Fire by the Water
A night on the beach.
The paths were all winding. We were on an island and had come here on a speedboat. We decided to explore a bit and headed towards the jungles behind us. Every 200mts welcomed us with a junction and every option taken provides us the same option again. It was dark. We started exploring at 9pm. We had targets of reaching the other end of the island.
A loud sound gave us a shock as we expected nothing on this island. It was followed by faint music in the background along with whispers in the forest. We weren?t so sure whether we wanted to proceed further or head back. That?s when we saw it.
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I left Bangalore on Friday night to Kukke along with my batch of 22. After completing the trek, I parted ways with my batch. They started towards Bangalore and I headed towards Palolem only to make a pit stop at college for some football with juniors.
I reached Karwar early Monday morning to meet Prasanna there and together we headed towards Palolem.
Palolem beach was relatively crowded for a Monday morning. We scouted the beach to find ourselves a decent cafe for brunch and to freshen up. ?Rockit cafe at the end of the beach had good shade and we decided to relax here. After a light brunch, we headed towards the huge Kanika islands which is visible from the whole of Palolem. The waters where mild and on the way was a small stream which needed us to wade through it. The crystal clear water clubbed with its coldness made it a scintillating experience to walk on the beach. People started fading away and beach became rocky as we started approaching a cliff. We found two trails and picked the one which moved along the waters. After climbing couple of cliffs and walking around 4kms, we halted. This was a really good trek involving some mild rock climbing.
Onto our next adventure.
We haggled Rajesh, a local boat owner to take us to the beach on a far off island. After arriving at a middle ground we left in the boat to reach butterfly beach on an unknown island. He gave his word to pick us up from the same beach the next day.
Upon reaching the island after a refreshing boat ride, our exploration began. We witnessed the sunset from a rock which required basic rock climbing skills. The majestic blue waters coupled with the green-yellow foreground of the island had us speechless. The crowd faded along with the sun and it was just us two at dusk. We pitched our tents and gathered wood for fire. After taking photos of the night at the beach, we decided to explore the island in the night.
After walking for about 1 km we hit our first deviation. Every path led us to further d
eviations. The permutation of different possible routes is a number I cannot calculate. That?s when we heard the noise, and there it was, in our sight?..
A road. Well built metal road.
Something wasn?t right. We were supposed to be on an isolated island as told to us by Rajesh. A road with occasional vehicles cannot be on an island.
We headed back to the beach and decided to come back here with our luggage and hitch hike, instead of paying Rajesh for his boat service ( really expensive ). We spent the night there and started early morning to the road. After a brisk 90 minutes walk, we reached the road and started asking for ride back to Palolem. We did not want to cross paths with Rajesh as we?d be in trouble if so. The saved money bought us a sumptuous fish lunch
?along with a cold beer.
The whole journey from traveling in general to being duped by Rajesh; from camping on an isolated beach to being mystified in the night; from eating fruits for dinner at the beach to feasting on fish after getting back at Rajesh, this Goan Adventure was a successful Recce.
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