On the morning of Diwia’s paper-bag workshop, the team was pleasantly surprised by what could only be considered a portent of success and good luck – a small owl was perched on the roof of reception, in plain sight during the daylight hours. I was summoned forth with my camera, and was fortunate that the owl still hadn’t alighted by the time I arrived, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
Private reserves have been established in many countries around the world, dramatically expanding the conservation provided to biodiversity in public parks by voluntarily protecting buffer zones. Despite their smaller size (relative to public parks) on an individual basis, in aggregation these private reserves are significant providers of environmental services.
So far the Nicaraguan Red de Reservas Silvestres Privadas includes 50 private reserves that protect 7,467 hectares—18,453 acres—of various ecosystems. Each one has renewable status as a reserve for ten years at a time, and is exempted from income taxes for ten years, property taxes for whatever amount of time the land is a private wildlife reserve, and retail sales taxes on goods that contribute to the reserve.
The Nicaraguan Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA) supports certification of conservation activities, includes the private reserves in sustainability workshops, and helps bring teams of scientist investigators to the reserves to conduct studies like the one done at Morgan’s Rock/El Aguacate. Among other things, the reserve owners must make a yearly management plan, comply with environmental norms, and protect the wildlife inside their property. Some of the required contents of a management plan include Continue reading
Over the past week our team at Cardamom Country has been in conversation with another team working for a brighter and better future for Planet Earth called Team Sustain. Founded in 1994, Team Sustain is based in Kochi, India and provides cost effective logistics and infrastructure solutions for sustainable resource utilization, engineering green solutions for the modern world. Mr. George Matthew, the founder of Team Sustain, spoke with me and explained that his main goal was to reduce the carbon footprint of as many people and organizations as possible. Mr. Matthew especially said he wanted to increase the benchmark and accepted levels of energy efficiency and encourage further sustainability-oriented social projects with minimal environmental costs. Continue reading
Guest Author: Aby Thomas
I started work recently, responsible for managing human resources at Cardamom County. It has been my dream to become a manager in the hotel field since I was young, and I am beginning to fulfill that dream. I completed my Masters in Hospitality Management(MMH) from Marian College Kuttikkanam, a near by hill station. I am putting an image of my school here in thanks for the preparation it gave me.
My family home is at a place called Vandiperiyar, 12 km away from where I work, and I can recommend anyone to visit this part of Kerala. To tell you why, I will need more time and space than my first post will allow. For now, trust me.
Since joining one month ago, I feel freshness every day. I come across different incidents that I did not expect when I was a student. Recently I got an opportunity to join Michael and be involved in the newspaper bag making training conducted by Diwia Thomas, supported by Cardamom County in tie up with the Forest Department.
In “Kayak Surfing with a Friend,” I described the surfing in words and included a short video. Here is some longer and better footage of the experience, this time including Pierre (brown hair), me (black hair), and Bismar (green shirt). We have concluded, after experimentation with the paddles and waves, that this activity would be a great post-estuary kayak experience if the tide is right. Since I had mentioned this to Bismar (a Morgan’s Rock guide) he decided to join Pierre and me after completing his estuary tour with some guests, so that he could see for himself.
A few days ago I spoke with Varghese, the restaurant manager and head of the food and beverage department here at Cardamom County, who prides himself in running a tight ship and making sure that guests are at their happiest. Varghese is another long-time member of the Cardamom County family, originally arriving here eleven years ago, in 2000. Having taken a two-year hospitality course in Ravipuram in Ernakulam (the same district housing Cochi), at a school that has now shifted to become the Fort Munnar Catering College in the misty mountains of nearby Munnar, and training with Taj Group of Hotels, he arrived to fill the role of a restaurant supervisor.
