The First Ten Days

Today, on the eleventh day of our one-year RV adventure, March 20^th, I found myself fantasizing about being at the St. George’s Hotel in Paris, surrounded by luxury and space, sitting outside at a café and eating the most buttery, flaky croissants with a cup of coffee, listening to Francoise Hardy.   Of course, I’m conveniently omitting from the fantasy the sounds and nuisances of the city:  car horns and alarms, motorcycles, ambulances, dogs barking, poop on the sidewalk, hawkers, and the general hustle and bustle of city life.  I don’t miss that.  Not one bit. 

What I do miss is convenience.  Flicking a switch, pressing a button or lifting a lever, and knowing with absolute certainty (or at least 99% of the time) that a particular result will happen – a light will turn on or off, hot water will flow, the air conditioner or the heater will work as it should, whatever is in the toilet will go down and not come back up.   In theory, a modern RV is supposed to have these same conveniences.  In practice, a lot of things can (and do) go wrong.   

In that sense, it is much like golf.  Something good is supposed to happen when you swing the club – the arc of the ball landing somewhere you expect, hope for.    But in practice, a lot of things can (and do) go wrong in the space between taking the club back and swinging it down again to hit the ball.  That space – let’s call it the Unknown Unknown – is where your hopes and dreams for that swing go to die.   For those of you smart enough not to play golf – that most frustrating and rewarding of sports – take it from me that there is a similar space in RV life.  The space between the time you flick a switch, press a button, lift a lever, and what is supposed to happen does not happen.  

Ten days into our one-year adventure, we have had the following mishaps: 

1-    Electrical problems that required calling out a mobile RV technician. (Cost: $330, which we will hopefully be reimbursed as part of warranty). 

2-    Repeated error codes on the thermostat that controls the AC and heat (which we realized eventually was due to the electrical problem above).

3-    Struggling to get the Jeep transfer case into and out of gear for towing mode a continuing problem leaving us having to rock the Jeep back and forth manually in neutral to get the gears to connect. 

4-    Dumping the black holding tank at a gas station then losing another 30 minutes to find somewhere else to fill up the water tank, then arriving at the overnight campsite only to realize it had water and power and there was therefore no need to fill up the water tank.  

5-    The toilet backing up (which we fixed temporarily with a $10 snake from the local Ace hardware), a problem that recurred three times in the first two weeks.  

6-    Waking up to a broken water pump due to leaving it on all night.  (Warranty service has been called, and we are awaiting diagnostics).

Much of our daily life camping is spent solving problems, setting up and breaking down camp, planning the next stop (routes, reservations, etc.), figuring out why things in the RV aren’t working the way they are supposed to, taking the dog for a walk, up at night because of the restless cat who has become completely nocturnal due to fear of all the strange sights and noises during the day, standing around watching Marina connect and reconnect all sorts of hoses and cables and tinker with tools much of the day, researching how to do things that we have never done before. 

That’s how it’s been for the first ten days.   As I write this, we have just finished three weeks, and as the days go by and the learning curve becomes less steep, the joyful moments of living do eventually outnumber the problem-solving because we have also experienced the following: 

• The satisfaction that comes from solving a seemingly overwhelming and intractable problem

• For me, a childlike glee in doing things for their own sake and without expectation of result:  canoeing, sitting still in the middle of the day, in the middle of a forest, listening to birdsong, staring into the flames of the campfire. 

• The peace that fills one’s soul, gazing out onto a lake at sunset, far from the noise of civilization

• The comfort of huddling close to the fire on a chilly night.

• Confidence in our skills, knowing that there is no situation that can get the better of us. 

Eventually, the blog posts are going to be about the places we visit and the things we see rather (and with a lot of pictures!) than the problems we’re solving.  One can only hope.  

The Snake

What a week we’ve had.   Nothing has been simple our first 7 days of RV life.  And the worst was yet to come.  

Warning:  No pictures ahead.  Just a long, harrowing story.

The first day of our second week started off well.  We managed to miss the rain as we dumped the waste holding tank on our way out of the Alexander Springs campsite, hitched up the Jeep without incident, and set off on a beautiful back road through the Ocala National Forest and into horse country.  An hour and a half later, we pulled into Williston and checked in early (and paid $10 fee for the privilege).  Our volunteer escort, an older woman in a golf cart with a sign that said Follow Me (we saw her many times during our stay and that sign seemed permanently affixed to her cart), led us to the site.  The large spacious sites were dotted with tall shade trees and as we wound our way through the park, we noticed a pond with a fountain, a large fire pit, and a general sense of civic pride and proper maintenance. 

