Kosalli Falls and Ottinene beach...

An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it and with a free connection to the open sea. The inflow of both seawater and freshwater in an estuary provide high levels of nutrients in both the water column and sediment, making estuaries among the most productive natural habitats in the world.

--Courtesy Wikipedia

We were travelling along the Marvanthe beach, which is considered to be a geological wonder. This is where the river Sauparnika flows alongside the Arabian sea for nearly 10 kms. The road on which we were travelling divided the two of them…

All of it resembled those confusing and highly complicated plots that are often enacted in a dreamland!

He was trying to reach her desperately… A wall, few feet wide, separated them. The wall was not very tall. He tried to climb over it…but, somehow, he couldn’t. At times when he managed to get over it, he would fall back.

He vented his frustration and anger on the wall. He tried to break it. It never broke. He never gave up.

He was always talking to her, to assure her that he is there. The only sound he could make was a roar- sometimes gargantuan and sometimes suppressed by the tiredness of his efforts.

 She could hear his heart wrenching sound… May be that’s why she was also moving along the wall…as close to him as possible. She wimped. She spoke in her quiet yet strong voice. She was making tireless efforts to find a way to reach him. She coerced the wall to make way; she struck it with all her might… But the wall wouldn’t budge.

They never lost hope…he continued to fight against the wall… she moved on with it… making silent efforts whenever opportunity knocked… the wall seemed to be never ending.

Sweet are the fruits of labour and patience. The wall ended very soon…

It had crumbled into sand to make way for them to meet each other… They have been together ever since!

…I was shaken out of my reverie as our vehicle flew over a speed breaker…

We were on our way back to Mangalore aftera fun trek to Kosalli falls and a rendezvous with the enchanting Ottinene beach… Also called the Byndoor beach, this is where an estuary-like area is formed where the river Sauparnika meets the Arabian sea.

Ottinene beach situated near Kundapur, is one of the best beaches around Mangalore I have ever been to - serene, unspoilt and magical.

We reached the Ottinene sunset point (We were not lucky enough to see the sunset due to the clouds) from where you can catch a beautiful sight of the river making a U-turn to meet the Arabian Sea. Then we climbed down to get to the beach.

Ottinene is one of those few places that will make you want to come back to it again and again. I had never before seen a river meet a sea, much less, get into that very water which neither belongs to the sea nor the river. Rain fell in a perfect parallelogram at the horizon as the clouds ate themselves up. The sight was awe-inspiring. Estuaries are known to be home to a variety of aquatic flora and fauna. Here the fishermen were fishing using a thin cord at whose end, bait, in form of a worm had been tied. and a cool breeze, which belonged neither to the river, nor the sea blew along.

Towards Kosalli falls

Kosalli Falls(We could go only till the 3rd tier 

due to the strong water currents)

From the 3rd tier pf the falls

Ottinene beach

To Ottinene beach

The rainfall on the horizon

(Photographs courtesy Charan S. Walke)

Evenings and the end at Belgaum!

Phew!! I am tired of documenting all the memories of our “legendary” trek! My loyal readers may have noticed that I have always wrapped up the previous Belgaum trek blogs with the second meal of the day! Now the time has come when I shall reveal what happened after the second meal of the day! The time has also come to tell you what happened on the last day of this trip…!

Well, on the last day, we had some more adventure through water sports!! We did river crossing… we crossed “through” an aggressively flowing and deep river and on the rope through the air. I am sure you might be wondering, who were the brave ones to cross the turbulent river first and tie the rope on the other side. Well they were our experienced guides and organizers who knew swimming and battling the currents. We transported ourselves on the other side safely anchored to a rope… and came back through the water again holding safely to a rope. For more information on how river crossing is done please Google.

The main aim of this write-up is to tell my readers, who were not lucky enough to be with us, our activities during evenings after the second meal of the day! We had a campfire on both days. The first evening was spent mainly playing card games like uno. Seventeen people sitting around a table and playing uno! Well, it always seemed like an eternity before your turn came! Then there was the dinner and then sound sleep…!

