Girls in traditional regional costumes on May 17 in Bergen.

I never knew my mother’s mother, who died in 1969 in her mid-forties, but I’ve been hearing stories about her all my life. She grew up in Bergen, on Norway’s west coast, and fled to Sweden during the Nazi occupation by riding a tandem bicycle through the woods together with a friend. She met my grandfather, who came from Drammen, south of Oslo, through a Norwegian association in Södertälje, near Stockholm, where they ended up living for the rest of their lives. As a result, my mother and her siblings grew up Swedish, so Sweden is the Scandinavian country I’ve always identified with the most. Still, the Norwegian roots are strong, and we used to make road trips to Norway with my grandfather every other summer until he died in 1990. We never went to Bergen, though; I always thought that perhaps my grandfather just didn’t want to go there without my grandmother.

All my grandmother’s brothers and sisters stayed in the Bergen area, and my mother and her siblings used to spend a month every summer there with their cousins when they were growing up. Though my aunt had been back several times as an adult, it had been more than 30 years since my mother’s last visit. A few years ago, the two of them decided to make a trip to Bergen to walk down memory lane and reconnect with the remaining relatives. They invited me to come along.

We arranged to stay with one of the cousins and timed our visit to coincide with the Norwegian National Day celebrations on May 17 (Syttende Mai). The day commemorates the signing of the Norwegian Constitution in 1814, declaring the country’s independence from Denmark, with which it had been in a union for more than 400 years. The holiday is a huge deal throughout Norway, and Bergen has one of the biggest celebrations of all.

Three separate parades wound their way through the downtown area, past the harbor, the shopping districts, and the colorful wooden buildings that date from medieval times, when Bergen was an important member of the Hanseatic League. The streets were packed: it seemed as though every citizen of the city had come out for the festivities, many of them in full traditional dress. The women’s shawls and dresses were richly embroidered and represented different parts of the country. Even the smallest children wore miniature versions of the regional folk costumes.

As for the relatives, let’s just say that when the five female cousins and the surviving aunt got together, it was as if they’d seen each other yesterday.

A male capercaillie in Speyside. Photo by Nigel Wedge, used under a Flickr Creative Commons license.

I’m standing on a forest road in the Scottish highlands along with 10 or so companions, scanning the slopes for signs of the bird we’ve come here to see. Instead, what appears out of the woods is our guide, Mark Denman. He’s been creeping about quietly, hoping to spot a capercaillie, the world’s largest species of grouse, but the bird remains stubbornly uncooperative.

Mark and his colleague, John Grierson, are naturalist guides with Speyside Wildlife, one of Scotland’s premier wildlife tour companies, and I’ve joined their group for a day of birdwatching to get a sense of the natural richness of the native Scottish pine forest. Over the course of the day we’ve explored several different areas of the Abernethy Forest and the Loch Garten Reserve, searching for specific birds to add to our tally. With just a day, I’m happy just getting a feel for the character of these woods, but the rest of the group has a whole week to meet their wildlife goals, and they seem to be doing quite well at ticking species off their list. Earlier in the morning we took a walk through a magically misty forest, where elaborate spider’s webs hung draped over pine trees and mosses. Before we even set off down the trail, the group was thrilled to spot a group of Scottish crossbills, a species they’d been hoping to see. Mark and John set up scopes so that even an unprepared interloper like me could get a good view.

Until I visited Scotland last fall, I had no idea the country was such a great wildlife destination. I knew of its stunning scenery, of course – and the mountains, moors, and lochs certainly did not disappoint – but I’d never realized just how much wild flora and fauna there is in this small country on the edge of Europe.

Speyside (the area surrounding the Spey River) is at the heart of Cairngorms National Park, the largest national park in Britain. The park covers 1,500 square miles, contains four of Britain’s five highest peaks, and is home to a range of wildlife including pine martens, otters, Scottish wildcat, and numerous bird species from the elusive capercaillie to eagles to ptarmigan.

Abernethy Forest on a misty morning

My visit took place in October as the days were starting to get cold – not the best time of year for some species, but quite good enough to give me a sense of what the country has to offer. After a day of guided sea kayaking on the Moray Firth near Inverness to see world’s most northerly population of bottlenose dolphins, I headed down to Aviemore, where I met up with Sally Dowden, the owner of Speyside Wildlife, who arranged for me to join the day’s birdwatching excursion. She also took me to see the company’s specially built hide on the Rothiemurchus Estate, which gives guests the opportunity to see nocturnal mammal species such as the pine marten and badger, often at very close range.

