Travel Writing

Indian Ocean Bliss

dawn over Tiwi lagoon

Dawn over the reef on Tiwi Beach, South Kenya Coast

It’s a dog’s life on Tiwi Beach, the white strand where ocean roars on coral and trade winds waft the coconut palms; and where, best of all, as far as the local canines are concerned, there are quiet coves sparse in holidaymakers. It means they may do as they please. For after all, it is their own resort, and every morning they set off there from the beach villages along the headland, nose up, ears blown back in the breeze, ready for the day’s adventures.

But the dogs are not churlish. They can take or leave the odd pale human wrestling to right his windsurfer on the still lagoon; ignore the sentinel heron that marks the reef edge beyond; pay no heed to the etched black figures of the Digo fishermen who search the shallows for prawns, parrot fish, or perhaps a mottled lobster or two.

© 2013 Tish Farrell

From Going to the dogs on Mombasa’s Southern Shore

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Post prompted by Paula at Lost in Translation where you will find more blissful images.

Oloololo Escarpment: Maasai Dreaming

 

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Night on the Mara River – darkness wraps round, close as a Maasai’s blanket.  It is cold, too, on the river’s bend. We press closer the campfire, our white faces soon roasting red. No one speaks. There’s too much to listen for. A hyena whoops across the water?  It sounds close. It sounds unearthly, sending shock waves through vulnerable bones – mine, conjuring packs of predators, out there, circling our ring of light. And even as I think it the Maasai are on us.  Six warriors, spears in hand and naked to the waist.  Their leader tosses his ostrich-feather head-dress that looks like a lion’s mane.  He is fearless.  He is lion.

Then the singing starts, a nasal falsetto that resonates through time and space – the winds’ whine through Mara grasses.  The Maasai girls trip lightly into the firelight, their wraps like flames – yellow, red; close-cropped heads hung with beads; chins jutting forward as the crescent necklets – tiny beads so patiently strung – rise and fall on skinny chests.  The moran start to leap – higher, faster.

excerpt from Dances With Warriors © 2014 Tish Farrell

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DP Weekly Photo Challenge

strait edge

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This awe-striking effect of cloud and sunlight seems to be a feature of Menai Strait, the narrow stretch of tidal water between the island of Anglesey (Ynys Môn) and the North Wales mainland. This photo (looking towards the mainland) was taken around midday in December last year. The cloud had banked so thickly it seemed we were heading into night. Over the previous days there had been horrendous winds that had torn across the island, ripping up trees and closing roads. And then quite suddenly the sun broke through – a moment of luminous tranquillity after all the storms.

Anglesey has a long and dramatic history extending back to at least the Neolithic. At the start of the Common Era it was also the stronghold of the Celtic peoples’ priestly caste, the Druids. These warrior mystics were slaughtered in a terrible battle by the army of the Roman Governor of Britain, Suetonius, which in 61/62 AD bore down on them across this Strait. You can read more about it in Island of Old Ghosts.

copyright 2014 Tish Farrell

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