Into Goa State

March 7, 2011

through Canacona to Agonda

My washing is dry, although a lot of it has blown off the cable stretching low across the hotel's rooftop and is strewn on the dirty surface. No real damage done and it's nice to have a pannier of clean clothes instead of hauling a lot of dirty laundry around. It feels lighter. Maybe it actually is.

After two orange juices for brekkie in the adjacent cafe to the hotel I apply some oil to my chain and use on old toothbrush to rid the two jockey wheels of the gunge that gets caked on them after a while.

Route 17 is breezy this morning and the wind is coming from my right, not from the ocean. At least it's not head-on.

It's gone nine already and a frothy cappunccino would go down well.

I keep to the 17 and look for a place to eat and know that Polem is just across the state line, but it eludes me somehow and I just see signs for Canacona, so ride and ride is what I do, up and down. It's a slog at times.

The temp' is around 30 again and I arrive there at noon gone - lunch time. My stomach is empty.

Palolem. Not Polem, that's a different place. I get here by error, but it's nice.

I make a turn and simply follow a few hand-painted signs for 'beach huts' and the winding lane has lots of them dotted either side, along with veggie health-food cafes and yoga shops. At its conclusion is a cafe and at its far end is the beach, a super crescent of fine sand with lots of bodies on it - all foreign ones and in various stages of exposure to the sun. How do people get this tanned? I've been riding in the sun for two months now and yet they make me look anemic.

It feels like I've arrived somewhere exotic.

I order from the long menu... lemon chicken with rice.

It's after one o'clock and I think about getting a hut, but feel it's too early in the day to stop. It would be easy to chill out here for a while and I follow up with banoffie pie and opt to have a dollop of vanila ice cream on it, which is just as well as the pie is rock solid and bends the steak knife I'm given to attack it with. Great though.

Most of the people lounging around are from Russia I think. There are some big bodies on show. However, I can hear some English accents.

Back on the bike at two o'clock, the lane continues and my goal is the next beach place mentioned in the guide book, somewhere that's said to be less busy. I like the sound of that. Agonda it is.

It's about an hour to ride there and the small road goes up and down.

Agonda isn't quite the secret it is said to be by those deft and crafty Lonely Planet scribes. There are loads of beach huts and I keep riding down a beach-side lane, which eventually turns from tarmac to red dirt and I spot a place that says 'rooms' and like the sound of a room instead of a hut and the lady shows me two. The second one costs 600 a night and she won't come down to 500.

I chill on the bed till 4:30, then walk less than a hundred feet to the beach as the sun gets low and take some snaps. The beach is quiet.

Should I order food here or go walkabout? It seems like I should just stay put, so order fish curry and a beer and sit outside my room at a low plastic table and the man comes and lights a candle for me. The beer doesn't last long.

Life should be like this.

Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 2,840 km (1,764 miles)

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