Brahmagiri

I was really longing for a trek,longing to breathe in the cold wind,stand atop the hill and see the miniature world below,to feel alone yet so alive.

Brahmagiri!!Thank god it happened,was beginning to get a little whiny that no trek was happening:)

A super comfortable bus journey to gonikoppal.The rajahamsa was so empty ,i stretched my 162cm body over two adjacent seats and slept like a baby.The other three I'm sure,slept warm as well.We were rudely awakened by the conductor ,cursing him mentally,the 4 of us got off at gonikoppal,one eerie dark town at 4 am.Slight drizzle,we parked our rear ends and sacks of course,in front of a wine/liquor shop:) .

The characters: Ajaxi-The tamil iyer boy from Purdue:)

Protima-The strong aspiring law student from kolkatta.

Boda-The Sapient man with no hair:)

and me,of course.

I don't blame you if you get an image of 4 superheroes!:)

Boda was getting a little restless..all of thought of reasons why.Hmm..can't give clues,but it was early morning after a long confined journey in a bus.;).Boda made the first expense of the trek,150rs,for something,he believes was well spent,and something the rest of us will still laugh about.The sun shining, and the drizzle gone,we satiated our hungry stomachs to lots of breakfast(considering we were definitely going to skip lunch that day).Took the first bus from gonikoppal to sri mangala.The lazy range officer would give us permission only at 9am,so we had about 2 hours to while away before he came.APB didn't even think twice and found a nice spot in the bus stop and snugged by their sacks and dozed off.I walked around aimlessly,stole ajaxi 's camera,took pictures of the peak:),the white dogs and well...them,sleeping.!

9 am ,found the range officer and paid for our permission.Took the bus to iruppu,where our trek would start:).Reached iruppu to find discouraging guides(rather,i think they were lazy to take anyone).They scared us about how brahmagiri was called Mt.Everest of the south(phbtt!).

Finally,one of them had to come and so did:)We were chilling by the cool waters of iruppu falls,where our guide met us,armed with an umbrella,a small cloth sack of salt(for the leeches) and one small bag of his belonging.

It was about 3 hours to reach the guest house,not a very tiring up climb,decent enough..not much rain and nominal leeches:).The guest house was already brimming with 12 boys,cacophonous and well..guy-like (!!).The guide refused to take us to the brahmagiri(what a spoiler!),some reasons of rain,mist,wild elephants.Nah! we didn't understand:).Boda did a good job of persuasion and instead of settling down in the room and cooking our lunches,we decided to go to the peak.It was a long,tiring,meandering route to the foothills of the peak,but breath-taking scenery's all through the route:)a joy!:) .

Now the climb! where do i even start? It was raining,a nice heavy rain,4 of us started our way to the top.Slippery as banana peels with minimal rock holds for support.The initial climb till a quarter of the distance was decent.Then the fright started..well,i speak for myself,i was beginning to think of it as impossible,mainly because climbing it was easy,but i couldn't comprehend how we would climb back down.That thought scared me.Boda and protima stopped midway.Ajaxi was well ahead..i decided.what the hell,lets' go.The hill was a killer!steep to a good extent,say 75 deg inclined.I kept making noises and whined all the way to the top,but i guess ajaxi didn't pay heed and assumed i ll come:).It was exhilarating.Well,the peak was beautiful..but unfortunately covered by mist,so,we couldn't see anything else,except each other,rock,rock and grass:).But gauging the altitude we were at,we felt good:) It was everything i had asked for:).Peace!! This lasted a little time,and we had to climb back down.Wow!one scared chicken i was.Again,whined my way down..about my amazing floaters that didn't give me grip,about how scared i was,everything.Thanks ajaxi:).finally did it,climbed back down,with my floaters in my hand.It was EXCELLENT! :) a warm,strong feeling of pride filled my heart:)

Back to the guest house,boda and ajaxi were excited as young kids to do shahi pulav.It was...umm..good:). The 12 guy-like guys spent the night..like guys! :) drinking,smoking and chicken:) they bothered inviting us thrice.Ajaxi,split in his mind about the chicken,politely said no!:).The night wasn't very cold,but only noisy:) the little said about that night,for many reasons,the better.

The leeches started getting on my nerves,was getting a little paranoid.Don't blame me,i found one in my bellybutton!.The morning that followed was relaxed,we washed vessels by the stream like one happy family!:) .Started on the journey back down,lazily and relaxed,the leeches had a field day:).ajaxi and boda,a little disappointed about not having done upit in the morning:).We reached iruppu falls and sat down by the stream,for what seemed like a light year:) patiently removing the leeches and letting the cool waters run through our hands and legs.A nice Saturday afternoon lazing by a natural stream of cool water.Unmatched!:)Paid off the guide and boda and ajaxi managed to give away our rations to a cook and have their beloved upit made:) what joy those two boys expressed:)! Took a hurried bus to mysore,to get down at 9pm.dinner and bus to Bangalore,to get down at 1 am.Walked to boda's house.hot shower and a long night followed!:)

What i loved .The place.My trek mates.The greenery.Every trek teaches me a few lessons.I've learnt a treasured set of lessons in this one as well:)