Sakleshpur Trek #6
We found this tiny grass snake near the end of one of the tunnels.
I almost plonked my backpack right on it. To get an idea of really
how tiny it was, just remember that the rail on which it's lying is
about 8cm wide.
A little further on, we found a huge snake skin lying right across
the tracks on a bridge. Sid holds up his trophy for display, while
Satsang prefers to play Shiva. Shriram (motto: My name is Rafi.
Mohammed Rafi.) looks on, while Reena and Usha are positively
repulsed. Can't say I blame them, actually. I don't fancy reptiles
myself.
It was getting rather late, and Ujjal, who had half the lunch with him, was way ahead of us. (He wasn't, but we didn't know that until later). So to catch up with him, we sped up and didn't stop for photographs again. We made rapid progress and reached our night halt point, Edakumeri, by about 4:00 PM.
There were a couple of other trekker groups who'd already set up camp, but no sign of Ujjal and Maryam (motto: Chennai rules... you just don't know any better. Amma Vazhgai). Whoa, this was getting scary. Everybody remembered them take off ahead of the others from the mega bridge... so what happened ?
We grabbed a quick bite of the Paratha-Subzi. Lunch ? Dinner ? Linner ? Lunner ? Sadly, all the Aloo was ruined, much to the chagrin of the poor sods who carried them for 18km. So it was more of Paratha with Mango-Thokku. Anyways, a few quick bites and Satsang, Sid and I started back with torches and whistles. We had to find Ujjal.
We needn't have worried, though. Not too far from the station, in the first tunnel, we run into Dada and Maryam. They'd tried to circumvent the big tunnel with all the bats, and got lost. Well whaddaya know ? Thankfully, there were no casualities or injuries. Sapna had a minor ankle sprain, that's all.
A short runabout to gather firewood, and we headed to the waterfall to have a bath. We kept going in circles... over a bridge, by the bridge, behind the bridge, and all we ever found was a small trickle. And a leech each, to boot. They say people tend to lose bearings in the dark, but this was downright comic. I wound up asking Dada the way, and in Kannada, no less. No bath on day one. Ugh.
The ex-boy-scouts got a nice fire going, and people cooked food and played games and stuff. I can't tell you much about that... I found my six-by-three and was out cold. A nuclear disaster couldn't have roused me. When I did wake up a few hours later, there were noodles and soup going around... I think. I was rather fuzzy at that point, so I just took my six-by-three inside and resumed my most important purpose here on earth.
Sleep.