Despite its name, Speyside Wildlife does not confine itself to Speyside area, though the region is certainly central to the company’s identity. Programs in Speyside are based at the Steading, a comfortable converted homestead in Glen Feshie. Many itineraries include at least a few days here, though programs range throughout Scotland, from the estuaries of the east coast to the northwestern tip of the Scottish mainland, and from the Inner and Outer Hebrides to Shetland and the Orkneys.

The group I joined was on a week-long “Autumn Wildilfe” program that was based at the Steading but included explorations further afield. The previous day, it turned out, they’d been up at the Moray Firth as well. Some of the group told me they’d spotted a couple of kayakers heading out across the water as they watched for dolphins from a narrow point of land poking into the Firth. The following day the group was heading off for a full-day excursion to the west coast, where they hoped to see an array of sea birds and other species, particularly the majestic white-tailed sea eagles soaring over the lochs of Wester Ross. I wished I could go with them, but other adventures beckoned. Still, this small taste of Scotland’s wild side was enough to make me start planning my return before I’d even left.

For more info: www.speysidewildlife.co.uk

Located in the province of Norrbotten, Harads sits on the banks of the Lule River about 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of the Arctic Circle, an hour’s drive from Luleå. Treehotel owners Kent and Britta Lindvall were already running a guesthouse near the Treehotel property when Jonas Selberg Augustsén arrived to shoot a documentary, The Tree Lover, in Harads.

The film crew left behind a rustic cabin high in a tree along the river, prompting guests at the Lindvalls’ guesthouse to inquire about spending a night in the treehouse. Although the cabin facilities were too primitive for guests, the queries set the Lindvalls to thinking: What if they could offer people the chance to sleep among the treetops, close to nature, without sacrificing luxury and comfort? And while they were at it, why not make the treehouses unique examples of creative architectural design?

The end result of that brainstorm was Treehotel, “a place where nature, ecological values, comfort, and modern design combine into an exciting adventure,” according to the Swedish version of its website.

Treehotel currently has six very different rooms, each designed by a different architect, with another 18 rooms planned over time. The most striking room is the Mirrorcube, which is attached to a single tree and blends into the surrounding forest thanks to its reflective exterior walls. (A special infrared coating makes it visible to birds.) Among the other unique rooms are a gigantic bird’s nest (with an electronic ladder that can be retracted once guests are inside), a multi-level UFO, and a cabin with a rooftop deck high among the trees. There’s even a tree sauna to complete the relaxing getaway experience.

The Mirrorcube. Photo courtesy of Treehotel.

The Bird's Nest. Photo courtesy of Treehotel.

The UFO. Photo courtesy of Treehotel.

The Cabin. Photo courtesy of Treehotel.

Of course, all of this does come at a steep price: Rooms at the Treehotel start at 3,500 Swedish kronor per night (currently about $555).

For more information, visit the Treehotel website.

With its comfortable rooms, delicious cuisine, and stunning location, La Cusinga is a wonderful place to get away from it all. Yet there’s more to this place than meets the eye. A deep environmental ethic underlies life at La Cusinga, where recycling, composting, organic farming, and sustainable construction are integral parts of daily operations. Committed to hiring local staff, the lodge also works closely with the community in other ways, supporting environmental education in local schools and promoting best practices among local tourism operators. The waters off Uvita are protected as Ballena Marina National Park, thanks in large part to the efforts of La Cusinga founder John Tresemer. The lodge also collaborates with local nongovernmental organizations, including ASANA (Asociación Amigos de la Naturaleza del Pacífico Central y Sur / the Association of Friends of Nature of the Central and South Pacific), which is working to establish a regional terrestrial wildlife corridor, the Tapir Path, to protect a variety of species.

I had the pleasure of visiting La Cusinga last year together with a documentary team from the Green Living Project. During our visit, we spoke with many of La Cusinga’s staff and partners, but one of our most interesting conversations was with founder John Tresemer. Born and raised in the United States, John first came to Costa Rica on a college study program. It was an experience that changed his life. Here John shares his story and his vision for La Cusinga.

