Thanks to the
Hydventura team at Hyderabad, i signed up for a trip to
Wayanad during the
Christmas long weekend. And it so happened that i was in
Mumbai the day before this started and hence went straight to
Kozhikode the night before. Staying on the beach at
Kozhikode that
Christmas eve and savouring the sights/smells of the beach was a bonus! Watching the waves come and go, I felt an inkling of what the first half of January would hold for me!
The next day I enjoyed a 6k run along the beach and after a
Kerala style breakfast, left for the hills in a red colored
KSRTC bus. On the way i stopped at the
Pookode Lake - the water was clear and fresh and the boating serene. By the evening I reached the rendezvous point where the rest of the team led by the charismatic
Srikanth Spiky
Perinkulam landed.
The next morning we geared up to climb
Chembra, the tallest peak in
Kerala. The climb showed me just how underdeveloped my quads and hamstrings were! We spent the next day at
Edakkal caves, yet another place that highlights the disaster that Indian Tourism is. There was a very scary climb to the top there, one that triggered a mini-vertigo at each turn. Felt relieved after I hit
terra firma. That day we also hit the
Soochipara Falls where the water was cold but
refreshing. The night ended with a late camp fire.
The last day of the trip was a straight drive back to Bangalore via
Ganpathivattom (
Sulthan Bathery),
Bandipur Wild Life Sanctuary and Mysore. We sighted a wild elephant on the way and had exceptionally delicious tender coconut water at a village named
Khagradondi. I also sighted two
Colnago bicycles mounted on an SUV, that was part of the Tour of
Nilgiris contingent (still agonising on my bike decision :-) Finally after lunch at
Kamats, we stopped at the
Ranganathittu Bird
Santcuary (a familiar place) on the way. At Bangalore
Sharmas Travel provided a comfortable Volvo bus that took us to Hyderabad on time the next day.
See
Spiky's blog for more on the trip.
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