Yesterday was one of those days I had an off.. time to myself.. doing what I felt like, lazing through the day...
Woke up late.. cooly switched on the DVD watched Shutter and Amir. Facebook and Orkut are a company to the lonesrs always!!
Lunch is another routine you need to stick to when at home.
Left home at 4 pm, wandering thoughts took me to ma fav place " Worli Seaface'..
A walk and a long walk along the contruction of the SEA LINK blocking the horizon completely for me. As though someone trying to block my thoughts or tryiing to put my vision in jail...
What Engineering man.. CRAP
Listening to JohnDenver's words, with a small back pack wandering
"One of those days " I had some city time to myself...
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
vinaya@rivertrailecocamp.fun
I always wish that my night began under the stars and the dawn broke by the by the docile wind flattering the flysheet of my tent.
River trial eco camp at Kolad was the first time I had such an awesome experience somewhere so close to Mumbai.
The time taken to reach the campsite is 2.5 hrs. And another 15 mins to cross the river by boat.
The campsite is located on the banks of the Kundalika river at Kolad on the Mum-Goa highway
The boat incharge from the opposite side came rowing a long blue wooden boat. And was accompanied by a pair of pure white picture perfect geese.
After getting off the wobbly boat we had our campsite orientation under the shed of a couple of huge mango trees. This place serves the purpose of a dining area. Breakfast was yummy, sabudana wada and poha, the local style.
It is very impressive to learn that everything at Rivertrail is made by the talent of the villagers and so is the food, local vegetarian cuisine (bhakri and sprouts and kadhi…)
The accommodation is simple, neat and clean. A Rose cottage made of red bricks on the outside easily accommodates 12 people. 3 safari cottages accommodate 4 people in each, there are 2 karvi huts made up of karvi wood and cow dung plaster they hold 5 persons each. And last but not the least the purple dome shaped tents which was my den!
The river Crossing and the Kayaking activity is something I dipped my soul into. I guess this was the most enjoyed activity by all.
At dusk we all went for a silent walk through the fields and crossed the railway line, waded through some mucky patches too. Listening to the crickets and the frogs was a bonus under the darkening sky.
Enroute we had a small camp fire and cooked a local dish called Popti. We filled an earthen pot with raw beans, potatoes, onions and carrots, sprinkled some salt. The mouth of the pot was covered with bhamrut leaves, which smell like “ajwain” post which the pot was inverted and put into the camp fire. After about 30 mins of camp fun we took out the Popti pot and ahhh.. the aroma out of the pot was tempting, the veggies were deliciously cooked (cooked on their own)
All of us had a local feast and reverted to our campsite. Dinner was already ready, again tasty and sumptuous. Dessert we had “Modaks”.
Lightz out!!! And tents were up J
The next day we did a hike to the waterfall through village Sukeli. It was a hike to a perennial waterfall through a forrest which was dry now, but I guess it would be a Greenland in the monsoons. I clicked a picture of the Common Indian Crow butterfly. There were many but too swift for my lens…
We came back to the campsite and there was Mahrukh, my colleague and the director of Ecomantra waiting for all so that she could show us how we could play Holi with naturally available colours. We used turmeric, mehendi powder, pulpy palak and some soaked palash which gave us a nice crimson orange hue.
We all generously pampered ourselves with the natural colours and poured buckets of water from the river.. Had a colorful splash indeed.
Before we set our stomachs for lunch we lazed around in the campsite.
There are 3 hammocks through the chickoo trees, and about 7 -8 loungers facing the river. It feels nice to swing on them nevertheless; lying down on the loungers arouses the auditory and visual senses, a good view of different colorful birds. I still have to find out their names.
Post lunch we had a Snake Alive Wildlife interactive Programme. We touched non venomous snakes, some of us even took them around our necks and had a ball. Sunil Kadam was the resource person for this activity, he had rescued these snakes. The rat snake, the sand boa, bandit cookery were the ones we held. We also saw the molten skin of the snake. The icing on the cake was seeing a Cobra at a distance of just 10ft away.
