Bharuch to Saputara

Glorious morning. We had our disgusting clothes laundered last night and awoke to fresh clean garments. Hit the road around 7 with a plan of either Saputara or Nishik. Our team mates were definitely going to Nashik via the expressway so that they can make it to Pune (180m south of Nashik) by tomorrow night for a cricket match. Ultimately, we decided to drive through a wildlife preserve instead and not rush to Pune. Which meant about 2 hours into the day we split paths.

As a side note, before we split up we drove through a city called Ankleshawar. They produce massive amounts of pharmaceuticals there. I have never in my life smelled anything this horrible. I don't have words for this smell it was sewage meets garbage meets sauerkraut factory. It burned your nose, throat, eyes...I think I lost years off my lungs life during that 15 minutes.

Okay, back to it. Just outside the preserve something slipped with the clutch and we had to make an emergency stop. We let her cool off and all was back to "normal." Unfortunately what we didn't realize was that this wildlife preserve was actually a literal mountain range which we had to drive over...with a shaky clutch.

The preserve was beautiful and unique, we saw no wildlife, just cows and yaks. And we ended the day at a mountain top lake where we are now staying. Getting here was not without trials, however. Quickly we began losing power going up hill. We stopped in a small village and were told the closest mechanic was 30km away. So of course our first on the road breakdown is in the one spot in India where there are not 1M people. So we trudged (literally) on. We lost power again, pulled off and decided we should try to troubleshoot. This time an amazing man and his friend stopped on his motorcycle and got right to work. He replaced our spark plug and cleaned some gaskets and then followed us for the next 25+km to make sure were okay!!! 

We still had mountain climbs after he left us and they kept getting steeper. At one clothespin turn we lost power mid climb. Fortunately Mike was able to slam on the brakes and stop us. And, I know someone was looking out for us because right as this happened another man drove by, stopped his car, jumped out and helped me push us to the top of the hill. It was terrifying, but in a way a real glimpse of the weird juxtaposition of the horrible and amazing that is India.

We are now at our hotel at the top of the mountain. After today, I will always reference topographic maps before we drive. Because of this I know we only drop a couple hundred feet over the course of our entire drive tomorrow. We are not sure if we will make it a short day and stop in Nashik or push through to Pune to meet back up with our teammates. It depends on how the rickshaw is holding up, she really needs a tuneup and a good once over. 

I'm sure tomorrow will bring more stories! :-)

I hope everyone is enjoying our travels we are enjoying sharing our stories.