2018 Jan went to Goa for the Goa Bird festival which took place at Catigao Wildlife Sanctuary. Luckily I found a really affordable place of stay inside the sanctuary only, in Nature’s Harmony else would have found it difficult to reach the Santuary in the mornings for bird walks they conduct. This was just my 2nd time as a solo traveller to a completely new place, reporting to a hotel but I had no troubles atall(:
The credit for this mostly goes to the owner of Nature’s Harmony, as he already solved this logistic problem I had of how to reach the santuary. As far as I could see there was no direct train to Goa, if there was it was going to Margoa and you can expect these trains to be full all the time!! So, that really kind uncle owner told me to book a train ticket to Karwar and board a bus from Karwar to Goa where enroute there is Catigao Wildlife Sanctuary. I had to walk a lot from the main highway road into the Santuary to reach the hotel, but it’s ok, else I should have got down at the next stop from there would have had to take auto or tuk-Tuk, that would have cost me 200 to 500 bucks and I did not want to spend much money, was short of it.
I could see travelling inside the bus that I was passing through some hotspots of Karwar, but I knew this lovely stretch of road would have been more greener and beautiful earlier. Here and there the road was being modified with widening measures for which trees would have been uprooted, some sand mining stuff was happening, this was not nice ): . All these made the scene I saw outside a little dull, as Western Ghats region was a treasure trove of nature, beauty and with many trees off, because of development, that region is not as wonderous today as it was earlier.
That day took a while to settle at the hotel and refresh, the canteen over at the Santuary had just tea to serve in the evening and night had to wait for dinner till late which I must mention was pretty poor and overcharged. I remember paying 80 bucks for rice and watery dal and some bland side dish. However, I got to interact with interesting people already(: , these conversations were really lively because I can discuss about things I cannot discuss with other people in the CIty. It ranged about how Sankey Tank in Bangalore is not good for birds and birders are angry because concrete is put around the lake, we need mud and clay around the lake for birds to stand!!! , it’s not constructed in a bird friendly way and it is like artificial. I got to hear about bird calls and efforts of this person to spread awareness to children by conducting workshops on birds.
A travel savvy lady from Mumbai also joined. I really admired how she was, packing thing in one bag for a 3 day festival and took the oppurtunity to understand how she reached the Santuary. She got down on the main stop and came to Santuary from Tuk-Tuk easily. Travellers have on the go way of functioning, where by I stressed a lot in figuring out things. She even had her ticket booked for return journey to Mumbai at the last minute making use of the services of a friend(: , where by I planned ahead in having my return ticket all booked and ready.
I already decided, that I wanted to be in the Ocean tour in the last day where we would be taken to the sea to spot sea birds. The next 3 days, in the mornings and evenings we were taken around for bird walks on various trails around Goa. All that and more in the next write up.
Stay tune…
Here are some pictures from the Goa bird festival.
mintymile 