We concluded the camp with a folding poem activity, where each group composed a poem by passing a sheet of paper around and only reading the line written by the previous person. When the sharing took place we all were taken a back by the outburst of creative and vibrant use of not only language but also the incorporation of the activities and experience mentioned in the poem.
Personally I loved listening to the completely berserk Cobraites
As a camp co coordinator I definitely will remember this TCS batch of enthusiastic people.
River trial eco camp at Kolad was the first time I had such an awesome experience somewhere so close to Mumbai.
The time taken to reach the campsite is 2.5 hrs. And another 15 mins to cross the river by boat.
The campsite is located on the banks of the Kundalika river at Kolad on the Mum-Goa highway
The boat incharge from the opposite side came rowing a long blue wooden boat. And was accompanied by a pair of pure white picture perfect geese.
After getting off the wobbly boat we had our campsite orientation under the shed of a couple of huge mango trees. This place serves the purpose of a dining area. Breakfast was yummy, sabudana wada and poha, the local style.
It is very impressive to learn that everything at Rivertrail is made by the talent of the villagers and so is the food, local vegetarian cuisine (bhakri and sprouts and kadhi…)
The accommodation is simple, neat and clean. A Rose cottage made of red bricks on the outside easily accommodates 12 people. 3 safari cottages accommodate 4 people in each, there are 2 karvi huts made up of karvi wood and cow dung plaster they hold 5 persons each. And last but not the least the purple dome shaped tents which was my den!
The river Crossing and the Kayaking activity is something I dipped my soul into. I guess this was the most enjoyed activity by all.
At dusk we all went for a silent walk through the fields and crossed the railway line, waded through some mucky patches too. Listening to the crickets and the frogs was a bonus under the darkening sky.
Enroute we had a small camp fire and cooked a local dish called Popti. We filled an earthen pot with raw beans, potatoes, onions and carrots, sprinkled some salt. The mouth of the pot was covered with bhamrut leaves, which smell like “ajwain” post which the pot was inverted and put into the camp fire. After about 30 mins of camp fun we took out the Popti pot and ahhh.. the aroma out of the pot was tempting, the veggies were deliciously cooked (cooked on their own)
All of us had a local feast and reverted to our campsite. Dinner was already ready, again tasty and sumptuous. Dessert we had “Modaks”.
Lightz out!!! And tents were up J
The next day we did a hike to the waterfall through village Sukeli. It was a hike to a perennial waterfall through a forrest which was dry now, but I guess it would be a Greenland in the monsoons. I clicked a picture of the Common Indian Crow butterfly. There were many but too swift for my lens…
We came back to the campsite and there was Mahrukh, my colleague and the director of Ecomantra waiting for all so that she could show us how we could play Holi with naturally available colours. We used turmeric, mehendi powder, pulpy palak and some soaked palash which gave us a nice crimson orange hue.
We all generously pampered ourselves with the natural colours and poured buckets of water from the river.. Had a colorful splash indeed.
Before we set our stomachs for lunch we lazed around in the campsite.
There are 3 hammocks through the chickoo trees, and about 7 -8 loungers facing the river. It feels nice to swing on them nevertheless; lying down on the loungers arouses the auditory and visual senses, a good view of different colorful birds. I still have to find out their names.
Post lunch we had a Snake Alive Wildlife interactive Programme. We touched non venomous snakes, some of us even took them around our necks and had a ball. Sunil Kadam was the resource person for this activity, he had rescued these snakes. The rat snake, the sand boa, bandit cookery were the ones we held. We also saw the molten skin of the snake. The icing on the cake was seeing a Cobra at a distance of just 10ft away.
We concluded the camp with a folding poem activity, where each group composed a poem by passing a sheet of paper around and only reading the line written by the previous person. When the sharing took place we all were taken a back by the outburst of creative and vibrant use of not only language but also the incorporation of the activities and experience mentioned in the poem.
Personally I loved listening to the completely berserk Cobraites
As a camp co coordinator I definitely will remember this TCS batch of enthusiastic people.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
