I BELIEVE IN ZIGZAG TRAVEL.
Never has there been a route to anything more worthy than one which meanders through twists and turns. Over years and many miles I have tried and tested this zigzag approach, making use of the miscellany of material that presented itself along the way.
Of course, what’s important is to be ready to receive.
Blink, and you miss the hidden signs. But, stay alert, be ready at all times, and the most magical rewards can be yours.
Never had the boon of zigzag travel been greater than in my search for the Mango Rains.
On a sweltering summer day an age ago, I was doing research in the back stacks of the London Library on the secret history of the Yezidis, self-styled ‘People of the Peacock Angel’. It’s a subject that has captured my attention for as long as I can remember, a family obsession – one that has led to all manner of escapades through five generations.
I was sitting at a low desk nudged up against the wall.
One eye was on the patterns of peeling green paint, the other on a rambling Victorian text about the Peacock Angel. I felt myself drift into a kind of psychotic state. Experience has taught me that this separation from reality is the perfect moment to grasp a path.
Rather than forcing my concentration back on the rows of hand-pressed type, I allowed it to meander. My gaze roamed over the shelves above me. Dusty leather bindings, gilt bands and faded script.
All of a sudden, and uncertain why, I reached up and picked out a book. It had brittle calfskin covers and smelled of faintly of beeswax. Opening it at random, I read:
The Mango Rains are an elixir all of their own. Some search their entire lives yet never have a hope of finding them. While others locate them without ever looking for them at all. Without having made a search, those who arrive too easily misunderstand the true essence of the treasure they have found. The best way to come upon the Mango Rains is to never stop looking and to question everything that passes before the eyes.
The book didn’t reveal much more on these elusive rains, except to say that there was the chance to find them anywhere on Earth – so long as the searcher was prepared to recognize them.
For months, I dropped everything and scoured a dozen libraries for any mention of the Mango Rains.
I learned that the people of Suriname regarded them highly for the way they assisted in ripening the mango crop. And, I came to understand that the Portuguese in Goa had claimed they alone could cure those ailing from venereal disease.
As ever, my library research proved one thing: that the only way to reach conclusions was to abandon the books and set off on the open road.
I travelled through Africa and Europe, through the Americas, Asia, and beyond. While on these journeys I wrote about the people I met, and the situations in which they found themselves. Ever fascinated by observation, I found myself ripened, my rawness chapped by a new education, a kind I never thought possible. And, the more seasoned by travel I became, the more I wrote, and the more perceptive I found my observation to be.
Best of all, one horizon gave way to another, and one journey led to a dozen more.
On the savannah of the Rift Valley, I met a Samburu warrior. He was tall as a tree, his nimble form covered in bright beads and scarlet skins.
I asked if he had ever heard of the Mango Rains.
He led me to his village. It was a day’s walk through scrub and long dry grass. When we got there, he took me to meet his grandfather, a man so old his body seemed somehow petrified.
My question was whispered into his ear.
After a long while, his eyes opened half way and he blinked.
‘Does he know?’ I asked.
The young warrior whispered again. And, this time, the wizened old man spoke.
‘The Mango Rains are the Devil’s work,’ he said. ‘Continue to search for them and Death will be your end.’
Undeterred, I set out again, roaming the world.
A chance encounter in Tokyo, led me on a trail that took me to heat-baked Alice Springs. And that journey ended at Manaus, in the Brazilian Amazon. The great city built on the fortune of the rubber barons was a wild rumpus of a place.
In a backstreet bar, not far from the opera hall in which Caruso played, I met a Swiss anthropologist called Frédérique. Sipping a gin and tonic thoughtfully, he told me the Mango Rains were a figment of Man’s communal fear.
I asked what he meant.
‘What I mean is that you should leave the Amazon. Follow your nose and never doubt.’
‘But I have been following my nose,’ I replied. ‘That’s how I ended up here!’
The Swiss wiped a hand to his lips.
‘Very good,’ he said, ‘but believe me, there will be plenty more bounces before the rubber ball comes to a halt.’
Years of travels came and went.
Destinations with names I couldn’t pronounce, and food that challenged my digestive tract. And all the while, I searched for the elusive Mango Rains.
Then, at dawn one morning I was walking along a beach on Mexico’s Pacific Coast when, quite suddenly, it began to rain. It wasn’t the heavy rain of a monsoon, but a gentle drizzle. Best of all, it was fragrant and had the scent of exotic fruit. I breathed it in deep, as if the smell were somehow healing me from the inside out.
As I was standing there, bathed in what seemed like a stream of perfection, a petite woman approached me. She had a postal sack slung over her shoulder, and was going down the beach picking up plastic bottles.
I felt a little embarrassed. But the woman seemed to understand. She laughed, a crazed maniacal cackle of a laugh.
‘It’s good!’ she exclaimed.
‘Yes, yes, it’s wonderful,’ I said.
‘It’s sent by God. Rich or poor, it’s sent to us all.’
I nodded eagerly.
The woman began trudging towards a plastic bottle half buried in sand.
Some distance from me, she turned her head and called out,
‘Thank God for happiness! Thank God for these Mango Rains!’