189 Trouble in paradise 



miniature ravines, an endless pattern of tiny chasms and gulleys. 

 We had come into it near the head of one of the long arms so 

 that the lower end or tip of this inverted V lay away from us at 

 some distance. Julio pointed off that way and all four of us 

 started walking. Apparently neither Julio or Rafael were used to 

 this kind of cross-country romp, and they soon fell far to the 

 rear. The sun was blazing down and reflecting mercilessly from 

 the surface of the salina, where a dull white crust of salt still 

 clung. We made the turn at the tip of the V and trudged on, 

 the other arm of the flat stretching before us like a desert. Half- 

 way down we waited for our exhausted guides, and then kept 

 pace with them for the next mile or so. This brought us to an ir- 

 regular shoreline of the salina, with a background of dead trees, 

 killed by repeated doses of salt water, their bare trunks white 

 against the coppery sky. Here, Julio began talking rapidly in Span- 

 ish and gesticulating. Arturo turned to me with a weary but tri- 

 umphant grin and said, "Over there are the old nes' moun's!" I 

 could see nothing, but walked on to where Julio was pointing. 

 The dry bed of the salina was heaped and mottled with hundreds 

 of low circular mounds. I could see at once that they were 

 merely the heaps of mud that remain after flamingos have fed, 

 as they often do, by dancing around and around in one spot, their 

 feet digging a regular trench on the outside of the circle and their 

 bills, on which they pivot, working the mud in the center until it 

 is heaped into a low mound. The French call these ronds or cones 

 alimentaires. I looked at Julio and shook my head. His watery 

 eyes were watching me and showed at once that he understood, 

 but I could not decide if he had really thought these were old 

 nests or if it had been a case of deliberate deception. In any event, 

 our long trip had been for naught and I was feeling somewhat let 

 down. I could have cheerfully booted old Julio where his ragged 

 pants had the most patches, but it would have done nothing to 

 improve our circumstances. 



After another couple of days exploring other parts of the delta, 

 without learning anything conclusive about the nesting place of 

 the flamingos, we went on back to town. As our little craft nosed up 

 to the same stone quay from which we had set out, a man on 



