30 Days of Taiwan

Whoa! The winds of time blew right through us, plopping the two of us just two weeks away from leaving Taiwan.  Then two weeks travel more till we reach our old home.  Where we go from there, we will see.  Rather than try to sum up or condense this journey into a mere couple final blogs, I'm going to draw you down the path of our lives here for the next 30 days posting every day; some longer, some short shots, but constantly adding a new side to our lives here.  We will be back in some form or another.  The next 30 days will show some of the reasons why, with the last day, being the first back in the states as a resident since August 2010.  Here goes with the first...

Tefuye

This is the mountain village our friend Joyce is from, who took us up here last year for the Tsou tribe's annual ritual/ceremony.  Instead of the ceremony we went up to hit an ancient trail out of the terraced valley of the village over the saddle of the surrounding mountain range.  A trail used by the Tsou (pronounced Joe) to search for game in the mountains, trade with other tribes, or like life today, just to get the heck out of the home you spend so much time in it drives you bat shit crazy.  We traversed the route twice, in and out off of the main road winding our way through the camphor and cypress forest.  We left Chiayi early to make it to the base of the trail at daybreak.

Life starts at the Family Mart, or any other convenience store.

Sunrise over the Alishan Mountain range.

The one mountain  in Taiwan with snow Yushan.  Tallest on the island nation at 3952 meters, pushed up by plates colliding from multiple directions, this is still a growing giant.

There is a little fall here...  in January.

Yeah, and are they into the Macarena?

The beginning of the hike warned us of large groups of dancing bears as we hit the gradual climb out of one valley over a mountain saddle.  No surprise, during their occupation of Taiwan, the Japanese followed the wisdom of the Tsou using the ancient trade route as a basis for their rail line.  This rather narrow set of tracks was the key to their battles against the aboriginal tribes and to cart large amounts of lumber (cypress and camphor) out of the central highlands to Japan.

The width of the rails is barely two feet.  Imagine trying to haul ancient (2500 years plus) and huge trees out on such a tiny support system.

Not a bear, Johanna.

Group stops to check on some berries that look similar to coffee beans, which are also grown in these mountains.  Pretty tasty java too.

Then comes the second half of the trail which veers off from the rail line, and down into the valley.  Pretty steep, and...  the arduous way back. 

This is just the beginning of the next thirty days.  So many diverse moments of food, travel, and the mystery of this great country...

Life on one of the old glories the Japanese forgot to take with them.