The second evening, each one one of us was dead tired. Sitting around the campfire, we played “Mafia” (for those who don’t know this game…kindly google!) while having lots of hot pakodas!

This was followed by games which, almost grown-ups, like us would never even dream of playing…The tiredness seemed to vanish in the laughter that followed these games!

We were divided into teams of two.

The first game was “monkey and the bone” where the bone was a 15cm long log which the player had to pass on the bone to his team mate after completing an entire round around the circular courtyard with the bone between his/her knees, so that the team mate manages to take it between his knees. The two people are not allowed to touch each other at any time… I think u can very well imagine 2 people trying to exchange a finger long log between themusing their knees…now that was the fun part!!The first team to have all its members jump around the courtyard following all the rules,wins!

The next game was to balancea foot long stick – all team member had to use only their index fingers to do this… the catch was that we were not allowed to tilt the stick in any way…

And the last game was called “fruit salad”. In this game all the players take up one of four fruits decided between them. All players sit on chairs in a big circle… all except one.. Who doesn’t know which player is what fruit… A moderator not a part of the players calls out a fruit and players who are those fruits have to exchange their seats… In this interval the seeker has to get himself seated on one of the chairs… the person who doesn’t get a chair becomes the next seeker..!

Sounds Childish yeah…We had a lot of fun!

Last day evening, after the second meal of the day, we started again towards our return journey to Belgaum and therefrom to Mangalore. That evening, of the 20^th of August, was another eventful evening.

It so happened that we had to book tickets in two different buses by the same travels due to unavailability…thus four of us had to leave at 7p.m. and the rest at 8.30p.m.

We reached Belgaum before 5p.m. Smitha had made arrangements for us to wait in a hotel during the interval. As agreed four of us went ahead by the 7p.m. bus…

Half an hour later, Nitin receives a call from Ram-one of those four who went ahead saying that “they are having trouble”…and the call disconnects.

We called them up again and were told that there are some issues with the bus. That’s all. At 8:30p.m. we board the bus for our return journey.

Since our pick up point was supposed to be the first stop for our bus, we got in and started putting our luggage on the upper berth. The lower berth beneath us was already occupied and the curtains were drawn.

Suddenly the curtains open and out come the four Gypsies who had left earlier  screaming and scaring us… I nearly jumped and screamed myself..!! A sweet surprise…and shock and questions followed !! We soon realized that we had booked tickets on the same bus which started at 7p.m. (first pick up point), took a tour of Belgaum, and landed at our pickup point at 8:30p.m. !! What a fiasco!

Well, all’s well that ends well… We were pleased to be travelling together… Soon, 12 people were playing uno in the bus… 7 grownups crammed up in a 2-seater lower sleeper berth, 3 squatting in the passageway and 2 more hanging upside down from the top!

The end!!

River Crossing at Belgaum

Of three states, volcanoes and guerilla...

Ages ago, the earth was a violent ball that kept spewing fire and lava at its will. Research shows that it was due to a series of many such volcanic activities in India that the Deccan Plateau was formed centuries ago even before the great Himalayas came into being. With time, the lava solidified into igneous rocks and stayed back permanently like a burn mark on the body of the earth…What looks like any other part of the earth’s landscape to the untrained eye is an evidence of what the Earth has subjected itself to, to create a geographically diverse India…!

On the morning of the 19^th of august, we started our 10 km long trek to the visit the underground volcanic caves near the Sada village on the outskirts of Goa near the Karnataka border. The rain, which was our constant companion from the day we departed from Mangalore, had intensified that day. After walking on a kutcha road along the border of Maharashtra for a couple of kilometers, we turned left got into the grasses. The vegetation started getting thicker and thicker. Before we realized, we were into dense forests. A steep ascend began on an obscure path. Actually, there was never a path, we had to make our own…It seemed as if no one had come that way for ages! This was the time when Geetika got hit hard by a thorny shrub on her face. She had to walk with swollen lips for the next couple of hours!Ouch!!

