keas are intelligent parrots that ostensibly like to eat things like windshield wiper-blades. john says that one kea will distract you by doing... something (perhaps flapping its wings and squawking?) while the other keas pilfer the windshield wiper blades like a bloody pack of thieves. why do they eat wiper-blades? we ask john. because they are squishy, he replies. doubtful. it is much more probable that the keas take the wiper-blades and sell them in a massive, secret, underground wiper-blade market. the noise of the market is undoubtedly deafening: squawk! squawk! wiper blades! wiper blades! squawk! squawk! what's your make and model!? what's your make and model!?we make our way up the windy roads out of akaroa, passing through an area that looks like rohan from those movies about hobbits. there are many places in new zealand that look like rohan. there are many places in new zealand that look like places from those movies about hobbits. who can say why?
there are one or two sheep here. sheep are a rare breed of flightless mammal endemic to new zealand.
they are bizarre creatures-- fat, fluffy, nocturnal, and viciously carnivorous (they are the number one cause of death in the southern hemisphere; worse than heart disease and lawnmower accidents combined). most of the sheep here live in closely guarded sheep reserves, as they are endangered. specialists have estimated that there are only 40 million remaining in new zealand.it is raining, and our wiper blades don't work very well. we arrive at arthur's pass. we look for keas.
we don't see any. we see signs that say "please do not feed the keas". as if the keas actually wanted to eat the wiper blades. the keas have, of course, noted the poor performance of our wiper blades during the drive up to the pass. an intricate network of keas up and down the mountains have identified our car as one not worth bothering with--wiper blades wouldn't fetch more than a dollar in the aforementioned market. so the keas leave us alone.i take over driving. i drive down the pass. after many kilometers (that's what they call miles in new zealand), i come up behind a tiny red car. it looks like a yugo. yugos blow up easily when rear-ended. that is why they were taken off the market.
following the red car, we come to a roundabout. the red car stops at the roundabout, evidently to see if anyone is coming. nobody is coming, and it is not necessary to stop at roundabouts anyway, so i don't bother slowing down because i am assuming that the driver of the yugoish car will proceed any second now. he remains stopped. i press the brakes but it is too late. i am going to rear-end a yugo. we are dead.
it's hardly even a tap. we are not dead. the man in the yugo rolls his window down and tries to stick his head out to see what hit him but he can't because the window is too small. he pulls over, i pull over behind him. he gets out and ambles toward the car. i open the door and get out."are you from europe?" he asks.
what should i say? why is he asking this? has he been rear-ended by europeans before?
"no, i'm from the united states."
"well in new zealand, we give way." that means yield.
"yes, but i didn't see anybody coming, so i thought you were going to proceed."
"i was giving way to that truck," he says, indicating a truck that has just now passed us. in america, we don't usually give way to cars that are hazy images on the horizon. it's funny--all of the little cultural differences one notices when travelling in a foreign country. i think about explaining this difference to him.
'in my defense,' i would say, 'in america, we usually only give way to cars that we can see, rather than cars that are merely potential. that way, we save ourselves the trouble of yielding to cars that aren't really there, and it speeds things up a bit.'
"oh, i see," i say instead
"well, have a good trip anyway," he says. he sounds sincere. i am embarrassed.
"thanks."
nolan
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