Our next stop is the spice farm, where we will get a tour of all the indigenous spices here in Goa, as well as our lunch. It’s about a 45 minute drive to the farm, and oh, what a drive it is! Our driver is the Mario Andretti of Goa, and he pushes that van to the limit to get up the hills and twisting turning little roads to the Spice Farm. We have a front row seat to the passing, dodging and weaving that is called driving in India. And the horns! Oh, the horns. They blow their horns for everything, and the horn in this van is located on the dash. It’s a toggle switch that the driver constantly has his fingers on – ready at any moment to use it. Crazy.
After navigating the steep, narrow roads – and more speed humps than we could count – we arrive safely (phew) to the spice farm, where we are greeted by the ubiquitous wandering cows.
Once through the parking lot, we cross over a marshy area on a suspended wooden bridge
and into the dining hall of the farm. It is a huge open area with wooden bench seats and communal tables. We have snacks – this great little cheese cracker and maybe rice cracker? mix….
..along with fruit juice, then commence on the tour. We walk through the “forest” with a guide who points out all the different spices and fruits that are grown here. It’s interesting, but it’s relatively crowded since a lot of Celebrity tour buses are here as well – and it’s hot as the dickens. It is all we can do to stay in the shade as much as possible to avoid the worst of the heat.
The highlight of the tour is the local “tarzan” man, who shimmies up a coconut tree to show us how they pick the coconuts, then swings from tree to tree. You probably can’t imagine how high up he is from these pictures, but trust us, he is way up there, and it is more than a little frightening to watch.
After Tarzan man, we all sit down for lunch, which proves to be a pretty decent selection of good (meaning spicy) Indian food on these awesome banana leaf dishes.
Plus beer is included. Yay – more Kingfisher for us. We get extra water as well, and except for the heat and humidity, it is a very nice break in our day. We have time to spare, so we all go shopping at the little hut at the entrance where we pick up a huge box of spices – including fresh galangal and nutmeg – for only $10 US. We are so stocked up on our spices now. We’ll be cooking up a storm when we get home.
When we are all done, we hit the van again to head back to the ship. If we thought the ride to the farm was wild, the ride home was just insane. Because of the constant complaints in the back of the van about the heat – the driver and the guide couldn’t open their windows. There was absolutely no A/C upfront in their compartment, all the vents were pointed back at the passengers, so they were sweltering. As you can imagine, this made the driver want to get us back to the ship in the fastest way possible before he died of heat exhaustion. Thus, the insane ride back to the port.
We tried to laugh the whole way back, because what else could we do? But we had some tense moments as he passed with oncoming traffic dead ahead. Canada, who were the ones complaining the most about the head, suddenly were saying “tell him we’re not in that much a rush to get back.” Yeah, right. You tell him yourself pals. We just hung on and hoped for the best.
This is the tame video because we weren’t holding on at this point.
We made it, safe and sound, even had a chance to snap a few pictures of the fishing boats we passed on our way to the pier.
Tomorrow – Mumbai – and our last port in India.
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