\n
An artist’s latest work – a bottle of melted
\n Antarctic ice – may have been stolen and drunk by a thirsty thief.<\/p>\nArtist Wayne Hill filled a two-litre clear plastic bottle with melted ice
\n to highlight global warming.<\/p>\nBut the artwork, valued at $70,000 went missing while on display at a
\n literary festival, reports the Scotsman.<\/p>\nEntitled "Weapon of Mass Destruction," it vanished halfway
\n through the Ways with Words festival at Dartington Hall, Devon.<\/p>\nMr Hill said: "It looked like an ordinary bottle of water, but it
\n was on a plinth, labeled, described and in the program of the whole
\n festival.<\/p>\n" It was very, very clear what it was – a work of art."<\/p>\n
The work uses water taken from the threatened west Antarctic ice sheet,
\n which is currently melting at the rate of 250 cubic kilometers a year,
\n he said.<\/p>\nMr Hill added: "Nobody has any idea what has happened to it. It
\n was there and then it was gone."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nGlacial water is supposedly the purest,
\n most natural on the planet, having frozen sometime before human beings
\n discovered petrochemicals,
\n plastics and even slash and burn agriculture, but it shouldn’t cost $70,000
\n a bottle!<\/p>\nI
<\/a>in
\n fact, we found some on sale on the ‘net, and although we are waiting
\n for an email reply to our request for prices (not given on
\n the web site, always a red flag) and while we are sure their glacial water
\n is expensive, we would be willing to bet it’s nowhere near 70 grand.
\n Sounds like
\n an insurance
\n scam
\n to
\n us…<\/p>\nBut it also reminds us of the Plaza de Armas in the picturesque
\n Andean town of Carhuaz, where we holed up at various points in our career,
\n high and low, and where our son is now running an Adventure Tourism Hotel
\n called Villa Maria<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe town is tucked into a deep and verdant valley between
\n two towering branches of the Peruvian Andes – the White Range and the Black
\n Range. Nestled in the bottom of the valley, alongside the river that cut
\n it through the majestic mountains, the climate is temperate and the air is
\n clean and clear. Because the tree line, and just above that the snow line,
\n can be reached in about 6 hours of hard hiking, the area is popular with
\n climbers from day trippers in sneakers just trying to see some snow
\n to full expeditions determined to reach the tops of some of the most challenging
\n mountains in the world.<\/p>\nThe Dowbrigade has never been much of one for crampon
\n and base camp climbing, although we have been up to the glacier a few times.
\n What we do think is extremely cool is that early every morning before dawn
\n a pair of local teenagers, inheritors of the legendary Chasquis<\/em> who
\n carried messages for the Incas, literally run up to the glacier, where they
\n use ice
\n axes to chip off about 22 lbs of ice each, wrap them in plastic and then
\n tightly woven wool blankets, and run them back down to the Plaza de Armas,
\n in an elapsed time of less than 4 hours. All day long a colorful
\n cart of painted wood full of clear glass bottles of cremes, syrups and
\n sauces uses this glacial ice to serve pure Peruvian snow cones, shaved
\n on the spot from a chunk of glacial ice that’s been frozen since mastodons
\n were wandering around nearby. <\/p>\nA Carhuaz raspadilla<\/em>, as they are called, costs
\n 15 cents. We want one now (it is 94 in Watertown as we write, though a
\n line of thunderstorms promises releif). Unfortunately we will have to wait
\n a few months, until the end of the fall semester. The glacial snow cones
\n alone make the trip worthwhile. Since we’re
\n feeling
\n nostalgic, here’s a picture of the Dowbrigade and his son in the Carhuaz
\n Plaza de Armas<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
article from Ananova<\/a><\/p>\n
Alaska
\n Glacial Water<\/a> web site<\/p>\nVilla Maria
\n Eco-Hostal<\/a> in Carhuaz, Peru<\/p>\nfrom Ananova<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An artist’s latest work – a bottle of melted Antarctic ice – may have been stolen and drunk by a thirsty thief. Artist Wayne Hill filled a two-litre clear plastic bottle with melted ice to highlight global warming. But the … Continue reading