We had a great breakfast, and the sunlight had begun to rise. The zone just before sunrise feels the coldest. Hopping onto the bike, we zoomed ahead until the town "Tumbadi", Oh yeah, that's right, we discussed the awesome movie as we cruised along, parked our bikes at the town's center. Requested a random bakery to hold on to our helmets until we reach back :PTIME: 10:45
ASCENSION:Channarayana Durga is one such hillock, which is easy to ascend, but is also tricky. Let me explain. The rocks here are slippery, and with water running down, it becomes actually risky. As we reached the foot of the mountain, the sun was up and we felt good. The waters running down the mountain send slight chills. We took about an hour to ascend the mountain.Anyway, I have divided the ascension into the following stages, So keep up with here! :i) Initial Stretchii) Lost Paradiseiii) Layoutsiv) Last Stretch
TIME: 07:15
i) Initial stretch:This stretch is the hardest part of the trek. Not surprising at all, right, if you want your enemies to die, let them die at the foot of the mountain, not at the top. This stretch is tricky, I mean real tricky. With waters running down, we could only feel what the invading armies felt whilst trying to conquer this fort. And guess what, out of nowhere, I mean seriously out of nowhere, a dog joined us in the middle of this stretch. ii) Lost Paradise:Once we reached the first fort wall. We began navigating our way into the lost paradise. And as we entered it, we were taken aback by the sight that was in front of us. Thick dense fog is descending on the hillock. Damn! It looked so beautiful and scary at the same time. The whole of the lake and ruins of the temples were shrouded in fog and felt damn nice. With the winds blowing with the fog, felt like an angry banshee's cold hug!
iii) Layouts:The layouts, I mean, what layouts huh? Nothing was hardly visible haha! Crazy scenes, it was. And we were the only two on top of the hillock (oh yeah, the dog as well, so three). So, we kept pushing further and reached the "end of the word" spot. And we weren't surprised to spot nothing. We couldn't spot Madhugiri or any of the hillocks. It seemed as though the fog and wind had made peace and were howling and encircling the entire hill. Felt surreal.
iii) Last Stretch:Told Anwar and the dog (yes, I really did tell him) that we would summit the top and wait for the sunrise, and then come back here. We pushed through the last stretch and reached the summit. TIME: 08:15
As we came back to the "end of the world" spot. We could spot the bottom of the ground, and the fog seemed to be lifting. We felt happy and decided to crash at the spot until the fog lifted. The spot is a tricky one with dead ends all around. And the brave dog followed us onto this spot. Peeping cautiously below, took step by step and sat with us. And it was truly the "end of the word" feeling!! We waited and waited, then finally took a nap at the spot and decided to head back haha!TIME: 09:15
TREK BACK:It took us hardly 45 minutes to reach the base. The dog was waiting for us to get back. As I sat down beside him, I tried to seriously have a conversation, looking into his eyes. All he did was stare at the next gateway that lay afar. He had a mission, and that is all that mattered to him, I guess. We cruised back the top two stretches in a jiffy. And we entered the "initial stretch", we could see that the water flowing down the mountain had increased, and to make matters worse, it started raining.
Being doubly cautious, we made our way down very slowly. The dog stuck with it throughout until this stretch. And as we were navigating the final steep descent. We couldn't spot the dog anymore. thanking him for the company, we headed towards the bakery for some refreshments. After some Sting, we decided to head back to Bangalore.TIME: 10:15