It was still dark when we trudged from our hotel down the hillside to the bus station to find a bus to take us to the Wayanad district in Kerala. The trip to the little town of Vytheri took us about 5 hours. Having spent the last three nights in three different towns and taken numerous minibus, bus and train rides we decided we would just take it easy for the afternoon and arrange a hike for the next day. Our guidebook told us that it was possible to climb the highest mountain in Wayanad, Chembra Peak. It also told us that there was very little tourist infrastructure in the area. Both proved to be true. We had an incredibly difficult time finding out anymore concrete information on the hiking in the area. So much so that we almost said " to heck with this, let's move on!". But after a lot of miscommunication and language issues, we finally seemed to have organized with our guesthouse a jeep ride to the base of the mountain and for someone to pick us up again six hours later (an important detail!). The next day, we were to reap the rewards of our perseverence.

We left at dusk and took a 45 minute bumpy jeep ride through heavy fog to the base of Chembra Peak.

 

The fog was so thick, the mountain peaks looked like islands floating in a sea of white mist.

 

 

The base of the mountain was amidst huge lush tea plantations.

 

 

It was here we were assigned our mandatory local guide to accompany us up the mountain. The path quickly moved from the dirt road winding through the tea plantation, to thick grass and brush.

 

 

And then the path grew steeper. In the below picture, you can see our final destination in the far off distance.

 

 

The hike was truly awesome, the pictures really only partially capture the experience. We could hear gibbons whooping and howling in the distance, saw black monkeys swinging from the trees and our guide pointed out elephant tracks (and dung) belonging to a family of elephants who roam the surrounding dense forests. Fortunately/fortunately there were no tiger or leopard sightings which apparently also inhabit the forests and, according to our guide, pick off the farmer's goats and cows when they are hungry.

 

A lake that we stopped at for a little rest about half way up the mounatin, Chembra Peak looming in the distance.

 

 

 

Our guide, making it look easy.

 

 

Still not yet at the top, a look back at where we'd come from.

 

The summit

 

 

A neighboring mountain.

 

 

The descent.

 

 

After the hike, we headed back to our guesthouse, showered, packed up our bags and headed into town to grab some lunch and the next bus out of town to the city of Mysore, Karnataka.

Our lunch, a typical Keralan meal.

 

 

The changing countryside captured from the bus to Mysore.

 

 

A bunch of schoolboys, waiting at a bus stop, dying to be our picture subjects. I couldn't resist.