Trekking, South Indian Style

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We've spent the past two days in one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. After leaving the farm in Palahalli we traveled several more hours by car to our current destination. We drove through a wildlife sanctuary where we saw wild peacocks, foxes, deer, and fowl. Prashanth drives extremely fast, like he is in race or something, he finally hit a bump hard enough that his front bumper fell off. We tied it back on with some string and continued on our way through blooming coffee estates. The smell of the coffee flowers filled the air. We arrived at the base of the Irpu Waterfall and Brahmagiri Trek route at about 8 in the morning to meet up with a group of 15 trekkers. Most of them were accountants or business men, all out for a weekend away from the office. We hiked 4 km up the mountain to a base camp where we dropped off our gear and had lunch. Bean spent the afternoon at the nearby caves and I hung around camp to rest because I felt a little feverish. Though I did walk up to the hills to get some good sunset photos. Bean stayed up and sang songs around the campfire with our new friends and I went to bed early and slept for a good twelve hours. We woke early started off to the highest peak. We hiked about 10 km and 1 km was straight up the side of the peak. The views of the surrounding country were amazing. We were actually on the border of Kerala and Karnataka and we could see for miles. After a brief rest the Indians were ready to head back down the mountain. They never take the time to stop and smell the roses. We had a quick lunch at the camp and packed our bags for the 4 km hike back to the waterfalls where we had a very refreshing bath. We bathed with many other Indian men. All of the men wear next to nothing while they bath and the women keep all of their clothes on, the opposite as it is in the US. We then got back in the car for more racing. Padmanabh and Prashanth dropped us off in Mysore in the evening.

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