Ettina Bhuja

After preparations, we got ready and left to starting point of the trek by jeep. This was at 9:25am. We reached the starting point and started the trek at 9:50am. Asusual, we trekked with breaks.There were a few leeches and the weather was extremely hot. We reached the top at 2:10pm. Had lunch which was packed by gopu for us - 3 chapatis for each one of us. After lunch, we took a nice nap. Oh yeah, Suri was always excited for more, he was great enough to go down to the stream and get water filled for all of us.

We pitched the tents at 5:00pm. After the tents were up, we headed up to the peak of ettina bhuja to see around from the top. Came down a little bit for the sunset and after that reached the base camp (tenting area). Since I looked like it might rain, we started boiling water for the MTR ready to eat stuff. Since I don't eat mushroom, I took pongal. After lunch, and some time at the camp fire, I retired for the night.

Early morning, our guide woke us up and asked us to hear the sounds in the forest. It seems there was/were elephants near the stream. I was able to hear the wood breaking at a distance in the valley. After capturing some amazing pictures of the sun-rise, we prepared the remaining 2 packets of pongal, ate it and then packed the tents. We left the place at 9:00am. Coming down was easy when compared to climbing up. We lost altitude very quickly. At a point, we were told that there is a waterfall and we can spend some time there. All of us went to have a dip in the water. The water was great but pretty cold, that too after sweating a lot. We enjoyed in the water for more than an hour. We were at the falls at 11:30pm. And after enjoying the water, we made our way down to the road only at 1:45pm.

We got an auto to go to Gopu's place. Freshened up and had lunch there. It was rice, sambar and rasam. Anil and I went to the shishileshwara temple to see the enormous amount of fishes there. The bus from shishila to kokkada was at 2:30pm. We caught that bus and reached kokkada at 3:00pm. Had some cold Sugarcane juice. Wait a minute, i forgot about the cashew fruit cause of which I'm still sick. We had cashew fruit that was plucked by anil and suri from the farm near the bus stand. Ok, now back to Kokkada. We caught the bus to bangalore at 3:20pm. No seats at all. We had to stand till sakaleshpura. Then we got seats. Thought we'd reach bangalore by 9 but we were wrong. We reached at 11:20pm. Had chapatis in my place and went to sleep.

Next day, i went to work asusual. But after that, I've been sick. This is my 3rd day at home. Chest congestion fever and cough, being sick is boring :P