Nutmeg and Elephant Selfies

Yesterday we drove along the Arabian from Cochin to Lake Vembanadu, and into the foothills of the Western Ghat Mountains. 

A tree temple on the Arabian Sea-

We arrived at serenity (at Kanam estate)- out hotel and a working rubber and spice farm- and loved the fact that it felt so tropical. After lunch on the porch of our room (overlooking a tropical valley- during which we whipped out our binoculars to watch a trio of parrots playing in the valley below) we went of a walking tour of the farm and village,

We saw:

• A clove tree (sadly out of season)
• A cinnamon tree whose bark smelled incredible!
• A coffee tree
• Pepper plant (did you know that all four types of pepper ((black, green, white, red)) come from the same plant? It just has to do with harvest and drying!)
• Banana tree (one fruit bundle and that tree is useless!)
• A pineapple plant
• Tapioca plant
• Mangosteen tree
• Papaya tree
• Cacao plant (once very common- but when the Portuguese brought over rubber plants they became king) 
• Rubber trees- main crop of Kanam 
• and finally... Nutmeg (did you know that one male nutmeg tree can keep an entire orchard blooming?) 

A cacao pod-

Freshly broken open nutmeg (the red is mace) 

And today we met our new besty Lakshmi. Lakshmi is a little on the larger side but openly admits its and embraces her heft. She loves fruit and tried to get us to eat some with her but we really can't eat like she does. She tall- taller than Annie- with a smooth and graceful gate (nothing like Tim's). Back to her eating habits- she's a very enthusiastic eater- she will rip plants right out of the ground when hungry. Her nose is her most prominent feature (sort of like Tim). Only she stretcher hers to it's full range of usage: bathing herself, feeding herself, sniffing and saluting new friends...

...you've hopefully realized now that Lakshmi is not human...

...she's an  elephant! Whom we spent a couple of hours with this morning. She usually spends her time carrying big logs- so we hope carrying us was more like a vacation! We even gave her a bath as a thank you. Here she is in all her glory- and here we are in our first ever elephant selfie! 

Annie feeding Lakshmi some jack fruit-

Tim... poetry in motion (of course he claimed to be a natural- please...)-

 A big hello-

#elephantselfie

p.s. we ended the day with a cooking demo- Tim claims it will be part of his arsenal in the fall...