What brought you to this part of Costa Rica?

John Tresemer: I was a college student at Colorado College , and there was a project in Costa Rica that included monitoring this particular site here, which was going to be devastated by Alcoa Aluminum. It was going to be totally strip mined because there’s a lot of aluminum ore in the soil, and they were going to make a deepwater port at [nearby] Punta Uvita. So it’s pretty interesting that instead of becoming an ecological disaster area it’s now an example for ecological stability. I fell in love with the place so I finished the course, but then I kind of got stuck here. And I’ve been here ever since and that’s over 30 years.

When I came here they were cutting down the forest at a very quick pace using the slash-and-burn method where they cut down forest which is over a thousand years old. There was no road. You had to come in by single-engine Cessna and land on a pasture in Uvita. It was a lot of fun. And the reefs around here were totally unspoiled and nobody was scuba diving or anything, so I had the whole place to myself. People were afraid of the tiger sharks that used to be here in prolific numbers but no longer are because there was a shark fishing industry that kind of wiped them out. So it was wonderful for snorkeling and the reefs were thriving with all kinds of biodiversity, and that was one of the reasons that I got involved in marine conservation, because the same thing was happening all along the coast, onshore and offshore as well.

To purchase the land I had a lot of help from my parents. Of course, I was only 20 years old. I didn’t have a lot of money. But my parents got interested in this project here and they wanted to save these thousand-year-old trees which we have all over the property, and they didn’t want any more to cut down. And they’d never owned any property. In the United States, to buy similar acreage on the ocean, where are you going to do that? So they made it happen, and so we protected all the forests that were still intact, and we haven’t touched them. And the areas that had already been cut down and compromised were left to recover. You have to protect habitat if you want to protect species.

How have you been involved in marine conservation in Costa Rica?

JT: I was lucky enough to befriend Alvaro Ugalde and Mario Bozo, who are considered the fathers of the national parks of Costa Rica. And I had a big challenge in convincing them of the value of the biodiversity of marine environments. They were mostly terrestrially biased,  as most conservation organizations are, although that’s changed quite a bit now. From a taxonomical viewpoint, on the land, there are 11 major phyla represented. In the ocean there are 23. So there’s a lot more biodiversity according to taxonomy. So it was wonderful to be part of this national park [Ballena Marine National Park], and of Caño Island Biological Reserve, and Cocos Island National Park, which is considered one of the seven wonders of the world now. And it’s a Biosphere Reserve, protected by the United Nations, at least in theory.

But in making this a national park we kicked out the shrimp trawlers who were totally devastating with their methods, which are totally indiscriminate and kill a lot of creatures that they don’t need to kill, and upset the equilibrium of the marine ecology. We were able to make this a national park – Costa Rica’s first national marine park – because we convinced the government that it was going to be an economic advantage for the local people. Any national park needs to rely on the local community for it to work. The trick was to convince local fishermen with a totally exploitive attitude to instead convert into tourism operators, taking people out to see the dolphins, the whales, and to snorkel on the reefs. That was not easy, but it worked. The tricky thing was, and is now, that it worked a little too well, because now there’s this booming industry of whale watching and dolphin watching, and they’re spooking some of the whales away. So here at La Cusinga Lodge we hold seminars and invite the skiff drivers to come, and we bring in experts. If they hear us telling them how to do it, they might not think it’s so professional, but we invite professional experts that explain to them how not to spook the whales. Even though the tourists are saying, “Closer, closer, closer,” that’s not in their best interest, because if a humpback whale comes here and has a calf here, and then they spook it, the whales are smart, and they don’t forget. So next year, when they come, they’ll go somewhere else, and that’s not good for the tourist operators.

Why did you decide to go into ecotourism at La Cusinga?

JT: We attempted several different ways of making money and surviving here economically, and we did very well with chocolate until the monkeys got addicted to it. Then we had the choice of either eliminating the monkeys or forgetting about our financial gains. The reason I’m here in the first place is because I’m a nature lover, so I’m not going to start killing the monkeys. So chocolate was not on our financial list anymore.