We got to the site and the escort waited for us to unhitch the Jeep so she guide Marina into the site (though we hadn’t asked for it).  

 We jumped down and quickly dismantled our respective sides of the tow assembly connecting the Jeep to the RV.   Just as I was feeling proud of myself for finally getting the hang of all the clips, brackets, pins and cables, the Jeep started rolling backward.  I couldn’t see where the escort was positioned, and had visions of the Jeep crashing into her golf cart.  I jumped into the Jeep from the passenger side and pulled the hand brake.  First disaster avoided. 

The escort – a few feet away on the driver’s side of the Jeep -- said something about always having the hand brake on while unhitching.   This is like someone telling you to be careful after you trip or fall. 

Marina backed us into the site with ease, and the escort left us to hook up.   First order of business was to plug into power. Marina brought out her electrical test kit and after satisfying herself that all was well, she plugged us into the 50-amp outlet with our massive surge protector. 

Next, she took out the and the water softener (blue tank) and the water filters (set of three joined together in a big black case plus another separate one), and set about hooking all that up.   She laid all the brass fittings and water hoses with various connectors out on the grass.  I was of no help standing over her so she told me to “go put the kettle on or something.”  

I did the “or something” which was to take Charley out for a pee, give her some water, unpack the things that we put away on travel days, and generally tidy up.  I went back out about 20 minutes later, and no water hook-up yet.

 “Where’s my tea?” she said. 

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize you wanted tea.  Be right back.”   (I haven’t learned after 22 years that “put the kettle on” means make me a cup of tea.)

I brought her a cup of tea, and she sat on the 3-filter contraption drinking it in the sun, puzzling out the water connection.    “I can’t understand it,” she said.  “I just did this a few days ago at the other site.  There’s something I’m missing and I don’t know what it is.” 

I offered to help but that required her to first explain all the parts laid out before us, and after about a minute of that, we both agreed it would be better if I went inside and made us sandwiches.   Neither of us are particularly good at receiving help from the other when we are determined to figure something out for ourselves.  

Finally, about an hour after starting the process, she managed to hook up the water.  As with most things RV related, the solution was simple – turn the 3-filter pack in the opposite direction and then the parts would fit into place. 

We opened the living room slide since all the hook-ups were done, and Marina went back outside.  (When we first arrive at a campsite, Marina spends a lot of time outside doing all sorts of things that I don’t know about.)  

I lured the cat out from under the bed and opened the bedroom slide. He came out right away, and I was pleased with that bit of progress.  After he ate, I expected him to use the toilet but instead he went back under the bed and started scratching.  I immediately followed with the flashlight.  That scratching was for one reason only – pooping.

We had smelled something funny during the drive over that morning, and I had traced it to the bedroom, but with the slides closed and the coach moving, it was impossible to detect the source.  By the time we had arrived at the site, the smell had either dissipated or we had gotten used to it.  But now that I was right in front of it, it was hard to miss.   The cat had pooped under the bed.   I couldn’t see it yet, but I could smell it.  

The opening under the bed was only a few inches, and it was pitch dark under there.  I took some flash pictures with my phone, and saw exactly where I had to clean up.  He had found a tight little spot in between the cables and steel brackets.  Luckily, and I do mean luckily, it was close enough to the front that I could reach it.   

I lay flat on the floor, my hand under the bed and over the steel brackets, swiping and wiping again and again, using up half a roll of toilet paper sprayed with Lysol, collecting all of it in a plastic bag, taking progress pictures to see where I had cleaned and where I had missed.   Turns out the cat had done this at least once before because I picked up dried poop as well.   I managed to get it all out finally, and while I was still on the floor tying up the plastic bag, Marina came back in and I told her what had happened.  

“He’s going to keep going back under there to poop,” she said.  “We have to keep him out.”  

I agreed.  We couldn’t do anything about it that day, and in any case, he had already done his business so he wouldn’t be pooping again till tomorrow.  But we made a plan for the next day.  We would close up the opening under the bed with plexiglass.    I had suggested this back in Miami, but Marina had contrived something with blue pool noodles taped together.  It wasn’t working because he had managed to claw the noodles out of the way, and the entire contraption was unwieldy and took up way too much space in the bedroom.   We dismantled it and Marina took the noodles outside to store in one of the bays. 

