Day 20 Gondedumala to Igatpuri 22 December 2018

Distance walked 402.2km by Pankaj 336.7km by Mike

After 4 days of comfort in Parag's house we left today but the family will be coming to Wada on Sunday 30 December for the finish.

The intention had been to start walking about 8.30 but it was 9.15 by the time we got to Gondedumala. The intersection where we started has two interesting signs.  Immediately before the intersection it says Toll Road Ends and on the other side it says Toll Road Begins. What actually happens is the end of one franchise and the start of the next.  The first two hours went very well with 11km covered while it was still cool. The traffic was absolute chaos with people from Mumbai in a hurry to their weekend destinations and overtaking recklessly. On several occasions a car came towards on the shoulder having gone up the left side of a truck. I often had to step onto the gravel when motorbikes came as there was traffic on their right which prevented them moving over.

There was a fire between Mundhegaon and Manik Khamb ( a tiny village) that had started by the railway tracks and was now getting into a farmers crops but other than the farmer nobody was doing anything about it,.

Ghoti (not pronounced Fish) 16 km from the start was reached in time for lunch at a restaurant at the toll plaza. There were plenty to chose from but in the finish we went back to the first as the others had flies. Paraj had brought some chapatis with him and Pankaj bought a bag of chippies. I was told to eat the last chapati and afterwards regretted doing so as I was feeling a bit heavy in the stomach. It was now very hot – over 30° and I was going through a lot of water.

Igatpuri was only 6.4km away. There was a juice seller about 2.5km from the point the milestones were measuring to and I passed up a rest as my right leg gets stiff when I stop and I have to struggle 10minutes for it to loosen up. My feet are now very sore by the end of the day. When Pankaj then said we had to walk on another km to the hotel I just couldn't do it. Psychologically I had geared myself to an end point and my mind was not ready to endure the pain any further. I had asked Pankaj if we were walking to the hotel and was told no but somehow that changed.

As there are no taxis or tuktuks in Igatpuri that cold take us to a restaurant for dinner Paraj stayed on and returned to Ozar after we had eaten. I had a very nice chicken biriyani.  This morning we have the interesting dilemma of having run out of safe water and having none of the right combinations of food so breakfast will wait till our support person arrives and I guess it will be another late start.

Igatpuri is at the top of a steep gorge we will descend today.  There is a lot of holiday accommodation here - I suspect because it is cooler than Mumbai.  Today it is dry and dusty but I think this place may get a lot of rain as the hotel we are staying at is called Fog City and another is called Rainforest Resort.