Trekking!

This past weekend I endured a two day trekking trip! Ha! I say endured because it was quite the experience! I was planning on going with my new friend Kristin, she is a Canadian living in Bangalore for 1 year while her husband works for an IT company. The day of the trek I found out that three of my other new friends, Hanne, Stacie, and Henry were also coming on the trip. The three of them work for International Justice Mission. Hanne and Stacie are from the US and Henry is from England! It was a group of 30 of us that went with Bangalore Mountainering club. Besides the 5 of us, there were two other foreigners, one guy from Germany (who essentially wore an orange jump suit the whole trip) and one 7 foot man from the Netherlands. Otherwise it was all Indians! It was really fun!

We left late on Friday night and rode in a TT (Tempo Traveler – a mix between a 15 passenger van and a bus) overnight. When we got in the TT, there was a TV and I was hoping for a movie for the drive. Bad thought. The movie that played during our overnight drive was a low budget horror film full of zombies and blood and guts everywhere. Not exactly what I was in the mood for. We arrived at our “homestay” which contrary to the name was actually a small lodge/hostel where we were staying for the night and freshened up before our big day of hiking. And a big day of hiking it was indeed! Our first hike was the tallest peak in Karnataka (the State of India I am living in) and once we reached the top we went spunkling in a cave for a little bit. However, we couldn’t go very far because our guide told us that if we went further there were bats and if we shined our lights at them we would all die. Kiran, our guide, was full of “facts” throughout our trip including that you should cover a leech bite with a bandaid EVER, don’t drink water when you are hiking, and when you are standing under the waterfall make sure your hands are covering the back of your neck otherwise you will get brain damage. Anyway, this was a big hike up to this peak, but the day did not end there, in fact it had only just started. We hiked 21 km in total across many mountains. This was actually very tiring. Especially when Henry, Hanne and I literally power lunged up a mountain for a Km because we had lost the path and our guide. Then we walked around for about 20 minutes until we found some other people from our group. Then we came across a group of 15 middle aged men litterally having a dance party in the middle of nowhere on the side of the mountain. They very very eagerly offered us fanta and the "states fresh fruit" which was actually just a cucumber.  Throw on some off and on fairly heavy rainfall and call it a day. Hike started at 9 am and ended at 6 pm. I was exhausted. We made it back to our “homestay” which did have hot water and were able to shower somewhat and then had dinner at 9pm (which is the normal dinner time here in India) and then I crashed! We left the next morning to head to the waterfalls. We hiked around and then had some time to play in the water also – as you can see that means for girls full clothing and for Indian men – minimal clothing. Ha! The place we went to had wild monkeys! It was so great! Here are some pictures!

Here is a picture of the three of us girls playing in the Waterfalls

You cant really see but Hanne and I are sitting underneath the Waterfall!

Here is one of the many Hindu temples we came across during the two day trek. Notice the Monkeys!!

Our trekking group! What a hoot!

 Stacie, Henry, Me, Kristin, and Hanne!

I cant really figure out how to rotate the bad boy...gotta love solo shots...