27/3/14

En la terra dels monos - Into the monkey's land

Perdut als Alps Japonesos hi ha un dels indrets més insòlits del Japó, es tracta de Jigokudani Yaen-koen, altrament conegut com el parc dels monos de neu (yuki saru). La primera vegada que me'n vaig fer ressò va ser fa uns anys quan fullejant un llibre de fotografia de natura de cop em va aparèixer una foto a doble pàgina espectacular d'uns monos banyant-se en una bassa d'aigua calenta tot envoltat de neu, que em va quedar grabada a la retina i des de llavors tenia molt clar que vivint al Japó no em podia perdre aquesta visita. Al final m'ha anat ben just però per sort el cap de setmana passat vàrem fer cap aquest indret remot de Nagano-ken. Quina gran experiència! Ens va fer un dia trist, fred i una nevada que poc convidava a fer una excursió ...l'entrada al parc per un camí enmig del bosc, pujant mica en mica entre arbres immensos i amb un silenci profund feia augmentar el sentiment d'incertesa del no saber que ens trobariem al final, quan de cop l'espai se'ns va obrir i un petit poblet de quatre cases idílic va aparèixer davant nostre, i quan encara estàvem bocabadats preguntant-nos d'on havia sortit tot allò ens vem adonar que hi havia monos per tot arreu passejant-se com si res...havíem arribat a la terra dels monos! El punt central del parc es concentra al voltant del rotenburo (bassa d'aigües termals) on els monos passen gran part del seu temps durant l'hivern, allà vàrem anar i quin gran espectacle...imagineu-vos una comuna de més de 150 monos, corrent per tot arreu amunt i avall, barallant-se entre ells, gesticulant, mascles festejant femelles, mares protegint els seus petits, buscant menjar en la neu, treient-se puces, i evidentment remullant-se en l'aigua calenta... tot en un entorn de completa ignorància vers nosaltres, com si tots els humans que corríem per allà no existíssim.  O sigui que al final  tot i el fred i el mal temps ens vàrem quedar allà més de dues hores que van passar volant i camí de tornada vaig pensar que realment no hi ha tanta diferència entre ells i nosaltres. 

Lost in the Japanese Alps there is one of the most incredible places in Japan, the Jigokudani Yaen-koen, or better known as the park of the wild snow monkeys (yuki saru). The first time I heard about it was some years ago when browsing into a nature photography book I saw an amazing double page photo of some monkeys taking a hot bath in a mountain surrounded by snow. Since then I kept this image in my memory and when I moved to Japan I knew I could not miss this visit. At the end it took longer than expected but I finally last weekend I went to this remote place in Nagano-ken. What a great experience!! It wasn't the best weather though, grey, cold and snowing...a combination that was not very appealing to go out but we started hiking up following a path inside a deep forest with huge trees and above all complete silence that brought us even more uncertainty of what we would find later on, and what it appeared suddenly in front of us was a lovely little village with few houses in the middle of the mountain, and when we were still wondering how this could be there we realized the place was full of monkeys popping-up from everywhere...we had arrived at the land of the monkeys! The central point of park is around the rotenburo (outdoors thermal hot bath), were the monkeys tend to spend most of their time during winter, and there we went straight ...such a unique place, imagine a group of 150 monkeys living together, running up and down, fighting, gesticulating, flirting, looking for food, washing themselves, and of course getting soaked in hot bath...and all in an environment of complete ignorance, like if no humans were around. So finally even though the freezing cold and bad weather we stayed there for more than two hours and on the way back I couldn't think other than at the end there is no such a big difference between monkeys and humans!

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