Yakushima Series

Day 2: Progress

Two days, two reports. Consider the leaf turned, or is it now the gun jumped? After yesterday's let down, we wanted to get a good start to the day...so we slept in. Well, only by a few pushes of the snooze. When we finally did leave it was for the station, as Kana had left her bag and camera there last night. I had the bright idea of testing our 50 cc's on the trail, which led to a slight slip and a sprained wrist for Kana! Oops. But, she's a trooper, and the team can't be split so easily, so we headed for the forest. Still, it was somewhat of an ominous start to a day in need of big things.

Undaunted, Kana had a good feeling. "Aeru ki ga suru" said she. And so we did. We even got to hang out at the umi with Umi! A couple of things of note occurred today, and so I'll just report them here before ambling off to bed. We don't need a repeat performance of this morning tomorrow - though one can sooner stop the tides. Here are the highlights for Day 2:

1) Fatal attractions can occur between man and monkey. I say man, not to be gender biased, but to be specific in reference to myself. For the second in three days, I was approached and aggressively solicited by a young female...macaque. Today, she went so far as to touch my arm and sniff my hand, while I leaned against a tree. We were both lucky there were no big males around, because that kind of philandering doesn't sit well with the likes of Umi-O and Pinky - the beta or number 2 male in Umi group, who, by the way, is savage. Pinky sent no fewer than 2 females plumetting of rocks today after grabbing and biting them on different occasions. The first may have landed a broken wrist out of the deal, while the latter may have suffered no more than a bruised ego. Fatal, indeed.

2) The human-macaque barrier wasn't the only taboo broken today, so, too, was that of deer and monkey. In the later afternoon, I spotted a female in the distance who looked at me with the same zest as the earlier bestial female - for I am the beast. Then I noticed she was laying funny, and rubbing her stomach (stomach?) on a rock. Only, it wasn't a rock. It was a deer! She was sprawled across the back of a sitting deer. Of course, Kana was soon on the job. But deer startle easily, so we proceeded with caution. In the next series of events, which endured for roughly half an hour, the female strattled, something that resembled frottered!, rode - yes RODE - groomed and followed and proceeded to jump on the back of the deer in flight! The deer also took its turn in licking the monkey on the head and back as she groomed herself. Now that's teamwork! Oddly enough, this individual female didn't stop at one. After being visibly frustrated with the two of us for driving off her friend, she approached and jumped, literally, other deer, one of which, a stag, wasn't about to be domesticated so easily and instead gave her a nice kick as he pranced away satisfied with himself. The female was, alas, destined to be alone without deer for the rest of the day.

3) On a social commentary note, macaques are no different from people. We've all seen the movie - there are plenty - wherein the unpopular and often dorky kid struggles against the physically superior jocks to win the heart of the lead cheerleader. On screen, this 'against-all-odds' scenario usually plays out favourably for our charm-as-of-yet-unrecognized protagonist. Well, in reality, this may be the exception to the rule. However, we witnessed just such an exception this evening! Going back to point #1, our species-confused little girl seems to have found some direction in the form of an awkward and highly timid young male whose testicles have yet to descend. Hardly the all-star quarterback of her dreams, he showed extreme sensitivity as even after his bazillionth mount, he still found the time to continue to hug and hold her close - as she treated him like the back of a deer and frottered his stomach. The young lad showed spunk as well, for when she saw me, and threw him aside to chase me down for another unholy solicitation, he ran up, tried his best to intimidate me, and proceeded to mount her fiercely right then and there, and often! Sadly, at that point Pinky showed up and tried to drive his newfound love over a cliff, and of course saved some of his excessive aggression just for our young hero as well. In the end, I guess none of us "Can't Hardly Wait".