The Carbon Cycle Part 2

As the sun rose, people rose to equal their daily chores. As we moved on, a couple of fishermen were fishing, for oysters, I think, in this creek near Pen.(Fig. 1) They have a pretty bad schedule. They hold a large stone, which helps them descend quickly and stay underwater, collect as much stuff as possible into a basket. This is pulled up by their colleagues onboard. Then they leave the stone and comeup again. Then repeat till god knows when. I wonder, these poor people, without any equipment of any sort, are able to hold their breaths for upto 3-4 mins (supposedly), have a continuous risk to life and limb, to earn, probably, a pittance. Seems weird, IIT grads get 5 digit salaries for sitting in the office and (sometimes) doing copy-paste coding :p.
The scene on the otherside of the bridge was similiar (Fig. 2) but it brought out different thoughts. Look at the progress that engineers brought here. A technologically advanced railway, piped water, and a decent road transport. The Konkan region has come a long way from what it was when my grandfather left it. Anyway, random thoughts always come to my mind when I travel, and this one was no different. We started post breakfast from Pen to Nagothane, a long dreary stretch of road, but it was good for us because the road was straight and flat allowing us to cruise down the road with minimum effort and a very high speed. But it was dreary nonetheless. While having a water break, I discovered that my rear tyre was dangerously worn out, a thing I had overlooked when I had overhauled my cycle. At one location, it had actually balded, a bit of the inflated tube showing. That was very dangerous, because, although I had spares, my air pump wasnt all that efficient and we would have had a hard time pumping it up if it burst.
So it was patchup time. I put rubber patches on the balding tyre praying to god that they'll hold the thing together till we reached a cycle repair shop. This was a reflection somewhere close to Nagothane. I am still wondering why the water was so calm. A small amount of water droplets in the air gave it a nice, slightly vague, look. (Fig. 3). Later in the afternoon, we lunched at Nagothane, and went around looking for a temple. The purpose of finding a temple, was to find a large shady tree as is common in these areas. We found one, and then, taking off our shoes and bags, we spread ourselves into the cool shade for an afternoon siesta. That, mind you, was a very pleasing sleep.
Leaving Nagothane, we proceeded, continuing to ask about my cycle tyre (which was of an uncommon specification and wasnt available anywhere.) wherever we could. We finally reached Mangaon precisely at 5, as our original plan was. So we looked for a place, had a bath, had dinner and slept in at 8pm.
The next morning we started off at 6. A fairly pleasant atmosphere welcomed us. This was a river just past Mangaon.(Fig. 4) It was a nice place to be. I wished we could have waited a while, but then there was a tryst with 3 painful ghats awaiting us. I didnt dare to keep them waiting for long.

The Carbon Cycle Part 1

It wasn't my idea, I must accept. But I supported it whole heartedly. Deep came up with this brainwave of going to Chiplun on our cycles. We did a practice trip to Karnala (55km) down the line from Mumbai. Had a decent if not amazing time then.
So we started. 18th of July, 4.30 am Dadar. By the time we reached Vashi, we had our first problem. Deep's brake came off. Neither of us knows how, but it did. So that was our first repair stop. We reached Panvel in light rain and a rainbow to the west. Thats Deep, at Panvel ST stand waiting for a cup of life giving tea.(Fig. 1).
Enroute to Karnala, the bird sanctuary, Deep had a fall. Nothing of much significance but it left him full of mud. So we had to wash up at a roadside well where truckdrivers were having a bath. So I, having nothing else to do, chatted with them. They were impressed by our plan and offered advise about road traffic and stuff like that. Pretty cool for the general opinion of truck drivers. And while all this happened, our bikes rested. (Fig. 2).
We were already behind schedule with the brake break and the fall break. There was Karnala, far away in the fog(Fig. 3), a distant target we had set for yourselves but were still far from it even though the deadline had passed. It was actually a pleasant ride, and we knew we could make it upto Mangaon (our planned night halt) till the evening. so it wasn't all that bad to be late. Soon we managed to make our way up Karnala. And who should meet us but Gangal in person. He had been wanting to come with us on a cycle but had been unable to find one. (Yeah, as if they're 'found' anywhere.) He happened to select the same day to go and visit his cousins down south, which was a nice coincidence. So we talked said our final good-byes and then his car went zooming up the slopes which slowly but steadily started climbing.
This was just past Karnala from near the Yusuf Meherally Centre at Tara.(Fig. 4). Thats the whole of Karnala fort. Its an easy one to climb, even all the way to the top. Do go there. After we left this, we went downhill towards the creek to be crossed before Pen. The map had shown a small distance between Karnala and Pen, we expected to cover it in about 20-30 mins. As it turned out, it was not only long but also had a huge number of ups and downs on the road. So we painfully reached Pen about an hour and a half late as compared to our schedule. Then we had a glorious breakfast of 2 double burjis each with about 6 pieces of pav (again, each.).