to this challenge for encouraging pictures.

M, R, and I made our way through the foyer while S went to speak with the owner. Incidentally, aren’t I lucky that my friends and I all have such different names? Even the one who was absent from this day’s adventure carries a unique name among the throng. E, was sadly not with us when we witnessed what we did in that place, but she had seen its like before so did not feel as though she missed out over much.

Just behind the desk, we turned to the right and passed through a door that might well have belonged in any house in the world and into paradise. The weather was warm without being gross, the tropical rainforest, not yet quite a jungle, was warm and humid. A far more pleasant place to sit oneself and enjoy the views than it would have been in my own home town, where the heat and humidity sometimes and inexplicably rivals Florida. Explain that to me, considering where I live is squarely in the eternal winter of Ontario.

Being, as we were, the only patrons to be visiting the charming restaurant, we had the run of the place. We could be as much ourselves as we wished, without doing any harm to other diners. Our only companions were bees, mosquitos (though few enough of these thankfully), and the hummingbirds.

For the whole of my life I have had a significant fascination with watching hummingbirds as they fly. Watching their incredible colours flash and shine in the summer light. And they were in that place by the score! Ranging from the size of my hand to no larger than my little finger, they hovered around the multitude of feeders. The gentle whir of their wings a constant background to our enjoyment.

As the three of us stared in awe at the vista and fauna before us, the owner of the restaurant emerged with something curious in his hand. A small, red cup with a brilliant yellow flower on one side. He unhooked one of the larger feeders and handed the cup to yours truly. S chose this moment to reappear and grinned broadly at me. “Hold it out,” he said. (Thank you so much for translating for us, S!)

Thrilled, the cup was full of a clear, colourless liquid that I was dead certain counted as a nectar substitute, I carefully extended my arm. For some reason, the wait before an animal interaction is always among the longest for me. My earnest and adult desire to be close to something so miraculous as a hummingbird’s flight is locked in conflict with my child-like impatience; the duality of nature observation. The battling desires for a thing, and for that thing to happen. Right. Now.

Finally, distracted by something R had said, I caught the blurred flutter of tiny wings out of the corner of my vision. Turning my eyes only, the muscles in my neck suddenly straining, caught between turning to look and staying still lest my visitor take wing again, I saw it. Wings only visible as a haze surrounding the creature’s tiny body, it carefully dipped its beak in the open top of the red cup and drank hungrily.

I could feel tiny currents of air against my fingers. The bird hovered there, nearly close enough to touch, beady eye locked on me where I stood. Family, friends, photographs, wanderlust, all of it was drive from my mind as the tiny bird drank its fill. Replaced with only the childlike delight one always feels in such a moment. The Disney princess moment of having a wild animal so close, showing itself off and saying, ‘look at me! My that’s a tasty snack you have.’

Stunned, I only stared until the bird flitted away. Then I could breathe.

An ache had slowly started to spread up my arm. Though I sooth my own ego because of the altitude; surely it’s just because I was high in the mountains and low on sleep, and not because of my own lack of fitness. Yes, 100% that’s my line and I’m sticking to it.

Anyway as I breathed, just as my arm slowly descended to put the cup on the railing and relinquish my spot to R who was all but vibrating with excitement – this was the activity she had most been looking forward to since our plans were set at a Super Bowl party months before – two more birds arrived to drink.

It has been remarked, usually when I’m around young children, that I must resemble a tree. At least one of my cousins has successfully scaled me from ground to shoulders, so perhaps that is why my success rate with the birds was so high. They briefly buffeted each other before agreeing to mutual spheres of influence and shared the tasty treat I offered them. When one, the smaller, left, its friend alighted on my index finger. Its wings folded against its small body, and it drank long and deep.

Just how it felt to have that weight on my finger, holding aloft a cup of nectar, is hard to describe. I could feel the delicate grasp of its feet against my skin, the gentle prick of the tiny talons, were incredible. Even as I write this, some months after the fact, I can still feel the fantom weight of the tiny avian where it had perched.

Awareness of the tiny, fragile life now literally in my hands flooded me. Nothing else could hold a candle to it, though R and M continue to tell me that I was in fact not catatonic as the bird rested where it did, I doubt their story. I can only remember the weight of it, the occasional small draft as it used its wings to adjust itself on my finger. To me, the rest of the world ceased to exist as I watched the jewel-bright colours on its wings and head.

The tiny bird, though it was one of the larger present specimens, was not weightless. Even as the fatigue in my arm and shoulder faded from my awareness, I could feel the almost miniscule pressure of the bird. The sense of its life, its existence, the un-nerving sensation of a mass of something innocent and living just inches above my hand, resting there on delicate legs that even a toddler is strong enough to break without noticing.

Mesmerising is the only word that does this justice. When the bird finally flitted away, I could only watch it go, blind to another bird that then took its turn on the nectar. It was beautiful, gleaming, then gone. Vanished into the surrounded flora, lost among the dancing, flitting swarm of others.

Beautiful, a frozen moment that I’ll remember forever, fleeting as the downdraft of a hummingbird’s wings.

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E,S,R, and M, thank you all for a fantastic vacation this year! :)