25 September 2005

Fairy Tale

A forest of only 200 years and respected as if it was the oldest in the world! That is the Park Hoge Veluwe. We went to see and hear the mating deer. Supposedly a very noisy show.
First we were received by horn players dressed in clothes from a children's book. We split in groups and started our walk. I am not the most 'nature' person, actually I always call myself a 'city citizen', so all this preparation in green clothes
and as many telescopes as persons was quite new. It was exciting specially because it made me feel as a child looking for adventure.
Not far from the beginning we saw a lost moeflon (third picture) because as I was later explained they are always in groups. Half
an hour later we saw a large group of moeflons running away from us, exactly parallel behind a row of trees. The site was so special, at the moment when the light turns dark, and you are unable to focus, these reddish animals gave me the illusion of being in a fairy tale and them being unicorns. As we were getting deep in the dark forest looking for animals that we were unable to see, not only because they probably heard us and saw us but because it was really dark. At this point I was happy to hear the deep 'calling for a mate' sound, because I thought we were going to be very unlucky, as I've heard previous years they had been not so lucky. The noise was as... as.. they have told me, deep, thick and male.
Going back a conversation started about witches, and gnomes and the meaning of the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. The wolf is probably the 'bad man' who wants to do 'bad things' to 'good girls', so it is a warning sign in the forest world. We kept on talking about dark stories as children do in the dark until we arrived to the "Hansel and Gretel" forest house where we had our meal without Goldilocks and the three Bears.

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