The winter sun in this part of the world looked like 4pm even if it was only 12 noon.

We drove through places that were now familiar to me; the place with the quirky shops, the place with the great pies (there was a long queue), and the place with the salmon fish. After that, a big blue lake appeared on the right and it seemed never-ending as we drove alongside it.

At one point, we drove past what looked like tourist vans parked on the lake shore. A mass of white, naked bodies- teens, adults I couldn’t tell- were actually swimming in the cold water. Good on them.

I never sleep on these trips, but this time I did with the soft 4pm sun caressing my face.

When I woke up we were nearly there and you could see the mountain or the mountains, standing guard like a gate to something. Before them, a vast plain of bush and grass, rocks, and a single road that led to the village.

And it wasn’t really a village in the true sense, but accommodations for tourists and scattered housing for conservationists, scientists, and maybe the military.

We stayed at the best one- the oldest one, and it looked like it was in the middle of shedding its age and donning new retrofits for the future. Half of the hotel wasn’t even done- we could see mattresses lined up along the corridor from the large windows in a connecting wing- and we stayed half a kilometer away at refurbished cabins.

We settled in (there was a buffet for dinner) and in my room, I could see the mountain looming high and shadowed.

It was’t at all inert- it was alive.