By this time, it was close to two o’clock, and I was looking forward to sitting down and relaxing.   

Now, before I tell you what happened next, you need to first understand how an RV toilet works.  It’s similar to a boat toilet.  There’s a holding tank, called a black tank, and the toilet sits on top of the tank.  The “flush” is a lever you operate with your foot, which opens a sealed flap inside the toilet to flush away whatever is in the bowl into the holding tank.  The toilet bowl is connected to the holding tank via a pipe which drops straight down. 

I used the bathroom, and when I flushed, I could still see wads of tissue when the toilet flap to the tank below opened.   That’s odd, I thought.  We had just emptied the holding tank that morning before arriving here, so there shouldn’t be all that paper in the tank.  Marina had gone back outside again, and I told her as soon as she came back in.   She tried to flush the toilet, and sewage started backing up into the bowl.   

A wave of shock, disgust, horror at what might possibly happen if the sewage continued to rise, all of that passed through me.  But only for a second.  With age and experience, both Marina and I have learned to focus on the task at hand, especially in an emergency, and not panic or let our emotions drive us.  Marina had complained that I was using too much tissue, and I had complained that the RV tissue she bought was too thin, but we didn’t discuss any of that now. 

We closed the toilet lid and each of us separately Googled how to unblock an RV toilet.  Boiling water and ice cubes were two different suggestions, but both would take hours and may not work.  It was clear to me (though not to Marina, who hadn’t seen it) that the blockage was the toilet tissue at the top of the pipe.   The tank was empty, so luckily, there wouldn’t be massive amounts of sewage about to spill into our RV.   But even the one bowlful would be unacceptable.  Another suggestion was a snake, but Marina vetoed that, saying snakes were no good for RV toilets. 

She found a YouTube video with a procedure that “Works Every Time!” to unclog an RV toilet.  It involved emptying the gray tank into the hose hook-up outside, then lifting up the hose with the water from the gray tank and then levering it vigorously to push that water up into the black tank to clear it.  I said that looks needlessly complicated and there is no way the water is going to get from outside all the way up through the black tank to the bottom of the toilet, which is where the blockage is.   But she insisted we try it, and I have learned that with Marina that it is best not to argue, especially when its comes to anything technical related to the RV. 

I’ll spare you all of the going into and out of the coach, hooking and unhooking, starting and stopping, trying to flush, turning the water off and then on, and all the steps and missteps to execute this “Works Every Time!” solution.  It didn’t work this time.   In the meantime, I ordered a chemical from Amazon that breaks down toilet tissue in RVs and boats.  Unfortunately, it would take 48 hours to arrive and we needed a solution now. 

There was an Ace Hardware a mile from us, so Marina sent me there with instructions to get a plunger.  On the way there, she called to say that a plunger wouldn’t work because there was no P-trap on an RV toilet, and so I should just get a long stick that she would poke through the flap at the bottom of the toilet to loosen whatever was blocked.  I went to Ace, and explored a pressure washer gun.  Too much water everywhere, too much pressure, too dangerous, Marina said.  I asked another Ace worker for a long stick, and then I told him what the problem was.  Why don’t you just use a snake? he said, and led me to the plumbing aisle.  I picked up a 3-ft household snake for $9.99 plus tax.   

Marina plunged the coiled wire into the depths of the toilet, and I turned the handle at the end.  The toilet gurgled and spit and all the sewage went down.  I was flooded with relief.  The tension that I hadn’t realized built up inside suddenly subsided.   

The snake emerged clogged full of toilet tissue.  Careful not to touch any part that went into the toilet, we put all but the snake’s handle in a bag and took it outside to wash and disinfect.    I gave silent thanks for the snake, to whoever invented it, to the Ace hardware being nearby, to the gentleman who suggested it, and to Marina for knowing how to use it.   

Later that day, we stopped for ice cream – vanilla for Marina and chocolate for me.  It was piled precariously high atop the cone, and though I held it carefully, two large dollops fell to the ground.  As I picked them up with a napkin, I was glad it was evening, and that this would be the last brown substance I would be cleaning up that day.  

Ancient Rituals, Modern Times

Camping takes us back to an ancient time.  Out in remote areas, making your own food, gathering around the fire, life becomes tribal once more, ancient in its rhythms.  Up with the sun, to bed at dark.  The gypsy caravans, the covered wagons  have been replaced by modern vehicles.   But the feeling of refuge from the world outside is the same.  