What we encountered a few minutes later caught us unawares. On that slippery way covered with dried leaves wet by the ever-pouring rain and enveloped all around with dense vegetation, we stepped on something mossy and stony. And then again the next step was something similar… It was only a few minutes later that we realized that we were climbing up stony stairs!!

Let me tell you more about these mysterious stairs in the middle of the forest on the slopes of a mountain…

Flashback: “After walking on a kutcha road along the border of Maharashtra for a couple of kilometers, we turned left got into the grasses.”

When we turned left, we had taken the way to a fort – the Sada Fort – a strategic fort on the point where Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra meet in the Chorla Ghat. Shivaji, once upon a time, ruled the Sada fort. The slope of the mountain itself forms the fort. The stairs lead to a tabletop on the fort, which may have been home to the Maratha warriors. The tabletop is vast grassland formed of a certain type ofigneous rocks. The view of the outskirts of all the three states from the top of the fort was breath taking. It was only then that we realized how high we had climbed. I was suddenly filled with respect for Shivaji…! How could someone hide, what may have been a city in those days, so cleverly!! How could any one find such a place and think it to be suitable to build a home there hardly bringing about any modifications in the surroundings! Brilliant!

Due to the incessant rains, the tabletop had been transformed into a mash up of muddy puddles, grass and rocks. We half walked and half jumped through these puddles for the next hour. Very soon we encountered an opening in the ground that went a couple of feet across. Creepers dropped in from the ground above. Droplets of water hung along the edge of the ground and dropped into the world beneath the ground continuously – a cave – we were standing on top of a cave – in fact, a group of underground caves formed by volcanic activity!

It was a drop of about 15 feet into the cave. We could have easily jumped in guided by the strong roots of the trees that could be seen lining the edge of the opening… :P But we decided against this daredevilry for obvious reasons!!

As we explored the surroundings of the opening, we found that a large part of the ground around the huge opening was perforated with many small ones. We also found a freshly shed cobra skin (the cobra may have been nearly 10 feet long judging from the length of the skin shed!).

Through one of these opening, we descended into the cave, cautiously one after the other following the age-old rule of “ladies first”. ;)An underground path through dense vegetation unfolded itself before us . The problem with this dense vegetation was that they were those plants whose touch can make you want “Itchguard” urgently. Moreover the highly slippery descend made it impossible not to touch them… We, the Gypsies, are used to such things though, none of us needed “Itchguard”.

More surprises followed. There is a Shiv Ling in the interiors of this cave and a small temple. According to our guide, the priest comes there once a fortnight to perform puja taking a less treacherous path through the village! Shivaji always built a Shiva temple in the vicinity of his forts…! This was for Sada fort!

To add to this, wild bears that inhabit the slopes of the mountains regularly visit the cave. (We almost missed seeing one that day!)

Descending down again after exploring the caves, we took another kutcha road to the Sada village. The Sada village is one of the many examples of regional conflicts. The people here don’t get land to farm because they are domiciles of Karnataka residing under the jurisdiction of Goa! Talking of Independence!

We passed the village and had to go via a very steep and slippery descend through thick forests for another hour to reach the Sada waterfall. It was on this way that my sandals, unable to survive the rough terrain, broke down and I had to walk the entire leechy, muddy and slippery stretch with bare feet… I managed to fix it only after reaching the waterfall so that the way back was much comfortable!

The Sada waterfall reminded me so much of the Shimbola albeit, a somewhat toned down version. We had seen another hidden wonder of nature!

The way back seemed longer. We were walking all throughout the day on rough terrain and it was nearly three in the afternoon by then. We were all tired and refreshed at the same time! All along this way we encountered milestones, which announced the border of Maharashtra and Karnataka. And all along the way huge iron gates were built, apparently to keep out wild elephants from the small village of Sada. On our way back we went to a point in Goa to see the spectacular and mighty Sural Falls. The Sural falls are 350 feet in height and a trek there is impossible in monsoons. I do not remember the name of the point in Goa where we went to watch the Sural Falls. But it is from here, they say, that a human face like form is visible in the rocks of the valleys from where the Sural falls drop down. We were not lucky enough to witness this due to the misty atmosphere.

