LOST in Translation

For those of you who didn't follow the hit show LOST, this post will still be relevant but not jibing at its full potential. Read on to hear about the sights along our attempted "tip-to-tip" trans-atoll bike ride, or instead catch up on all six seasons and then read on. The extra couple chuckles and epiphanies earned might very well be worth it.

Reasons why Diego Garcia is the closest real-life equivalent to the Island in LOST:

Although before I start with the reasons actually, let me preface by telling you the backstory: that today was to be the day of our heavily-anticipated "Tip-to-Tip" bike ride. This meant biking to the marina at 0700 hours, taking a ferry across the lagoon channel to the pinkie toe of the mostly-digitless right-footprint-shaped island that is DG, and then biking the eastern side's dirt road for 18 miles followed by the western side's paved road for 19 miles all the way around the island until we ended up at the Officer's Club back on the tip of the big toe. It is a biannual event that, once completed, renders you a true "man of the island".

Yesterday it rained and rained and rained... and the event was cancelled this morning due to excessive muddiness on the eastern side. However, that didn't stop us from biking the paved part (in the opposite direction) as far as we could go to check out what wonders the island had in store for us that we had yet to see. Our bags were packed with chocolate and water, we had our mandatory helmets - we were ready to go.

We saw many a strange and non sequitur thing over the course of our three-hour, there-and-back, mountain-bike-on-flat-pavement adventure from here to here (Google Maps link; zoom in for better detail), which leads me again to the Reasons (in my reference-savvy opinion) why Diego Garcia is the closest real-life equivalent to the Island in LOST:

1. Well, right from the get-go, we were brought to the island to launch weather balloons every 3 hours, day and night, as part of a higher purpose... sounds a lot like Desmond pushing the button every 108 minutes, eh brother?

2. Thick jungle and untouched beach. A given, but still mention-worthy.

 3. Mysterious and intrinsically sacred gravesites.

4. Hatches in the middle of the jungle. I was ultra-tempted to lift up the one pictured below (left), and would not have been surprised at all if there were a girded ladder and complex system of mirrors in the gaping maw beneath.

5. The incongruous presence of certain mammals. While the ones we encountered were not polar bears, seeing the feral ancestors of the donkeys left behind by the island's natives after the purge back in the 1970's (ANOTHER parallel) was still quite a weird thing indeed.

 

6.  Evidence of enigmatic (and possibly heuristic?) endeavors in certain parts of the island. "Light sensitive areas", hidden bunkers and strange antennae (see donkey photo), a fiercely-cordoned observatory, potential "radiation danger" along some stretches of road... can you say DHARMA??

 

7. There are no kids on the island, at least none that we have seen. While this betrays Walt's role in LOST, I suspect that if a female Filipino contractor (or even military wife) is pregnant on Diego Garcia and expecting soon, they are flown off the island to ensure that the childbirth happens in a well-supplied hospital in Singapore or elsewhere... and then they don't return to DG. Consequently, this would mean that women on the island can't have children (whether for para-medical or administrative reasons)... call Juliet!

8. We even have our own smoke monster. Granted, it doesn't kill people nor does it sound like cranking chains, but the trash burn pile can sure make its presence known via aromatic aerosols every so often when the wind comes from the south.

Really, the only things missing are a turquoise Volkswagen bus with skeletal cargo, a pair of disused bear cages, and a physically inept sub-in for Hurley. James can be Boone, I'll be Desmond, and Adam will be Sayid - but only because of the hair, not because of any former time spent as an Iraqi interrogator.

Another wonderful, albeit uncanny, day.

Namaste,
Gavin

P.S. WE HAVE TO GO BACK! WE HAVE TO GO BACK!