Sandstone Swirls

We were somewhere around Page (Arizona), on the edge of the desert, in search for the elusive Antelope Canyon, when the radiating heat began to take hold (thank you Hunter). A quick pit stop at a petrol pump revealed that it was around the corner. Raaightt. This close to civilisation. Damn brouchures. U-turn, on the road, 4 miles to go. A little sign, dusty from its residence shows the way, to the parking lot. We pay $20. Squint and walk to the shack. More money. $25 each this time. And then wait. A dust storm is swirling towards us. No, two. A glint in the searing sun lets us know that they're jeeps. Smiling people get off. Smiling people get on. The Navajo Native American folks running the establishment had things planned pretty close. One hour per group. Includes the 10 mins taken off road, to go to and from the caves/canyons.

Antelope Canyon is a result of Navajo Sandstone getting sculpted by ravaging floods. The result is some of the most surrealistic caves I've ever seen. Everything is motion here. Even the tourist groups that are hurried along by expert guides. Expert at shepherding and pointing out which formation looks like a bear. I lagged behind, far more interested in the abstract forms that were dancing in my subconscious, screaming to be let out in pictures. No tripod or flash of course. As always.

Cow's it going?

Their tanned smiling faces are still etched in my memory. On my way to the Sufi Durbar in the Nagaur Fort in Rajasthan, there was a large cloud of dust, meaning only two thing in the still desert. A dust storm or an exodus. It turned out to be an exodus all right but joining the humans and their monster trucks were cud chewing cows, Arabian looking horses, scared goats and loads of haughty camels. Inspection and business were the order of the day along with some good old cattle wrangling. Buyer and sellers had arrived from all over Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and even Gujarat to bargain their way into a new herd or at least a few heads.

Mini-temporary encampments had mushroomed up everywhere and by the seventh invite to partake a meal, I realised there was a spirit of camaraderie as well. This was a expo, picnic and excursion all rolled into one nice thick, spicy aloo ki paronti. As you might have assumed, I didn't wait for the eighth invitation to tuck into the aromatic delicacies tempting my olfactory nerves.

After plenty of handshakes and sometimes forced, sometimes voluntary petting of what seems like 500 animals, I felt like I was part of this wandering group of livestock farmers. Accepted into the fold, if I may. But two days later as I passed that way again, straining to see that cloud of dust, I was disappointed to see the well behaved desert once more. Vast, arid, shrubby but completely devoid of all life. My temporary family and other animals had disappeared like a mirage.