Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
After the rocky mountains of Savandurga a couple of weeks back, we were up for the rain forests down south. It was a whole new adventure filled with the pleasant view of nature at its best and sick leeches sucking the blood out of us. Memorable as always, filling our hearts with the times of joy, here is the journey to Agumbe: The Cherapunji of South.
Unlike last time this journey started at night, a long wait for our bus which was supposed to leave by 10PM but we couldn’t even find our bus until 10.45. No surprises though as Indian transport is never on time. Meanwhile we all met up @ platform 4 and made sure we have our bag packs ready for the trek as the forest doesn’t have many supplies around. Everyone had to mandatory carry 4-5 litres of water, some chocolates and glucolized food if any. So our bus finally departs at 11.30 followed by a short stop in an hour. It was a quiet journey as we slept through to keep ourselves fit for the trek which was supposed to be a 20-30KM walk in dense forest. None of us except Joy were aware of how the trek is gonna be. We anticipated a route with trees and bushes as seen in movies but were all in for a surprise.
It was around 7AM when I woke up. After a long time, this was one of those days where I woke up with smile on my face. We were cruising through the hills of Agumbe with nature all around and water dripping from the trees. The window pane was misty with rain water dripping through the glasses and greeting us with a pleasant sight. The trek started early in the morning and included 30-minute breakfast, a mile walk from the bus stand to the forest entrance and finally into the rainforest
We started off @ 8 for the Ugani falls (I just made up the name “Ugani” as I don’t remember the name of the falls, but I am sure it sounded something like this). This was supposed to be tough walk through the forest with full of leeches and since it has been raining, the density of leeches was gonna be double. Anyway, we mustered up our courage and headed out, following the path with Joy’s guidance. It was a mile down the road before we reached the starting point of the forest. The entrance had a large iron gate with few information boards aside which was in kannada. None of us could read it so we just passed through the gate and closed it behind. Rain forests are usually dense and this was no exception.
Climatically, Agumbe is tropical with rainfall almost throughout the year. Walking inside a rain forest was like reliving the images of a jungle you would create when you saw Indiana Jones or Jurassic park or Lost. Along the narrow trail there were huge trees, some felled across the walkway, and small creeks here and there. The air felt cold and damp, with occasional breeze. The sound of the rain forest was probably the most fascinating aspect of the trip. The vegetation was also amazing. I'd never seen so many trees standing very close to each other.
It was a beautiful sight except for the leeches. The moment we entered the forest, they were on us, all of us. We could see them climbing on. At first we tried stopping them from coming onto us but as we moved they just kept increasing and were all over our boots and socks. Time on time we sprinkled salt over but it dint make much difference as they were just too many in number. They got into the boots, through the socks & onto our body ready to suck blood. After a point of time all we could do was ignore them and enjoy the forest. That’s exactly what joy has been telling us. I did that, ignored the leeches, dint see down and jus looked forward. There were epiphytes on the giant trees covered with mist. At times it drizzled through the forest and at times the sun was out. The sunlight did not touch the grounds of the densest part of the forest, so we kept walking by the vicinity of the narrow path. After few steps down we could hear the water, an indication that we were reaching our destination.
From dense forest we reached the open air to the top of the water fall, a view worth all the leeches on us. We were standing right on the peak looking down a water fall falling miles down. In front was the whole valley of forest visible covered with mist & blanket of clouds, a moment worth pausing & reliving.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t spend much time there on the peak as most of them were trembling with fear of leeches. So we started our way back in a while and this time we dint care for the leeches and just walked back. I was hoping that the journey doesn’t end but it had to and it did end very quickly. Once outside the iron gates, on the roads, we all stripped and were shocked on the number of leeches on us. Hari had the maximum and his legs were soaked in blood. It took us an hour or so to get the leeches off our body, clothes and shoes. It was blood shed all around us. The passersby were under an impression that we met with an accident. With the help of loads of salt we finally got ourselves rid of the leeches and walked back to a hotel for lunch.
After a good lunch we had 2 more destinations to cover, another waterfall and a sunset point but nature dint allow us to do so. It poured heavily from then on and never for a moment stopped or even looked like clearing. Unfortunately the rain was too heavy and that ended our journey. We stayed back at the hotel and dozed through the noon. We took a bus @ 4 to Sengeri from where we were supposed to catch our bus back to Bangalore
The rest of the evening was an unplanned walk through the villages of Sengeri where we met elephants who blessed us. We found a huge temple where few of us went in and prayed while the rest had refreshments. We walked back to the bus stand where we waited endlessly for the bus which wasn’t due for another couple of hours.
After dinner we got into the bus expecting a good sleep but it wasn’t supposed to be that way. The AC was strong and unfortunately it leaked water on us. We had to put on our jackets as we snugly went off to sleep. The next thing we knew was we were in Bangalore
…Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
1 comment:
Enjoyed reading it. esp. the leeeechees!
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