Varghese told me about his Uncle Phillip who was one of the many well-educated people from Kerala who went over to a Gulf country, in this case being Bahrain. We talked about this brain drain, which Varghese mentioned had been going on since as early as the 1970s. The highly educated people and professionals of Kerala go in search of new opportunities, higher living standards, and money to send back home. Varghese also talked about Arabic being a language that is not too difficult to pick up, especially because of the difficulty and speed with which the native tongue of Malayalam is spoken. However, what is interesting to note is the stark contrast of climate between the Gulf countries and Kerala, the former being very dry, arid, and hot with the latter being humid and comfortably cooler especially at higher altitudes near the Western Ghats such as here in Kumily, Idukki. Continue reading
His last post was one week ago. He departed Kerala just two days ago. We miss him already. Does anyone remember the “Where’s Yuri?” series in the early 1980s, at a time when the leader of the Soviet Union was not seen in public for an extended period–a radio host in New York started a daily taunt to the Soviets, asking this in jest…
El Aguacate, the protected forest at Morgan’s Rock, is part of the Nicaraguan network of private reserves, or La Red de Reservas Silvestres Privadas. Over the past two days, a team of three biologists (one botanist in this forties and two zoologists in their twenties) has been walking through the reserve, photographing and documenting the wildlife they encounter in order to perform a sort of valuation study of the natural resources at El Aguacate. For the past week this team has been in the Rivas/San Juan del Sur area qualitatively assessing the floral and faunal density and diversity at around thirteen different private reserves; similar teams around the country are doing the same according to region.
Gecko; species to be identified
José Gabriel Martínez Fonseca, one of the zoologists who also sports a Nikon camera that seems to have a telephoto lens (it looks almost a foot long), calls his photography enterprise Svaldvard Ink., after watching a show on the Svalbard archipelago in Norway on the Discovery Channel as a kid. Interested in the polar bears, he wrote down what he heard and years later preferred his own spelling of the word, adopting it as a username/alias for business. With his camera and skill as a biologist whose job it is to document species of reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals, José was able to photograph animals that have evaded my lens during my time at Morgan’s Rock. He was happy to share his images with me, so now I can share some of the best of them: all the photos in this post are his. Continue reading
Luxury is another word we avoid. Odd since we often eat like epicureans, sleep on fine linens when we can, and comfort is generally a creature we adore. But not odd, considering the work we do, and where we do it. Not all things can or should be available in all places, especially if conservation is the point, and collaborating with communities is the means to the end. Our friend and future Contributor Reyna hints that she will have a thing or two to say about this in the future. With regard to rethinking luxury, the Galapagos Islands provide a superb vantage point.
Why rethink it? That is, why do we avoid this ubiquitous word? OED tells us that this noun refers first and foremost to “lasciviousness, lust”. That is a good enough reason, for starters. By the third entry the definition eases up a bit, to “the habitual use of, or indulgence in what is choice or costly…” but still not much to write home about. The first ray of light is in the fourth entry, depending on a snippet of Dryden to poetically license us to re-visualize luxury: “Hard was their Lodging, homely was their Food; For all their Luxury was doing Good.”
But we do not need to go back 300 years, get too poetic, nor be preachy about it. Liberating this word may start with the therapeutic effects of pristine wilderness areas; the opportunity to disconnect on occasion from our normal, wired modern lives; the privilege of getting to know communities of people whose lives are different from our own. In short, some of the reasons why people travel. And if we can consider this lust for life, luxury is inevitable.
While walking to Morgan’s Rock’s lobby yesterday morning, Pierre heard some rustling in the bushes on our right. We looked for the source and were stunned to see an anteater standing on its hind legs, spreading its arms and swaying about like a drunkard but in fact trying to dissuade us from attacking it by trying to appear larger (it was bigger than a very fat house cat, but not by much). I immediately pulled my video camera from my pocket and started filming, and although the anteater had ceased his humorous movements and started climbing a very thin sapling, the footage was incredibly fortunate and very entertaining.
