Tuesday, March 1
Candolim to Anmod – 95 K
First of all, I want to say hello to the First Grade class at Creekside Elementary School in Isaquah Washington. I am so pleased that you are able to join me as I travel through India. I am learning SO many things here… and I hope that you are having as much fun learning about India as I am! I have found something for each of you here and I will be bringing them back with me. I will find a way to get them to you soon. J
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We left the Goa coastline and headed inland – eastbound. The first 15-20 kilometers were relatively flat and the roads were good with little traffic. We have started having breakfast at 6 am every morning. The benefit is we are finished with breakfast when the sun is coming up and are able to get on the road at daybreak, maximizing the cooler temperatures. But breakfast at 6 am means we have to have all of our bags to the luggage truck in time for the 5:45 am rider meeting BEFORE breakfast… and hopefully have our bikes loaded with water and bags too! Once we left the small capital city of Panjim the roads quickly became rural and the morning scenery was lovely. Below is a quiet fishing village we passed through in the morning.
Like I said, the roads became rural and rural roads tend to be….well, unpredictable. J They can be anything from pretty good to really bad. When the black patchy pavement ended I found myself singing the lyrics to a country song called “Red Dirt Road.” The dirt in this area is very red and this road construction/repair not only had red dirt, but red walls too. It was pretty… in a dirty, dusty and bumpy kind of way. J Here’s the view looking back at my melodious patch of red dirt road: J
By the time we reached the lunch truck the temps were in the mid 90s again and because the rest of the ride was a BIG climb we opted to pass on the heat stroke and ride the lunch truck to our next accommodations. Looking back I wished I had continued… the big climb was LONG but it turned out to be a nice grade(probably 8%) with beautiful scenery – over an impressive mountain range. Anyway, at lunch we were surprised to be joined by one of the faster riders in the pack – Clive. He had overslept and raced out of his room to get his bag to the luggage truck, slipped and fell on his elbow. He was still bleeding from a large puncture when he arrived at lunch. Jan patched him up and found a pink bandage to wrap it up with. Here’s patient Clive and nurse Jan:
They thought more people with opt out of the big climb so a secondary truck was there to take bicycles to our hotel… they were loaded on the truck and ready to go when the decision was made to move them back to the tour truck. There are many trucks like this here and I’ve seen EVERYTHING from eggs stacked in cartons to 30 people stuffed in the back of them. Really… there’s no limit to what you see in the trucks around here… animals, propane tanks, food, people sleeping on bricks, crazy stuff! J Here’s our bikes BEFORE they were offloaded:
Jeff and Diane are from Colorado – Jeff created a unique way of resting while waiting for the lunch truck to leave. He’s sleeping on 3 stools and using a piece of Tupperware off the lunch truck for a pillow…. Ouch!
Our hotel is in the middle of nowhere!! Seriously… Anmod isn’t even on a map! It was more of a campsite with one eating area and 3 bunkhouses in a large compound. Hammocks were strung between the trees and it was a very peaceful place – a pleasant change from the busy-ness of Goa. Here’s the dining hall:
The plan for the night was this: MOST everyone was staying here in Anmod. There were 8 of us that were assigned rooms at a place nearby and TWO others that were staying at the home of the caretaker. After dinner, after dark… with our headlamps strapped to our foreheads, we loaded our bags onto the truck and left for our mystery location for the night. The road took us through the dark woods on curving roads with an occasional rabbit scampering across the headlights’ beam in front of us. We pulled up a long driveway to a large building with a gated courtyard… hmmmm?
When we entered, our local guide spoke to the fellow at the door and as usual we had no clue what was going on or what was being said. We soon discovered that it was a government building used for their officials whenever they visited the area. The “caretaker” was talking to Sengeev our local guide… as it turned out, even though he had spoken to them twice today, they hadn’t prepared the rooms for us. We walked into the room that was supposed to be for Jan and me – OMG! Someone was living there!!!! And it wasn’t Mr. Clean! J
One by one they cleaned the rooms and changed the bedding while we sat down at a table in the entry and started chatting. It was a great group to be annexed with - we laughed SO hard and were having a good old time waiting for our rooms! Here’s a few of us at the table:
When they “finished” our room, including fumigating for bugs (not kidding – it stunk!) Jan went in to get her things squared away. Sengeev left and told us that these men were not staying and that we had the place to ourselves for the night. That sounded good to us! We sat a while longer at the table when four men came thru the front door and straight into our bedroom! They were the ones who had been living in our room and had no idea that they were being ousted for the night – they were not happy. I went into our room to see one of them taking what I thought was Jan’s toothbrush and things from the filthiest bathroom yet. I made him stop – it was crazy!! We finally got them out of our room and quickly locked our door! I never went out until morning but I heard their voices on the other side of the wall - for quite a while. I wasn’t sure if they left or not so I was very alert ALL night.
As it turned out, Sengeev came back in the night, the police were called and came to settle the men’s complaints, and me…. I just stayed behind my locked door in my sleeping sheet, wide awake hoping morning would come quickly. Had I known that Sengeev and the truck stayed outside all night I would’ve rested easier. All in all, it was a night to remember! Lots of laughs, lots of craziness… and we never saw daylight there. We left at 5:30 am before the sun came out, saw deer and more rabbits on the way back to the campground where we ate breakfast, grabbed our bikes and hit the road again.