It was 4 p.m when we started back to Delta where we were waiting for the three days, We had our second meal of the day slightly earlier at 5p.m that day…

…to be continued

P.S:

We saw the effects of cheap liquor in Goa when we went to the point to watch the Sural Falls. The entire area in inhabited ONLY by drunkards. WE were exceptions there…(They say that it was not like this a year ago… Ill-effects of promoting tourism in Goa maybe!) One of the drunkards, with an intention to drive us away from the viewpoint, started showing off his English oratory skills by speaking about “The Great Karnataka” which was visible from there. You can imagine the comedy!

Felt funny and sad at the same time!

The underground caves

(Photographs courtesy Arun Mysore)

Shimbola and the Niagara of Belgaum

18^th August 2012:

Imagine flying at a height of about 1000ft above the earth’s surface. Suddenly you see this huge well amidst thick forest. About 400mts in diameter, this well seems to be filled with turbulent waters whose source is unknown. Curious to explore this unfathomed well-like structure, you swoop down right into it, only to be caught in chaos of wind and water where the most challenging task is to keep your eyes open!Through the deafening roar of water, you struggle to keep yourself in the air. And then it starts raining heavily. For a split second, the force of the wind pulls you down and the next second it blows you up! You are suddenly filled with a fear for your life…! Very soon you are completely tired and you let the wind have its way… you land hard on some rocks at the bottom of the well-like structure!

Once there when you do manage to open your eyes, all you can see is water plunging down forcefully and rapidly from a height of nearly 200ft. You are filled with awe as you see droplets of water clinging to the rocks and flying upwards-defying gravity.

As your eyes and ears get accustomed to the forces in the well, you are close enough to touch a rainbow at just a foot distance from you... After this, you can only be pleased with yourself for daring to take the risk to get into this treacherous place!

You are at the bottom of a rocky valley… in thick forestswhere the turbulent water keeps on gushing, warning everyone to stay away from it…!

Welcome to one of nature’s hidden wonders - Shimbola!!

We were not lucky enough to be flying, thus we had to walk through dense forests and navigate some really slippery and steep ascends and descends to reach the Shimbola falls. There was a time when we were standing on the edge of a hill and the guide stopped suddenly. We could not see any way to go ahead. He then pointed out at the very steep slope and said, “We have to go down this way!” Well, where there is a will, there is a way.

And so we went, admiring the beauty of the hills. The varieties of Ivy that grew on the trees was a sight to behold. Raindrops glistened as they rolled down from the leaves. An occasional mist was swirling around the trees. Our guide was making way for us cutting the dense vegetation just enough to let us through. We were in some magical land on earth!

The real magic unfolded as we approached a clearing, which revealed a steep valley going down for quite a distance. At one end of this valley, water was plummeting down like huge buckets of water being emptied every second.

We cautiously climbed down the valley and stood as close as we dared to the aggressive waters of Shimbola barely able to keep our eyes open in front of their grandeur. Getting into the waterfall was out of question!

Someday if you are brave enough to visit this mysterious waterfall (I do not think that it has seen many human beings) do remember to stand with you back towards the falls and open your eyes to the sight in front of you… For once, you can stand and gape at real beauty and live every moment of it!! You will feel as being a part of some National Geographic sequence featuring rain forests made to look enthralling with exquisite camera angles!

It was half past two in the afternoon when we started back from the Shimbola to our next destination – the Niagara of Belgaum. Though we were travelling the whole night of 17^th and then trekking the whole day on the 18^th with only breakfast in our tummies, we were neither hungry nor tired! That is the soothing effect nature can have on you.

After walking for the next hour on surprisingly level and grassy path with a few shallow streams to cross in between, we reached the Niagara of Belgaum. After the mystical effect the Shimbola had on us, Niagara of Belgaum was relatively subdued. The only justification for the name given to these falls could have been its almost horseshoe shape and that it falls in a tiered manner, thus looking like a micro-mini Niagara! And the water being relatively safe, we could enjoy ourselves in the falls!