We got into reforestation and lumber making and furniture making and we got into ecotourism, and these are all win-win situations because we can do it at a sustainable level and we keep the number of tourists down, in spite of a lot of tourist agencies who plead with us. They want more cabins so they can bring busloads of tourists in, but that would defeat the whole place. Places have their certain magic, you know, and they have their certain carrying capacity of humans. When you exceed that, the magic goes away, the animals aren’t happy, and the people aren’t so impressed either.

Do you see La Cusinga as a model for responsible, sustainable tourism around the world?

JT: It’s very exciting for us when people come and get turned on by what they see here and how it’s working. We’re mostly proud of being able to show how we can do sustainable reforestation, because that’s the problem in the tropics: finding an activity that is sustainable without damaging the local ecology. In that way we have been instrumental in spreading environmental education to other places, because they can study the species that we’ve used, because we’ve experimented with a lot of different native species of trees, for example, and some are fantastic, and they really work and make sense.

For pure ecotourism, they can see that it works, and they can apply it in other places as well, and that’s good, but we’re still far from our goals. We still have a lot to do. We haven’t been very good with solar energy or with photovoltaic energy, or with hydroelectric energy. We are sometimes, but then, like one time, a couple of years ago, we got hit by lightning, and it just fried all our digital equipment, and there’s no one in Costa Rica that can help you. To bring in help from the United States is ridiculous, so that’s something the world needs to figure out. They need to help people like us who want to look for alternative energy solutions but aren’t that skilled at it or aren’t educated in it. So we have a ways to go there.

What are your goals for the future?

JT: We’re mostly interested in preserving what’s here: the culture, the wildlife, the habitat. Preserving habitat is preserving a lot of species that you’ll never see in your life. We’ve had a lot of guests here come and see stuff that I’ve never seen, and that really thrills me. On a daily basis I’m seeing new insects and new species, sometimes new birds, and I’ve been here over 30 years. It’s really exciting to know there’s so much biodiversity.

I want to be able to improve on what we’re doing, because we have a lot more ambitious goals than what we’re achieving now. As I mentioned, in alternative energies we want to go a lot farther there, be a lot more self-sufficient, and we can; we just need the expert assessment.

Another goal is not to give in to the travel agencies who say, “More and more cabins! You need more capacity. Build a road, a bigger parking lot.”  We do want to make money. We’re glad to be able to pay well our employees, who are 95-percent Costa Rican and local, but we don’t want to make a killing. A lot of people say, “You could charge twice as much and get it.” Yeah, but then we’re excluding a lot of other people. These other ecolodges that are much more famous than us, they’re charging twice as much. To me, that’s not ecological. That’s not taking in the human ecology, the human need, and that’s not sharing with people who can’t spend 300 bucks a night. So that’s one of our goals, to keep the price down and keep the number of visitors down, because the visitors who do come really appreciate that. They love the space; they love not seeing a cabin right next to our buildings or noisy swimming pools, things like that. It’s a temptation to expand, but we have to be very careful about that. We’re very consistent about not exceeding the carrying capacity of the place.

In the end, why do you do what you do?

JT: At first, it was purely selfish, because I loved the place, I loved the people. It was so easy to live here. I was a student here, and I was living off of maybe two dollars a day and doing great. And the people were really nice; the Costa Rican people are wonderful. The real Costa Rican people, especially the rural people, they’re fantastic.

This land was so cheap because it wasn’t very good for agriculture. It’s too hilly, too slopy, and no good bottom land, no deep topsoil. So we were able to purchase this property very reasonably, and that was a huge opportunity right there. And to stay, it was just too much fun. There was so much exploring to do here, and Costa Rica’s a comparatively healthy place in the tropics to be. I’ve never gotten a serious disease here, nor my children. I’ve raised children here, and nothing really bad has ever happened to them. And it’s just mostly been a joy here.

But before we got into tourism we had to make the decision – and by we I’m referring to my wife, mostly, and I – do we want to share this with the world? We thought we had almost a moral imperative to share it, because it would have been too selfish to just stay here and try to be isolated from the world. The place was too beautiful, and people who did visit it loved it. So we thought, “Well, it would be kind of cool to share it, and maybe that would help pay expenses for us.” And it worked. It was a symbiotic relationship with ecotourists and us. And so that’s how it grew, little by little. We’ve made one cabin at a time. If you wanted to study how we learned architectural design, you could see the first cabins and then see the last ones, and there’s a huge difference. We’ve had a lot of fun, playing around.

