Catholic and Not-So-Catholic Goa: Our Last of So Many Visits

These pictures were taken during our last trip to Goa in January 2012 where we visited a historic eighteenth-century mansion in Quepem, Palacio De Deao, which the owner lovingly restored with original colonial-era sculptures, palanquins, and furniture. Catering to a company of ten Dalbergians and their associates, he fed us a sumptuous Indo-Portuguese dinner consisting of all kinds of delicacies, including fish in coconut sauce, Goan red rice, and, of course, the famous bebinca, an artery-blocking dessert made of sugar, ghee (clarified butter), 40 egg whites, and coconut milk.

The debauch was a continuation of the day before, when Misha and I celebrated the New Year a day late by going on a crab- and line-fishing trip to the Mandovi River, near our Benaulim Beach resort. Incidentally, this was a rustic place filled with endangered frogs, more than one of which wandered into our cabin and remained wide-eyed with wonder. These river crabs were caught by a rather simple method of casting nets filled with beef (chicken gets washed away too quickly, the fishermen explained), and attaching plastic bottles to them to mark the place. After about an hour, each net is pulled out to see if a crab treasure is inside--this has to be done very quickly so not one has a chance to escape. We caught eight in a couple of hours and ate them all heartily the next day. They had the hardest hard shell we've ever encountered in edible crustaceans but were tender and succulent on the inside.

And, with sadness, we said goodbye to the family we've befriended and whose house we stayed at many times on the gorgeous Galbibaug beach (their oldest daughter is shown here decorating their house for Diwali).

Kenya: A Visit to the Samburu Tribe

Our trip to the Samburu Reserve included a visit to the Samburu tribe--these are semi-nomadic pastoralists who live on the park's territory and survive by tending to their cows, camels, goats and sheep and gathering roots and vegetables... They also survive on tourists' visits and sale of trinkets, but who can fault them for trying to make ends meet? Their huts are very primitive since they are dismantled every five to six weeks and are being made of mud, hide and grass mats. The Samburu usually live in patriarchal groups of five to ten families, presided by a hoary village elder, seen on my right in the picture. As soon as we arrived, the elder set about teaching Misha how to make fire from two sticks in the ground, an experiment that failed, putting Dalberg's whole economic consulting team to shame...

Their striking appearance sets them apart from any other ethnic group we saw in Kenya, including the Masai--with whom they share their cattle-herding tradition and habit of drinking cows' blood. This tribe is known for its striking beauty and the bright dress they wear to accentuate it--a red cloth wrapped around the body, tied with a white sash and decorated with rows upon rows of bright bead necklaces.

Like the Masai, the Samburu have an ungainly, yet entertaining dance that basically consists of jumping up and down very high in one place, accompanied by some chanting and knocking of their long sticks into the ground. There are also male and female circle dances which Misha and I both participated in. We left the Samburu village with a wooden comb decorated with a human figurine and some beads and carrying away an impression of a friendly, peaceful people. It may be a false impression--the Samburu are being driven off their precious park land by the government and losing their self-sufficiency. Yet on this perfect sunny day in Kenya, our somewhat cliched visit did not seem to have any clouds hanging over it.

Kenya's Shabu and Samburu Parks, Meetings with Old Friends and New

The feeling of staying at a lodge surrounded by roaming elephants who regularly come by with a light, graceful step to feed at their favorite fruit tree is not easily forgotten.

Our second opportunity to spend some time in Kenya presented itself when Misha had another prolonged trip there in June. It was a few weeks of blessed cool (especially wonderful after Mumbai's sweltering monsoon-breaking weather), organic fruit- and vegetable-eating (the relatively mild climate is conducive to the growth of flavorful veggies and such national treasures as passionfruit, which the Kenyans call simply passion) and a trip to some incredible national parks just outside of Nairobi for a weekend.

Some of the pictures below are from Shaba National Park, a semi-arid desert distinguished by its rocky landscape punctuated by the Gothic flamboyant of its unique palm trees, dramatically etched against the sky at dusk (bottom picture).

Shaba's austere surroundings are distinguished more for their birdlife than their animals. This is an omission that the neighboring Samburu National Reserve, a sprawling, classic African savanna, makes up for with abandon. We were able to commune with our old friends--warthogs, vervet monkeys, waterbucks, baboons busily sifting through other animals' excrement in search of edible seeds, two lions at rest, the silly bustard bird, and the shy duik-duik, the world's smallest antelope. (All but the baboon pictured; I believe I've exceeded my lifetime limit of baboon photos).

And, also pictured here, were the creatures that I've never seen before: the long-horned oryx with its piebald muzzle--one of these, semi-domesticated, lived at our hotel--the cheetah, basking in the sun like a lazy cat, and the gerenuk, the only antelope in the world that can go up on its hind paws, which it does daintily, exposing its white underbelly and hungrily chewing up all the bushes that its less genetically gifted antelope friends cannot reach. There was also a leopard resting in a treetop whom we could only see through our powerful binoculars. Visibly disturbed, he looked out from his position with his huge, angry, beautiful green eyes, wishing that the motors of the cars would quiet down, leaving him alone once again to his rest and contemplation.