We had twins the other day!Both were over 2 kg. Girl first vertex and then boy breech. Exciting stuff! I caught more babies last week and then on Friday, we travelled to Kumily/Kumali/Kumuly, depending on the sign you looked at. I read this morning that about 6 months ago there was some unrest at the checkpoint crossing the border between Tamil Nadu State and Kerala at that point, but all it amounted to for us was a 20 minute wait for the guy to come back from eating dinner. It was actually kind of nice that they only allowed one way traffic at that point with such a narrow winding road! My ears popped for the first time in a month! I was so excited! The scenery on the way up the mountain was breathtaking. So much so that I didn't get any photos of that part of the trip. It was hard to believe our bus could navigate some of the hairpin turns! When we arrived at the top it was amazing to look down at the route we had just covered - almost straight up!
In the morning we went on a boat ride in Periyar Wildlife Preserve. Didn't see any tigers, although we heard later that one of the tour groups behind ours heard one. We saw elephants, otters, turtles, lots of different birds, sambar *(deer) and wild boars. We then took a trek for a couple of hours on which our guide showed us monkeys and signs of sloth bears and many herbs and wild plants and spices.
Later Saturday we attended a performance of Kathkali dance, full of sex and violence! More on that later.
On Sunday we visited an organic spice garden where we learned all about growing pepper, nutmeg, mace, vanilla, cardamom, mango ginger, cinnamon and allspice as well as coffee and cacao. The owner kept treating me as though I was their most important guest and bringing me his certifications and all kinds of information on different plants used for Ayurvedic medicine. I felt so special! Later we visited the shop where all of the spices and coffee are sold so of course I bought some of everything!
The bus ride home was extremely memorable as it lasted 3 hours longer than the trip to Kumily! Hot, hotter and hottest! Got back to Tirunelveli at about 10pm and then walked to the hospital where we got an auto-rickshaw back to the house.
I know I haven't put in pictures for all of this, but please be patient with me! I caught on ebaby already today and i am late getting back to the hospital. I promise more later!
Stay well and stay cool for me and keep knitting when I forget to bring mine!! (another story!)
love to all!
Deborah
No comments:
Post a Comment