As I walk Charley, and the night closes in on us, the oak trees reaching to the sky, I imagine travelers from another time, another era, making their way on foot, weary from the journey, looking for a place to stop for the night to seek safety from animals, thieves and worse.  Instead of the campfires that they would have seen, as I round the corner to the campground, I see the LED lights of camper vans, RVs, and tents, and it is a relief.  We have made it back, we have conquered the dark, and the world outside.  

Inside the vehicles, lamps and electric lights reveal people having supper, reading, all of us cocooned in our campers, the hot light of the TV casting its glow over our entranced faces, replacing the storyteller around the campfires of old

The First Day of the RV Trip

We made so many mistakes our first day. The first was actually done before the first day -- we didn’t do a test drive with the tow vehicle behind us. We tested the set-up and made sure the electrics and brake worked, but we hadn’t actually driven it. The first time we drove with the Jeep behind us was with everything packed and stowed, the cat in his carrier in Duchess, just as we were about to set off on our adventure. We hitched the tow vehicle on the road in front of my aunt’s house (where we had been parked for five days getting ready for our departure), taking up a good bit of road, causing a minor traffic diversion. Marina had to fiddle with the brake cable on the tow bar, but she wasn’t satisfied that the brake lever on the tow hitch was working as it should. I was crestfallen, stressing about the animals in the vehicle, thinking we would have to postpone our departure yet another day. Marina decided it worked well enough for Florida and we would get it sorted out at a mechanic before we hit mountainous topography out west.

When we arrived at our destination five hours later, we had to drive down three miles of unpaved washboard road. We had read about this road in the reviews, but figured we could handle it. That will be the first and last time we take Duchess down an unpaved road. Even at 5 miles an hour, everything inside the cabinets was clattering, and the coach itself squeaked and rattled as she lumbered along.



3 miles of unpaved washboard road!


We unhitched the Jeep before putting the parking brake on, so it started rolling gently forward towards the back of Duchess! Marina held the Jeep back while I jumped in and engaged the parking brake. When I came back out, Marina calmly said, “That’ll teach us.” I loved her for the way she said it.

Other things we learned on day one:

1. Don’t trust that things on the kitchen or the table will stay there when you start moving. Some things will, and some won’t. Within minutes of us setting off, we made a right turn and a basket of onions, garlic and beer bottles clattered to the floor, terrifying the cat.

2. Double and triple-check that the fridge door is locked. I left it unlocked accidentally at a stop and as soon as Marina drove off, the fridge door flew open and bottles and jars came flying out. Yogurt splattered all over the bathroom floor and lower cabinet.

3. Before departure, eat something or have something ready to eat handy because it’s going to take a lot longer than you think to get to your destination.

4. Don’t forget your outdoor set up. I had bought a lovely little portable aluminum table for all our outdoor meals, but Marina had packed our almost-new beach chairs, which were low to the ground, and nowhere near usable with the table. An outdoor mat is also essential for campsites without a concrete pad.



Chairs don't match the table height and no outdoor mat

5. There are no mistakes, only learning experiences. This is perhaps the hardest learning of all.

At the end of the first day, as I was thinking about all the things we could have done better, it struck me how much pressure we both put on ourselves to do things right. But when we sat in our beach chairs that didn’t match our table, with Charley laying in the grass, and Handsome sitting on the steps of the coach, ready to run back in at the first sight of danger, the Spanish moss on the trees swaying in the gentle breeze, and the laptops, tablets and phones put away, it occurred to me that all the screw-ups we had made that first day were part of the journey. No matter how much we researched and prepared, there would always be something we couldn’t anticipate. We were both under a lot of pressure the last few months – finding a tenant, moving out of our home, preparing Duchess for the journey, settling things and tying up loose ends. Had I known everything that’s entailed in packing up your life for a year, I’m not sure I would have done it. But I’m also 100% sure that I will look back on this year with joy and not regret a moment of it. And I’m sure it will be full of learning experiences!



Beautiful oak trees draped with Spanish moss
line the trails at Hickory Hammock

A New Adventure Begins

 I went white-water rafting for the first time in early August 2021.  Including flying time, flight delays, airport layovers, and driving, it took about 18 hours door-to-door from South Beach to the Payette River Rafting Company in Idaho.  That journey was brutal.

 

The two-hour raft ride on the Payette River was delightful and exhilarating.  As we approached the end, floating through the gorge, the sky framed by steep rugged rock, I wasn’t ready to leave.  And I wasn’t looking forwar d to the hour and forty-minute drive back to Boise. 

