Ponda Spice Plantation

We arrived in Goa, a tropical paradise on India's west coast on Friday afternoon to stay at a beautiful resort in a town called Fort Aguada, named after a fort that the portuguese built in the 1600s to defend at different times against the British, French, and Marathas. We have yet to post because until today, we've done little besides sit next to the beach/pool/pool-side bar/pool-in bar: In most of our previous posts we'd endeavored to display unique and interesting aspects of Indian culture as well as detailing our adventures with a few monkeys (or maybe a lot of monkeys) and rabid dog bites tossed in. We were pretty sure that nobody was interested in reading the exploits of a young couple enjoying drinks at a bar located within a pool.

So today we went to a spice plantation where we got to see many of the plants that produce some of the spices we have been enjoying for the last five weeks. Before we started our tour however, we jumped at the opportunity for an elephant ride and shower (culture to follow,I promise). We gave Genga a bath in a stream, scrubbing her with coconut rinds and rinsing her in the muddy water. She then returned the favor by trumpeting water over us. It was very fun. We also got a short ride from the male Bapu. But on to the educational portion of the tour.

I expected orderly rows of plants, but happily the plantation resembled more of a jungle, with densely packed trees and flowers that bore very little resemblance to a farm. Initially I thought that the "jungle" was just there for the ambience, and that we would be taken to the plantation, and was a bit shocked that scattered throughout the jungle were the various spices and fruits, even some large termite mounds sprinkled in. We saw cardamom, the third most expensive spice in the world, as well as coco, the second (they didn't have saffron). They grew lemongrass, cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, allspice, curry, and many others in this dense area. The guide took us to a peri peri pepper plant, one of the hottest peppers in India, and with a devilish look in her eye asked if anyone in the group would like to taste the peppers. She must have been laughing very loud in her head as this silly white boy agreed to try them. They were pretty damn hot. I'm glad I remembered not to touch my eyes.

If you gave me ten tries to pick out the plant/flower/fruit that cashews come from, I would have failed miserably. But they are very beautiful, and contain a juice inside that smells very good. They ferment it to make feni, a liquor that does not taste even close to as good as the juice smells, but maybe it is an acquired taste.

We had lunch at the plantation, which of course was very well seasoned, and then headed back to the hotel, eager to see if our seats at the pool-in bar were still taken, and relish our last full day in India.