For more information: www.lacusingalodge.com

A rickshaw-wallah takes a break in Jaipur

“Hello, madam, rickshaw? Where are you going? Hello, madam! Hello? Hello!” The rickshaw-wallahs swarmed around disembarking passengers at the bus depot in Delhi, India, their singsong English aimed at likely clients. As an obvious non-Indian and a young woman traveling alone, I attracted more than my fair share of attention. I shouldered my backpack and tried to get out of the crush of people. I did need a rickshaw, but I had learned not to appear too interested if I wanted to get a good price.

I had been in India for three weeks, visiting an American friend, Shannon, who was spending the year in Varanasi as a student. Blonde and blue-eyed, Shannon spoke fluent Hindi, to the constant astonishment of Indians. Shannon’s Hindi skills enriched my Indian experience by gaining us entrance to people’s homes and daily lives. On more than one occasion, they turned an uncomfortable situation into an enjoyable one.

I remember one incident in Jaipur, the capital of the northwestern state of Rajasthan. Walking along a downtown street, we passed three young men sitting on a stoop. Our appearance prompted an immediate barrage of lewd English. Wanting to avoid trouble, I generally ignored this sort of thing and just kept walking. Most times, Shannon did, too.

This time, however, something inside her snapped. Uncapping her half-empty water bottle, Shannon strode over to the young men. Their faces lit up – until she began berating them in Hindi and pouring the remaining water in her bottle over their heads. Three jaws dropped as the young men cowered on the stoop, hands up to block the water. I noticed several other men laughing as they passed by.

Water gone, Shannon threw the empty bottle at the young men’s feet, turned on her heel, then grabbed my arm and hurried me around the corner. Safely out of view, we both burst into laughter.

“What did you say to them?” I asked.

“I told them they were getting overheated and needed cooling down.”

That set us off again. Whether the young men had learned a lesson or not was questionable, but Shannon had certainly given them – and us – an experience not easily forgotten.

Now in Delhi on my own for a night, I had decided to try out the Hindi I had picked up. After escaping the frenetic crush at the bus depot, I surveyed the bicycle rickshaws lined up along the curb.

“You need rickshaw, madam?” asked one barefoot rickshaw-wallah.

I nodded.

“Where you going?”

“Connaught Place chaliye.” (I’m going to Connaught Place.)

“Ah, Hindi!” The rickshaw-wallah beamed. He named a price in rupees.

I didn’t know enough numbers to understand the amount he had quoted, but I thought I heard the word bis, or 20.

“Behut jaddaa hai.” That’s too much, I told him.

“How much?” he asked me in Hindi.

I didn’t know any of the numbers in the teens, so I told him das, 10 rupees.

By this time, a small crowd of rickshaw-wallahs had gathered, amazed at the sight of a Western woman bargaining in Hindi. I was proud of myself.

Then I ran out of Hindi.

One of the rickshaw-wallahs asked me something. I caught the word Hindi and knew he was asking me how I had learned the language, but I had no idea how to answer. I didn’t even know how to explain that I only spoke a little Hindi. All I could think of was one word, choté, which I had read in an Indian novel. It had been used to distinguish the younger of two twins, Choté Sahib, from his older brother, Burra Sahib. I knew burra meant great or large, so I figured choté meant small or little.

The rickshaw-wallahs were all waiting for an answer.

I shook my head. “Choté Hindi,” I said.

All at once, the crowd of rickshaw-wallahs erupted into laughter. They laughed until they were bent almost double. I turned bright red but managed to hang onto a sheepish grin.

Once their hilarity subsided, the rickshaw-wallahs dispersed. My credibility blown, I completed the fare negotiation in English and climbed into the rickshaw.

As the rickshaw-wallah pedaled me through the chaotic streets of New Delhi, I decided my Hindi bargaining attempt had been a success. I might not have managed to carry on an entire conversation in Hindi, but it seemed that a more meaningful cultural exchange had taken place. I suspect the rickshaw-wallahs continued laughing all day at the videshi girl who spoke only small Hindi. The few moments of shared laughter on that New Delhi street were worth the small price of embarrassment.

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This essay originally appeared in The Christian Science Monitor under the title “We shared the language of laughter” on December 31, 2004.