The Spice Farm - more Sporty then Posh.

Welcome to the farm.

None of these Spice Girls will be moving to LA with Beckham or having Eddie Murphy's child.

Our guide shows us a cinnamon tree - its the bark.

I look like I am a local.

Sophia holds her ground on the rickety bridge.

Stampy!
It's tough to get to the top.

The vegges had to eat off the other buffet.

No trip to Goa is complete without a visit to a spice farm. As I am sure you know India is one of the biggest spice growing nations in the world. Many of the common and uncommon spices in your cupboard probably came from India. The spice plantation we visited was a working farm but also a tourist attraction. (http://www.indiainvites.com/Special_files/Spice/spice.htm)

We arrived, bought our ticket and were led down a path to a clearing. A woman greeted us by putting a string of flowers around our necks and dotting our foreheads with a red dot. I think the red dot on a non Indian person means either "charge this person twice as much at the souvenir stand" or "no ice in my Squishie please". we were seated at an outside table and given a hot cup of lemongrass tea (very flavorful and soothing) and a bowl of cashews (fresh and tender). When enough people arrived we started our tour.


The tour guide took us on a jungle like path stopping to point out many types of spices and fruits. We saw vanilla beans, betel nuts, bananas, banana flowers, peppercorns (black and red), super hot chilli's (yes I tried one and smoke came out of my ears), curry leaves (NOT used in curry), cardamon, lemongrass, turmeric, jackfruit, pineapples and mangos. We even spotted the resident elephant having a bath.


One of the most interesting parts of the tour was the cashew operation. I know I was unaware that the cashew is a fruit. It looks like a combination of an apple and a yellow pepper and the nut is on the outside on the top of the fruit. At the plantation they remove the nut and send it off doe processing and then they take the fruit and ferment it into a local spirit called Fenny. We sampled some Fenny after the tour and it was quite nice tasting - not too sweet and pretty smooth.


After a demonstration of tree climbing by one of the coconut pickers we headed back to the picnic area. as each of us passed into the area our guide doused our backs with a ladle of cool water. It was refreshing.


Lunch was served and the food was decent. Sophia was a bit concerned about the food that was sitting on a buffet for a while, rightfully so, so we stuck to the safe stuff like bread, rice and pealed fruits.


On the way back to town a monkey ran from the jungle into the road in front of our car. Our driver, Sanjay (We were without Sergio that day) did a good job of swerving to avoid Chim Chim so all was well with the world.