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Where Are You? April Contest
Where Are You Contest
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Our ocular perception is ambiguous and malleable, cognitive psychologists say. We see what we want to see. Maybe you divine ginormous anthills in the haycock shapes before you, or great Indian mounds of the Midwest. Or did your visual cortex just trick you into thinking that the landscape belongs to a wondrous new California mini-ecosystem? Then again, you might fancy you're frolicking through an adult Teletubby world. (But what to make of those visitors who blog that they see breasts? Calling Dr. Freud...) In the dry season, when the hills turn completely brown, phone the Hershey company and tell them they can shoot a Roald Dahlesque advert in a place where truffle-filled Kisses are sprinkled as far as the eye can see.
Anywhere between twelve hundred and seventeen hundred of these hillocks dot a twenty-square-mile area (what prevents them from being counted accurately is anyone's guess). In the wet season, the slopes are blanketed by cogon, a grass that recently migrated to North America and grows so fast that it makes kudzu look like a houseplant. You have arrived here from a town whose name might have inspired you to hum the "Habanera" on the way over: anything to distract you from having to cuddle with four or five other passengers on the back of the moto-taxi you took; anything to put some pep in your stride as you trudge up hundreds of steps to the viewing platform.
You are in the middle of an island in the middle of an archipelago. The Spanish once called the inhabitants the "tattooed ones." Today, most of the people here look to Rome for spiritual guidance, while a small number face the Kaaba. The oldest of their many charming churches is made of coral stone. In another kind of sanctuary, you'll discover a palm-size nocturnal primate whose freakishly enormous eyes give it an ET visage. Locals adore their festivals here; if you're lucky, the one devoted to yams will feature a no-holds-barred eating contest.
Legend has it that these hills are a lovelorn giant's tears. In truth, they're made of marine limestone. Authorities are now packaging the island as an ecotourism destinationbut who isn't these days? If you find the claim a stretch, you be the one to tell them that they're making mountains out of molehills.
Where are you, anyhow?
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