As evening approached, a thick fog started enveloping the dense forests. The way back was quite eventless till someone spotted a green wine snake perched on a plant. Two brave gypsies, Vikram and Arun strode to the front, Arun caught the snake with the expertise of a snake catcher and Vikram let the snake glide playfully on his arms…For those who are getting goose bumps reading this, let me tell you that wine snakes are generally harmless.

As we moved further through the thick swirling mist, someone came across a world shrouded in mystery…in the depths of a pond. The pond looked like another mass of water from a distance. On closer examination, we found that it contained algae- blue, green and orange going deep inside. The surface of the water was still… like that still water that runs deep! And we do not know what secrets it holds in its depths!

For those who know Harry potter and the Deathly Hallows… It looked like the corpse filled lake Harry crosses with Dumbledore to retrieve Slytherin’s locket!

We had lunch at 6p.m. that day.(I call it lunch because it was only the second meal of the day!)

...to be continued

The Shimbola Falls

                                                                                              

Post Independence 2012

Albert Einstein’s compliment for India: “We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made!”

I, being one of those teeming average-at-mathematics Indians, use this Indian invention for one main purpose – counting the number of days before the next holiday arrives… Counting holidays was done throughout school, college and now at work! I’m writing all this because I couldnot describe the pleasure of getting a satisfactory count of 4 holidays nearing after the 14^th of august this year.

I’m proud of the Indian who taught us to count!

Now, what matters is not the holidays, but how we spent those holidays. Most of my batchmates and roommates decided that they should take the way home to Mumbai and Bangalore…

But few like me decided to take the path less trodden… Those few were the Gypsies!

And those less trodden paths were in the parts of Western Ghats on the point where Karnataka meets Maharashtra and both of them together decide to surround the tiny Goa! Living on the edge (read border) is an excitement in itself…!

That Friday , the 17^th of august, was one of the most restless Friday I have ever come across. I was counting every hour from the time I boarded the bus to work in the morning till the time the clock struck 5:00p.m which is when I ran to the bus bay to take the first bus going out of the Infy campus that evening. A few hours and a flurry of activities later, I was in the bus, which would take us to Belgaum in the next 8-9 hours. Overnight bus rides with friends and cards are always fun…(Sona faced the wrath of most “+” cards while playing uno and I was proved to be the most honest person in bluff master:P

Sahana was laughing as usual.)

Belgaum arrived early morning the next day and we stopped at Hotel Ramdev to freshen up and have breakfast. From there we were escorted by Hrishikesh of Infinity adventures (who was to be our tour guide/organizer for the next 2 days)

On the way we passed by VTU (Visvesvaraya Technical University ) which is the alma-mater for most of the engineering students of Karnataka and many of the Gypsies, having been a part of this university, paid their “due respects” and got themselves photographed in front of this historical institution.

After approximately two hours of journey in a mini bus, we reached Delta Jungle resort which was going to be our home for the next 2 days. Just beyond the habitable point of this resort, stood a 2 feet tall cubical milestone which had Karnataka engraved on one side and Goa on the other. It thus announced the borders of both the states. There, near the milestone, a picturesque, aggressively flowing stream made its way from Goa to Karnataka cutting through thick vegetation. In that vast expanse of greenery, there was no indication of borders except for the blackened, mossy milestone…!

Delta Resort, unlike the fancy name, is a cluster of a few cottages and a central courtyard. The entire resort can be mistaken for a small village in a thick forest. The cottages can be described as “one room-bathroom”(analogous to one room-kitchen ) with sufficient beddings, enough to fulfill basic needs of “gypsies” like us. This secluded place in the Western Ghats has the luxury of electricity only in the evenings after sundown. Mobile networks have to be “caught” like butterflies in flight even as these butterflies are visible only in a small 2x2 square feet area in the central courtyard!

Moreover, leeches found a way to get into the cottages even through closed doors! For the two and a half days when we stayed there, we were totally in the wild without any luxuries of urban life.

The continuous pouring rain ensured that we never dried up!

