Another rainy day to stay in bed and read….in my dreams that would be. There’s too much to explore…the beach is a definite one. And find some fresh fruit.
After breakfast we start our exploration looking at the little village shops across from the resort. It starts raining, so one of the shop owners, Preema Doña, cleverly offers us an umbrella to use, guaranteeing that we’d return to her shop.
We go around the corner and another shop owner endeavours to rope us into their clothing shop with offers of giving us the best price. We dutifully go in, but the shop holds no desire for us to spend here. A little further along, and a sudden downpour has us sheltering in an open pig shelter…pewwww…so smelly. We wait for a break in the rain and head back rather than continue to the beach and get drenched along the way.
Sharon, a young entrepreneur, draws us in to shelter from the continuing rain. This savvy woman, secured a loan, and along with her brothers and sister, opened a clothing shop. She too said she’d give us the best price. We found out later that there is the Indian locals price and a tourist price. We were advised to halve whatever price they suggest and add 100 rupees and that’ll be the price the locals pay. And if it’s a shop or seller we regularly visit, then ask them to give us the local price and not the tourist price. Wish we’d known this for all our previous purchases. I ended up buying some dresses from her, as she had a good energy about her.
We trundled our way back to Preema Doña’s shop and I bought another outfit. I’m pretty much complete now. When the rain cleared, we decided to attempt getting to beach again. Two drifts of pigs crossed the road as we walked along near the pig shelter we were in earlier. Indians don’t consume beef, so pork is rather a delicacy. And they eat up all the street rubbish.
The surf was rough and had very shallow waves. Definitely not suitable for surfing. Hopefully when the sun comes out, the beach will look more appealing. There was a bullock tethered to a stake out in the water, I thought this was quite unusual. They have a lone lifesaver at this beach and he sits in a little hut on the beach….waiting….waiting….waiting….until it’s time for him to go home at sunset. We watched a group of fishermen clean their nets of freshly caught fish, and then get ready to go out again in the choppy water.
One of the beach restaurants, Pedro’s was open, so we went in to have some more Goan fish curry. It was so delicious. And cheap. The sun was struggling to come out for a sunset and just peeked it’s smiley face out enough for me to take a photo. Then as evening dusk closed in, the sky took on an indigo glow. It’s phenomenal. Since I can’t see in the dark, we asked one of the locals to drive us back to the resort.