Since the tree he decided to grasp was so young, it started to bend as he climbed higher, reminding me of cartoons where characters are catapulted out of the branches after a certain point. The anteater was less than a meter away and at times looked like a teddy bear, but as a wild animal—and one with claws in full display at that—we refrained from touching him and were satisfied with a video. Eventually, the formicary raider descended the sapling and chose a better escape tree (in a pose reminiscent of the boa’s in a previous post), and we left happy with the sighting of what I thought I’d only be able to see in the summer when foliage was less dense. Continue reading
A recent article in TIME Magazine alerted me to how easy it is for us as consumers to shrug off the warnings of a changing world. I am guilty of it and I have caught myself, and hope that with this change I pledge to make, you might think about it too…
I’m humbled by the cognitive dissonance of knowing how sensitive the planet’s oceans are while hungrily indulging in sushi and fish filets with a comfortable negligence regarding their origins. Food choices like these, the effects of which are typically underestimated as a mere drop in the ocean, are proving to have a bigger ripple effect than we’d like to think. And it’s high time we all thought about the fish on our dish and just how it got there.
The article in TIME by Bryan Walsh reminded me of a memorable excerpt from a conversation between some friends of mine:
Q: “So what did porcupine taste like? Does it taste like chicken?”
A: “It tastes like… have you ever eaten donkey?”
As hysterical as it was for me at the time, it made me think, is the sometimes absurd variety of the human palate an evolutionary response to a scarcity of resources?
Ok so there’s no imminent extinction of livestock; there is many a happy cow in California, the UK alone consumes nearly 30 million eggs per day, and just look at New Zealand’s sheep-to-people ratio. But what about the animals we still hunt for sustenance? Continue reading
For now, I live in New York City and my brother lives in Quito, Ecuador. A visit to his new apartment last month near Parque Metropolitano, and our subsequent hike up Volcán Pichincha, led to the biggest obvious and most profound difference between Quito and New York: Quito has big mountains and volcanoes and New York doesn’t. Seemingly obvious and superficial (and of course topographical), the reasons started to form in my head while watching the clouds form around me.
Pierre and I took a walk around Granada today with Mombotour guide Gustavo, a native of the colonial city. Our first stop was the San Francisco Monastery and Church, the oldest church in Central America, which has been converted (aha) into a museum of colonial and pre-Colombian history. Probably built on the site of an indigenous temple, the monastery later became a school, then the museum. It also recently underwent a restoration project, since earthquakes have especially strong effects on such old architecture as Granada’s churches.
Gustavo led us through each of the rooms containing an exhibit, such as ancient pottery, contemporary art replicating historical or cultural scenes, and zoomorphic stone statues. He explained some of the beliefs held by the indigenous groups, which were often influenced by northern tribes (Mayans, Toltecs, and Aztecs) and South American indigenous nations, as well as the Spaniards’ opinions of them. For example, the rain god was considered to have four sons at the cardinal points. Ritual offerings such as those depicted in this painting were thought to bring fertility to the soils. Spaniards were also quite surprised to see the symbol at the base of this statue, not knowing that it represented the cardinal points and not the savior. Continue reading
Yesterday morning, I attempted to visit the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, but thanks to Tripadvisor, my taxi driver couldn’t find the location of the elephant orphanage. Instead, I found myself at the Nairobi National Park’s animal orphanage. Surrounded by a swarm of Kenyan school children (who seemed to be more interested in me than in the wild monkeys), I observed the establishment with slight disappointment. The orphanage seemed more like a mediocre zoo than a safe haven for its animals. I was disappointed with the lack of educational materials, tour guides, or remotely enthusiastic staff. Even as I paid my $15 entry fee (which is quite expensive for Nairobi standards), the clerk was rude and could not provide me with any information; he just scurried me along so he could attract more tourists to the booth.
I proceeded and moseyed around, reading the “Educational” signs that hung on the cages and learning a bit more about some of the animals, like the zedonk (zebra/donkey hybrid) or the cheetah. I was curious as to why some of the animals had been there for so long and why they hadn’t been brought back to the wild. Although I know the Nairobi National Park’s Animal Orphanage must do a lot of good for wildlife rehabilitation, I had trouble seeing tangible evidence of it. Unfortunately, the profitability of tourism had clouded the conservation vision and potential education opportunities that Nairobi Animal Orphanage could offer. Sustainable and nature tourism should educate the tourists not hustle and ostracize them.