The food we were served here was, however, the best we could ask for in the middle of a forest.

I was feeling really glad about celebrating the Independence week in this wild nature, defying borders (so what if they were just regional borders!) away from the luxuries of my daily life!

We checked into our “one room-bathroom” cottages on that rainy Saturday afternoon, dumped our luggage, changed into our trekking gear and proceeded towards our first destination – the Shimbola Falls…

To be continued…

The milestone behind Delta Resort

Devaragundi Falls

"Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.

Let the rain sing you a lullaby…."

The rain did kiss me lovingly this Saturday when I got an opportunity to go the magnificent Devaragundi Falls…with the Gypsies! 

It all started as a rain trip very early morning on a rainy Saturday… A Tempo Traveller full of Gypsies including me, embarking on a long journey to witness this splendor of nature… A TT ride with the Gypsies always includes initial ice-breakers to help those new to Gypsies and also the sacred Gypsies anthem…

For records, the Gypsies anthem is an ode to the nature and inspires the Gypsies to be full of life like nature itself…

A TT ride with the Gypsies also includes stopping at some place for breakfast… This time we stopped at a place called K.T - A typical rural house with thatched roofs, bare brick walls and minimal lighting. As I entered the “eatery”, the breakfast table setting and people sitting in a linear fashion besides each other eating idli-sambar reminded me of the prasadam served at temples… In the next room however, the arrangements were like a regular eatery..and that is where we settled to have the first meal of the day…

This eatery serves its own special tea called K.T tea… looks awesome with a white layer of milk below a brown tea layer with froth on top…for just Rs.10….and tastes amazing…!

After about 3 hours of road journey we finally reached the Mallikarjuna Temple at the foothills of Western Ghats… which was to be the start of our journey on foot to the Devaraundi falls. The ancient Mallikarjuna temple is famed for the big fishes that are found in the waters surrounding the temple… Visitors here feed the fish with puffed rice (We did it too)…and fishing here is forbidden…

It’s a sight to behold when, as the puffed rice flakes touch the water, a school of big fishes rises suddenly from under the water and struggle to catch every bit that they can lay the mouth upon...After playing with these aquatic wonders for sometime…we proceeded on our journey to the Devaragundi falls…

The way to Devaragundi involved a 3 km climb uphill through thick forests dotted with a small house or two and endless stretches of arecanut farms. We had to cross two streams, brave leech attacks and follow the rocks along the waterfall for some way to reach the main falls….And then the fun that followed was mind blowing…

It so happened that the water was flowing very aggressively, the water around it was deep, the rocks around slippery, it was raining and we were forbidden from entering the water lest some accident happens… However, Mamu - a daring Gypsy - set out to check the water depth with a stick nearly 6 feet long at various places and for some time in the beginning he was thoroughly disappointed in the beginning as the stick was disappearing in the water with no sign of it touching hard ground… And then admist shouts of “don’t get in the water” , he found a way to get behind the waterfall… what followed was the entire gypsy regiment slowly and surely crawling behind the falls and posing for pics…

Meanwhile, the Gypsy head, Nitin, found a way to cross the stream and get to the other side of the waterfall… Now the Gypsy regiment, found an adventurous roundabout way across the stream and getting back to the original halting place from behind the falls… enjoying every bit of this amazing waterfall…! And then some of us just standing in front of the falls where the water allowed us to stand without a threat and enjoying the water mist rising from the falls….That was enough to get drenched to the core… What a feeling to just stand there and feel the “kiss” of the rain and the loud but sweet lullaby of the waterfalls. And ask me how difficult it was to leave that place… though all of us were shivering after frolicking in the water for nearly an hour!

KT tea

Feeding the fish at Malikarjun temple

Crossing streams to reach Devaragundi Falls

The Devaragundi falls

This amazing trip to Devaragundi waterfalls was followed by lunch during which Ram got attacked by an obese leech…! It was also followed by the fast flowing stream swallowing one of Nitin’s sandals, due to which he decided to throw the other sandal also…on Karan’s suggestion that it will be useful for whoever finds it if a pair is present.

