Conquering Kudhuremukh Part 2

Already PP, Chetan, and Manja were ready to take the next challenge… but we three were still in sleep mode…

Eventually, we got up, finished our morning chores, and had breakfast — noodles and concrete…

Later, we packed our bags. Now our bags were not so heavy… just a thought came to my mind — how much we eat!

Sharp at 6 AM, we left the place for the next destination… the peak was still 5 km away (according to the locals), so it would be 10 + 12 km of trekking for the day…

But again, we lost our way… we were stuck at a place where there were two paths and we had to choose one…

We took one… came back thinking it was wrong… but then went back the same way again…

Oh — we were on the correct path…

Then came a steep hill… must have been 75 degrees… almost 90… with the weight on our backs, it was very difficult to climb… but after almost an hour, we reached the top. By then, everybody was dead-tired…

So we decided to hide the bags somewhere and continue…

But it was still a 3-hour walk… Me, Venky, and Papu dropped out… I was feeling very sleepy and tired, so we three decided to stay back and rest, and the other three continued. They promised to return by 1 PM…

Anyway, I could still see the view from the peak… maybe next time…

But no regrets — we guys had a blast staying back… all of us took out our sleeping bags again… and slept… must’ve been around 9 AM… we were in deep sleep… something touched me — I woke up with a shock… it was another group from Adichunchanagiri Medical College…

Back to sleep again… sleeping in the jungle… nobody guarding us… but none of us were worried… slept until 11 AM, but then it started getting hot… we couldn’t stay inside the sleeping bag anymore… so we started searching for a tree to put up our tent… finally found one…

Yup — got into the sleeping bags again… but this time, couldn’t sleep — started chatting again… what else can you do in the middle of a jungle…

Must be around 12:20 when the guys came back from the peak… then we started having some bread with jam, milk, etc. By 1 PM, we were ready to descend…

But now, we were much faster… not getting tired… but it was hard to get a grip — most of the time we kept skidding… by 1:40, we were back at Lobo’s house…

From here, again we had to walk 12 km (though it felt more than that)… we started trekking again… chatting about all sorts of things while walking… by 4 PM, we were lost again…

This time we had taken a different route from Lobo’s house, as directed by Mr. Shankar — a local… but again we trusted one of the paths and followed it… we were very happy when we found our trail again…

After walking, we came near a river…

We washed our faces, took some photos… Chetan had the camera with him… and guess what — he slipped into the water… so our second film reel was gone… hopefully nothing happened to the camera…

We spent half an hour there and started walking again… walking… walking… it was getting dark… I felt like it would never end… we had nothing more to say… everything was over…

Finally, around 6 PM, we reached the main road… and there was a shop… I wanted to call home… luckily there was a telephone booth too…

The last bus to Karkala was at 7:15 PM — no direct bus to Mangalore, declared the shopkeeper… and the Bangalore guys had to go to Kuduremukh town (so-called) to catch their bus… then we had some coffee…

Oh yeah… we got our bus… it was quite empty… so I slept — on Venky’s lap… what a sleep…

Around 9:30 PM we reached Karkala… Venky and I had dinner… you know what — ragi mudde (so-called Deve Gowda’s ragi balls)…

There we caught the last bus to Mangalore… again both of us were asleep by the time we reached Mangalore…

Got down at our stop (called Lady Hill Stop)… went home… opened the bed… slept…

WHAT A SLEEP…

Here ends my great trip to Kuduremukh…

Thanks to all of you for reading this…

– Thej

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