 

That's me in the coral jacket on the left rear of the raft

 

 It had never crossed my mind to go white-water rafting.  The activity for our sibling weekend had been organized by my brother.  I enjoyed it so much that two hours wasn’t enough, and that short time on the Payette River made me think about all the things I hadn’t done, all the wild and beautiful places of America I hadn’t seen.

 

I noticed camper vans parked along the banks of the river, people in lawn chairs, nursing beers, starting barbecues or nibbling on sandwiches, their dogs sniffing nearby or at their feet.   

 

They get to stay here all weekend? I asked. 

Yup, said our rafting guide. 

How come? 

You just book a site.  If you have a reservation, you can stay.

One couple on our raft mentioned that they had an RV.  The wife was a traveling nurse; they moved from one location to the next, spending six to eight weeks at a time.   I don’t know if it was destiny or coincidence that a couple with an RV ended up on our raft, but I do know that when I got on that raft, I wouldn’t have gone camping if you had paid me, but before I got off, I decided that we should rent our apartment, pack up our things, and go on the road for a year to explore America. 

Marina had been trying to get me camping for years, and I had refused.  I need my long luxurious daily showers, and I like indoor plumbing and modern conveniences.  No roughing it for me.  So when I flew back to Miami and proposed this plan, she couldn’t believe it, and was all for it.  I started this blog on our cross-country move from Los Angeles to Miami Beach in 2013.   On that trip, Marina and I planted seeds for this journey today -- we talked about traveling around the country in an RV, and now nine years later, we were actually going to do it. 

We listed the apartment for rent in early September, bought an RV in early December, secured a tenant by the end of the year, moved out on January 27^th, and hit the road March 9^th.    That sentence encapsulates six months of uncertainty, inconvenience, packing up a three-bedroom condo, whittling down a lifetime of accumulation into necessities for the road, organizing work to operate from afar, stocking and preparing the RV, learning all about its mechanical, plumbing and electrical systems, selling the two vehicles that couldn’t be flat-towed behind the RV and buying a Jeep Wrangler that could, and finally, saying goodbye to family and friends.   Much of those six months was arduous, but we kept our goal firmly in mind, and that helped us get through it.  

Marina had suggested we rent an RV for a weekend to make sure this lifestyle was something I liked and could handle.   We rented a 28-foot Jayco motor home and stayed at an RV park off a busy road, motor homes and campers parked practically on top of each other at a nondescript site.  It rained all weekend.  There was nothing to do at the RV park, and we didn’t have a vehicle with us since we had left it where we picked up the rental.  Even so, I loved it.  I loved the feeling of waking up in the camper, the coziness of the dining booth, the outdoor grilling and eating.  I loved being away from the relentless routine of daily life, and I even got used to not having cell service all weekend.   Marina was satisfied that if I loved being in an awful RV park during bad weather with nothing to do, then I was ready to get on the road and see some truly beautiful places. 

We had already spent quite a bit of time hunting second-hand RVs, but we couldn’t find anything that satisfied us.  Everything was either too big, too small or too brown.  (I can’t understand the fascination with brown interiors in RVs.)   We had rented the 28-footer because that’s the size we thought we wanted, but by the end of the weekend, we decided that for full-time living, we needed a few feet more.   Marina had thoroughly researched the various RV manufacturers, and she had narrowed down our options to two brands for reliability and quality – Tiffin and Newmar. 

While sitting at the dining booth in our rental, we looked at the floor plans for those two brands, and eliminated the Tiffin because the TV was in an awkward location on the smaller models that we wanted.   We set our sights on the 31-foot Bay Star by Newmar, which had everything we needed in the right configuration. I lobbied hard for the 34-footer, which came with a washer and dryer, but Marina was concerned it was too big.   “What’s an extra three feet?” I argued.  But she would be the one driving so I had to defer to her judgment.   The Internet revealed that the exact model we wanted was sitting on a dealer’s lot not far from where we would return the rental.  In fact, it was literally on the way home.  We decided to go check out the floor plan in person to make sure it was what we wanted so we could then find a second-hand one.

We called ahead and made an appointment after dropping off the rental.  We had to wait a long time to see the salesman, and almost gave up, but since we had narrowed down our options to this model and this alone, and there was none other for at least 500 miles, we needed to see it.  