Laying aside my disappointment from yesterday, I was able to find the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust today! Since 1987, The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust has hand-reared more than 90 newborn elephants and released 150 elephants back into the wild at Tsavo National Park. The charity was founded by Continue reading
This morning Pierre and I went on a trip facilitated by Mombotours, using Detour bikes and NicarAgua Dulce kayaks. Eddy, our guide from Mombotour, arrived after breakfast and drove us to Detour, the bike rental shop. We picked up three bikes and left Granada’s hub towards the shore of Lake Cocibolca. The Mombotour driver followed behind in the truck in case we had any bike problems or accidents. We hadn’t gone more than two or three kilometers when the truck’s presence became needed. I’d accidentally driven over some glass, and punctured my tire in two places with tiny shards. With the tools and spare tube in the truck we were able to fix this unfortunate damage within twenty minutes, and Eddy’s training made my negligible REI workshop experience unnecessary.
The rest of the bike trip, which lasted about an hour and a half, was without further perforations, and we enjoyed riding up and down muddy dirt roads, dodging stones and chickens along the way. The mountain bikes performed very well and changed gears fluidly, which is always a nice surprise. We rode down along a peninsula till Continue reading
Recently, after finishing my shopping at the central market we were on the return drive when I glanced to my left and saw a pushcart full of Rambutan and Mangosteen. I quickly asked Shibu to pull over so I could make sure it wasn’t my imagination. I have to acknowledge that this was one of the many market-going moments when I wished I’d remembered to tuck the camera into my bag!
The cart had a pile of each fruit…the rambutan (looking like a Martian lychee covered with rubbery “hairs”) ranging from dark red to brownish maroon, and the mangosteen, a beautiful purple brown bordering on eggplant with little stems attached to a woody cap like a circle of flower petals.
There were more mangosteens strung up like Christmas garlands by their stems. Continue reading
Early this morning Pierre and I set out from Morgan’s Rock towards Granada, which is maybe two and a half hours away. Before reaching the city, we turned onto a road that led to Mombacho Volcano, an inactive peak with several extinct (and some fully collapsed) craters. The volcano is protected by the Mombacho Volcano Nature Reserve, created in 1996 by the several local fincas on the volcano’s foothills that comprise the NGO Cocibolca Foundation. Our time at Mombacho, described in the rest of this post, is part of the exploratory trip that Pierre and I are taking over the next three days, assessing the possibility of connecting Morgan’s Rock’s tour offerings with other operators in the area.
The day’s activities started at the Mombacho Volcano Nature Reserve (MVNR), where we met our guide Jennifer. We decided to take the longest trek, called the Puma Trail, so named because there are some big rocks and even caves that pumas are said to live in, although none have been sighted in a decade. Prior to starting this four-hour hike we stopped by an area called Los Fumalores where Jennifer had fun by daring us to put our hands in a small hole next to the trail, reassuring us that no snakes would be inside. As we placed our hands near the opening in the ground, we could immediately feel a stunning temperature difference. The place is called Los Fumaroles because sulfuric gases rise from volcanic holes and crevasses in hot gushes, heating the surrounding stone to a surprising degree. This area also provides a nice view of Las Isletas, which are known as children of Mombacho because they are islands initially created from a volcanic eruption. I mentioned Las Isletas very briefly here.
The Puma Trail’s path is very well maintained, Continue reading
Yesterday I met and spoke with another longstanding member of the Cardamom Country crew, Executive Chef, Mr. Pradeep. Having been affiliated with this resort since its inauguration in November, 1999 (in fact starting two months prior to that for training), he serves as a kind of memory box for Cardamom County, not least about its cuisine. But his family heritage is intertwined with this location in a fascinating way too.
Chef Pradeep explained that his family hails originally from the state of Maharashtra. His maternal grandfather came down to help construct the Mullaperiyar Dam 120 years ago, mentioned in greater detail in Michael’s post Damn Dams and Macaques. Thus, Chef Pradeep was born in Thekkady very close to where Cardamom County was eventually built, although he spent most of his life up until college in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. He moved back to Thekkady after he married his wife and decided to settle down at his place of birth. His wife had a government job, which is held in especially high regard here in Kerala, namely for its stability and the pension received later in life. Continue reading
Organikos 
