101 Places Not to See Before You Die - Catherine Price [46]
So in the musical, the extinct sloth appears at the crucial apex of the drama, the beginning of the second act, just after the section titled “FitzRoy’s Rage” in which the narrow-minded captain bellows at Darwin for believing in fossils. (In real life, FitzRoy wrote in his own journal about his “friend” discovering the “interesting and valuable remains of extinct animals.”)
The sloth, though, makes it clear it isn’t standing for any creationist captains on this voyage.
“You can try to deny what your eyes meet / With some pastimes or a trip off to sea,” the sloth sings. “Go hunting, or some bingo, chess, perhaps football / Or maybe a sudden step out to the music hall. / But the more you try and try / You’ll just have to change your mind / ’Cause after all you really know / I am as real as these bones.”
And then: dancing! The sloth jerks across the back of the stage, in a kind of hip-bone-connected-to-the-leg-bone kind of way. Once finished, it toddles off and the play wears on.
Many of the great stories of history are just as great on the stage: Les Misérables, say, or Monty Python’s Spamalot. But when it comes to Tierra del Fuego and La Aventura del Beagle, it’s best to stick to the original source material. Or just go for the scenic sheep.
ERIC SIMONS is the author of Darwin Slept Here: Discovery, Adventure, and Swimming Iguanas in Charles Darwin’s South America.
Chapter 71
Cusco, If You Are Albino
Since Cusco is the capital city of the ancient Inca Empire and a jumping off point for Machu Picchu, you may well find yourself there before you die. But don’t forget your sunblock. As befits the former home of a sun-worshipping civilization, it has the highest levels of UV radiation in the world.
To identify the world’s worst spot, researchers examined UV data from NASA’s Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer between 1997 and 2003. They decided that despite the fact that Australia and New Zealand have the world’s highest rates of skin cancer, the highest UV levels were in the Peruvian Andes. With a UV index score of 25, Cusco came in at the top of the list.
To give you a sense of how high 25 is, consider that much like the stereo in This Is Spinal Tap, the scale usually only goes up to 11. The Environmental Protection Agency issues UV Alerts for anything over 6. At 11 or higher, exposed skin can burn in minutes, and the EPA and World Health Organization recommend staying inside as much as possible, which is fine for normal workdays, but not a feasible option when hiking the Inca Trail.
Chapter 72
Manneken Pis
Considering its name, any tourists who make a special trip to Brussels to see Manneken Pis have only themselves to blame. Yes, it’s weird that one of Brussels’ most famous attractions is a bronze sculpture of a naked boy urinating into a basin. But its name means “little pee man.” What exactly did you expect to see?
There’s nothing diminutive, however, about the statue’s popu-larity—it’s spawned an entire industry of Manneken-themed T-shirts and coffee mugs (I have a pencil sharpener), and has become an unofficial emblem of the city. It even has a fan club, the Friends of Manneken Pis, and a wardrobe: FOMP members have created more than eight hundred costumes for the boy. Depending on what day you show up, he might be dressed as anyone from Napoléon to Nelson Mandela; on truly special days, the Friends of Manneken Pis make the statue pee beer.
Accounts of the sculpture’s inspiration vary. Perhaps it is in honor of a two-year-old duke who, in 1142, was hung in a basket from a tree by his troops and then urinated on his army’s opponents. Perhaps it is a tribute to Juliaanske, a small boy from Brussels who is said to have saved the city walls from dynamite by peeing on a burning fuse. Or perhaps it’s simply in memory of a small boy gone missing, later found relieving himself in a garden. No one really knows.