We reached the destination within few minutes and we couldn’t believe that we had covered distance of approx. 3 kms, the time passed in a flash.
I went to the jetty and without much trouble spotted the tour operator. I narrated whole incident to him. He looked at the bicycle which we were carrying, in order to ensure that the bicycle belonged to his shop and having convinced, he asked me the spot where I had left my bicycle. I informed him the place but he could not understand, reason was the name of that place which was L”union Estate.
It was difficult for me to pronounce the name of place and I was pronouncing the name in English which sounded like – “L” “Union” “Estate” but it is actually pronounced as “La Union Estate” and the natives pronounced the same differently, so the tour operator was confused. I tried several time to explain the name but he couldn’t understand and he asked another person standing nearby to understand the name, but the result was same. Than, I took out the map and pointed out that place to the tour operator. After seeing the location, he understood and then he asked, “ Where at this place??”.
I replied, “ At the entrance gate”
He responded, “ Okay, I will give you another bicycle, just wait.”
He went to his shop and brought another bicycle for me and handed over to me.
I thanked him and asked him to collect the punctured bicycle from L’Union Estate and moved towards the next destination which was “Grand Anse”, but we lost our precious half an hour, which actually proved costly for us.
Way to “Grand Anse Beach”
We were back on same track and journey started to Grand Anse, which was located at the end of the road. We used the manual map to track our way to the beach because there was a single lane road to reach Grand Anse and it was straight and heading towards the “Grand Anse” only. It was only one or two occasions when I used Google to track our location, because the route to Grand Anse was emptier as compared to road to L’Union Estate and there were few diversions and crossings, which were not the part of the map. We took confirmations from the local residents on the way, just to be sure that we were on right track, as to avoid any wastage of time by going on wrong route.
Most of the shops, houses, church, schools, etc were built around the jetty area and L’Union Park or it can be said that the area around jetty and L’Union Estate was densly populated as compred to other parts of island and hence the road towards Grand Anse was emptier, as compared to the other roads. I could spot only tourists on the way to the beach and thus whenever there was some doubt on the route, I was convincing myself with other tourists on the way.
The quality of road was not very good and it was narrow too, so our speed was also slow now. The route was hilly, with ups and downs and the last few meters of the road was very steep. Before moving ahead on slope road, I ensured that the vehicle breaks of my bicycle as well as my wife’s bicycle were working properly, since any mechanical failure could be dangerous and we crossed the steep road with utmost care and in slow speed while using breaks on a continuous basis . We reached Grand Anse safely but I was confident, that climbing this slope while returning back would be difficult and would require great efforts.
But, we reached the beach and at the entrance, we parked our bicycle below a palm tree and nature was waiting with arms outstretched.