The entire trip was dotted with Sahana’s laughter and Charan’s Photography due to which we have a whole lot of memories to cherish.

The day ended with a tasty dinner at Bitto-da-dhaba, loads of lassi.

A Monsoon trek to Kodekallu and Barekallu

Somewhere around the end of June when monsoon had just set in, we had this opportunity to experience the splendor of the Charmadi in the section of Western Ghats along the way to Chikmangalur. We were on our way to explore two of the peaks in the Charmadi Ghats – the Kodekallu and the Barekallu…

The initial journey by the tempo traveler to the starting point of the trek always includes the usual Gypsy ritual of inducting freshers, stopping for breakfast, singing the Gypsy anthem and a hell lot of fun… However as the Charmadi Ghats approached a silence inspired by the nature descended upon the TT… The CharmadiGhat has one of the most perfect sceneries I have seen… Mountain peaks enveloped by a thick fog, lush green mountain slopes, and the soothing sight and sound of waterfalls all over…

It is easy to get lost in the laps of Charmadi in every way… The soothing surroundings will make you forget everything that you left behind to come here. You will get lost in the beauty of the Ghats! The lush greenery can ensure that if you enter the dense forest for the first time…you will definitely lose your way at some point…! Let me tell you that the starting point of our trek was from a point along the highway that runs through the Ghats – through trees and rocks. However, I think there may be several similar looking doorways to enter the dense forests. Thus we hired a guide who knew the ghats inside out… And then after arming ourselves with anti-leech weapons (socks dipped in Dettol and a mixture of snuff and coconut oil…) This was going to be my first experience with leeches…!

The next hour and a half was spent trekking uphill through thick grass, rocky slopes and loads of leeches…Quite a few of us got them on our footwear and our feet and our legs… And since 4 of us-newcomers were seeing leeches for the first time, we let one leech stay in between a friend’s toes a bit longer just to capture it on the camera!

The guide, meanwhile, was giving us ‘historical’ information about the Ghats…information about sensational murder cases where the victim’s bodies were found in the Charmadis and the fact that we were standing then at the point from where the bodies were thrown down… well, nothing gory or spine-chilling… Very few of us heard him, we were too busy enjoying the nature’s beauty and clicking pics…!

Kodekallu is truly as the name suggests, an “Umbrella stone”- A huge egg-shaped rock perched strategically at the edge of a peak, looking like an umbrella from a distance...A few of us went right to the edge of the peak where the distance to the edge was only about a foot wide, and the ambience there was mystical- cool, steady breeze brought along with it wisps of fog. The valley was as though completely invisible in the mist and the road snaking around the mountain played hide and seek in the smoky fog…! The underside of the umbrella rock forms a cave-like structure where we had our next photo session…!

After “thodi-si pet pooja” at this mystical place…We started towards our next destination – the Barekallu… The way to Barekallu was long, went through a grassland (it took us 2 hours to reach) but it was pretty much easy minus the slippery rocks and tall grass that we had encountered on our way to Kodekallu. We spotted a herd of wild bulls munching their way up on the slopes of Charmadi to Barekallu… and a prominent nest that belonged to Hornbills... And as though to welcome us, a couple of hornbills flew right across the grey sky through the mist as soon as we reached the peak. In that lush greenery and perfect monsoon sky…It was a delight to watch them curve around the peak.! According to the guide, all the peaks of Charmadi Ghats can be seen from Barekallu… However, the fog which was becoming thicker and thicker prevented us from seeing a lot of what Barekallu offered. (We did catch a sight of Kodekallu from there though!)

We had lunch at Barekallu and then started on our way back to the base. The way back was an elephant trail through a forest and a relatively easier way to climb down. Wild elephants often inhibit the slopes of these ghats. Thankfully, we didn’t encounter any.  The monsoon rains, which had eluded us till now, on this “Monsoon trek”, soon started pitter-pattering and then after frolicking around in a waterfall nearby, we rounded off this very beautiful day with a full-filled dinner at Cherry Square.