She was parked by herself in a lot, slides out, blue and gray paint bright even in the cloudy weather.  The salesman opened the door, and the minute we stepped inside, I fell in love.  The cabinets reminded me of a French farmhouse – a warm crème color with an oil-rubbed finish along the moulding.  The sofa, dinette booth and cab chairs in front were a soft gray.  All the lights were on in the coach and they created an inviting glow.  As the salesman walked us through, showing us the bedroom in the back and the bathroom, I knew this was The One.

The test drive went better than expected; Marina drove her smoothly through highway traffic.  Afterwards, we were in the coach for a long time.  I lost track.  He sat on the sofa, in no hurry to leave, discussing all the features, answering Marina’s questions.  I sat on the dinette booth, and all I could hear was a voice in my head saying, “We have to have it.  We have to have it.  We have to have it.”

 

Everything I knew about negotiating went out the window.  Not just because of the insistent inner child inside me who demanded that we not leave without it, but also because we were in a time of scarcity; houses, cars, RVs, all had crazy prices due to lack of availability from supply chain issues caused by Covid.  I managed to shave a little bit off the price and a point off the interest rate, and about three hours after we walked into the dealership, we had found our new home for the next year.  

We named her Duchess, and the new Jeep Wrangler to tow behind her was called Duke.  If you're on Instagram, you can see a video tour of her: part one and part two.   You can also follow our adventures in Duchess on our Instagram page.  

Duke and Duchess

Goa

Goa is shrouded in a mythology of hippies, sophisticated party goers, European tourists, and remnants of Portuguese culture.  Vast numbers of charter flights now descend on Goa during the season, many of them carrying the new Russian middle-class looking for their place in the sun.  Over Christmas and New Years, Mumbai’s “high society” takes over the bars and restaurants with nonstop parties.  Real estate prices have climbed through the roof, and a taxi mafia has a stranglehold on trips from the airport.  And yet, pockets of bohemia still exist, and hippies manage to cling to this laid-back piece of paradise. 

The first thing we noticed about Goa is how lush it is.  The drive from the airport to my aunt’s house in North Goa was lined by rich tropical foliage, and we passed through lots of small villages and shorelines dotted with fishing boats.  Everything moves at a relaxed, easy pace, in marked contrast to Mumbai, from where we had just come.

We arrived a few days before Diwali, the Hindu New Year, and we saw many Goans building gigantic paper-mache demons.  Some of these demons were over 20 feet tall.

The demons represent the evil King Narkasur, a former Goan king, who was defeated by Lord Krishna in the early hours before Diwali.  In celebration of and gratitude for this, every year, men gather around their paper-mache demons and drink themselves silly while a DJ pumps house music.  Then, around 4am, the men attack the demon, beating and kicking it and setting fire to it.  Unfortunately, we weren’t awake to witness this.

We stayed at my aunt’s home on the banks of the Nerul River in the village of Nerul; as a fashion designer and artist, she has created an appealing and welcoming environment, dotted with her acquisitions from all over the world.  Her husband has created a riotous garden full of interesting plants and the entire effect is one of harmony and balance.

The Goan government had just launched a women’s taxi service a few days before we arrived so we hired one of them to take us around Goa but she kept taking us to various churches.  We preferred to just wander around and soak in the laid-back atmosphere, and we also paid a visit to the arts center, set in a leafy residential neighborhood on a hill in a restored old home that is an examplar of Portuguese architecture, with its central courtyard, beautiful old tiles, archways and woodwork.

central courtyard is signature feature of Goan architecture

Lovely old original tiles

One of the highlights of our trip to Kerala in 2012 was a trip down the river in a houseboat powered entirely by a man using a pole.  Since Goa is very near Kerala, and has similar terrain, including lots of waterways, we wanted to replicate that experience here, if not on a houseboat, then at least by a boat that didn’t use engines because the lack of noise creates a lovely peaceful environment.  Unfortunately, that option was not to be. 

In Kerala, we had seen lots of brahminy kites, majestic copper-colored eagle with white breasts and heads, and these birds are equally prevalent in Goa.  The boatman put chicken heads on the boat to attract them, and I managed to get a shot of the kite grabbing its meal.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get many good bird shots because the engine scared away the smaller birds before we could get close enough.  But I did manage a few, and some decent shots of the landscape, the river, and Goan architecture.   Incredibly, we didn't have a chance to make it to any of the beaches.  That will have to wait for our next trip. 

Brahminy kite in flight

Honey buzzard

Kingfisher

Goan sunset