Category: Reviews

Update: Ponto Cabana has closed. SLurls have therefore been removed from this article.

The last time we visited Ponto Cabana, the Homestead region sitting on Lemon Beach, it presented a place with both a colonial feel to it and one of great age (read here for more). Now, in the midst of winter, it has taken on a new design, one caught under snow and within the bonds of ice; a setting as evocative as the face it showed in July, and one that – for those of us who may feel like we’ve piled on a few pounds thanks to turkey and more – offers offer a taste of the great outdoors that might help put us in the frame of mind to take a few holiday strolls over the next few days!

While presenting a new design by region holder Iska (sablina), Ponto Cabana also carries echoes of its summer build that, for those of us who visited back around July, give it a sense of familiarity while offering much to see that is new and awaiting discovery.

For example, the region largely remains split into two, linked by the span of a bridge. Further, the smaller of the two islands rises in terraces, a road curling up one side while stone steps offer a quicker route up to the table-top of the hill, much as it did back when it was home to a warmer setting.

However, where that hilltop was once home to a Spanish-style villa standing within and broad garden space with some of the terraces below it under cultivation, now the hill lies under snow and presented a more rugged face. It is also home to two red-painted houses that, with their red sides and white frames, might be taken for a farm. However, the courtyard before and between them perhaps offers a warmer greeting than can be found within either.

The larger island offers another little  town setting, this one perhaps more homely than July’s version, be retaining an element of ruin in the broken walls of what might have once been a house, or perhaps a chapel. Along the broad street, partially lain with wide train or tram tracks, snow falls heavily, coating footpaths, tracks, houses and gardens alike in a soft blanket that invites visitors to be the first to leave their footprints in its covering.

A small station sits forlornly alongside the tracks awaiting passengers, while at one end of the street, a car carrying a Christmas tree adds flickering warmth to setting as its little lights wink and blink. The houses and buildings here are sparsely furnished, yet there is still a welcoming air surrounding them and along the single street.

Ponto Cabana

Surrounded by a lake of ice, Ponto Cabana is a perfect Christmas wilderness setting for those looking to get away from the excesses of Christmas and who wish to spend time relaxing and appreciating simple winter solitude.   And if you really want to get away from it all, try a walk over the ice to the cabin on the smallest island, where a cosy time can be found.

Second Life is always changing. Not just technically in terms of capabilities and options, or even visually in terms of the overall look and feel; but physically as well. Regions come, regions go – often with much lamenting in the case of the latter. Regions change hands from public to private; settings change with time both in reflection of the seasons and as of the evolving nature of design and model building.

Such is the way of things, it is sometimes easy to forget that there can also be found in Second Life a sense of constancy; travel through the mainland continents, for example will reveal places that many not have changed for a very long time, offering glimpse’s of the grid’s past and a reminder that it does have a history.

While they can be harder to find, such places do exist among the myriad of private regions scattered across the grid. Take :nostos:deer:, for example, the full region held by Dora Nacht and Hide Mint, and home to their Little Hopper brand. I first visited it almost six years ago, in February 2013, when it was already over a year old. I’m not sure I’ve actually ever been back, but sorting through photos on my hard drive recently brought me to a folder of images taken during that visit; seeing it was still on the map, curiosity got the better of me, so I hopped over to take a look, and it was like stepping back in time.

In 2013, I was struck by the simple design of the region and the sense of fun and whimsy within it, and it is true to start that, but for the snow present in 2018, almost nothing about the region has changed. The mine shaft entrance / teleport up to the skyborne store is still there, nestled by the deep gorge of the river that cuts through the region; the little purpose-built (by Hide) tram clatters along its single track, rolling from little station and out towards the coast before committing a 180-degree turn and trundling back as if it had a sudden change of heart; the east side beach is still watched over by the single finger of a lighthouse.

And there is the other little tram, still caught it time as it skitters on spinning wheels at the end of a track from which the bridge has vanished out from underneath it, rail sleepers tumbling like a twisted staircase into the sea below. Throughout the region, there is still an air that this is a place for doing things in a not-really-actually-doing-things kind of way.

For example, the canoe awaits paddlers down in the river gorge, while the swan pedalo boats similarly await attention in the north-west. Elsewhere, wooden logs lie like abandoned sleepers to form paths both up hill and down dale for those wishing to follow them. But there is not sense of having to do all or any of this, with the region offering many places where people can simply sit and rest and let time pass them by.

Compared to the sophistication of modern region designs, some might view nostos:deer as “lacking”. It relies entirely on simple terraforming; there is no use of mesh landforms or other elements, the tress are predominantly prim-based, and so on. But that doesn’t make the region any less attractive per se.

Rather, the fact that it has stood so unchanged for so long allows it to stand as a glimpse into a bygone era of Second Life’s history. Equally, for those of us who remember it from visits taken four or five or six years ago, its unchanged nature causes a warming rush of familiarity, almost a sense of homecoming in keeping with the first part of the region’s name, mixed with a deep sense of nostalgia and re-discovery.

SLurl Details

• :nostos:deer: (Nostos Deer, rated: Moderate)