Hiking in Munnar

Here, in Munnar, trekking/hiking is very popular, at least that is my understanding by constant questions whether we want guides for that. I haven't seen anyone hiking around, but the place is indeed very suitable for a walk. So, pumped up from previous climb to the nearby mountain, we decided to find (just by looking around) highest mountain and go into it's general direction, hoping to reach and climb it.

Our journey started through one of the many tea plantations, which each has many small, winding paths.

It is no surprise that we saw a lot of full tea bags and workers.

We reached very small town in the middle of tea bushes. View from the above revealed what a beautiful place it is to live. Because we had to follow the roads and nearby hills blocked our view to farther places (to keep our eyes on target), we ended up going around this town. After that we just chose another path which was the right one.

At one point, out of nowhere, big beetle landed on me, my first instinct was (of course) - must take photo. Unfortunately, while Artur found the right button to press, big guy jumped off me. Photo session continued though, and I took quite a lot of pics of him from different angles.

After finally leaving him alone, we stumbled on another creature - big black worm. Few more photos and off we went. In the end we met another big one (I guess they all are big here) - centipede.

This wasn't the end regarding animals - nature had another surprise for us. Leeches. I got two, Artur got one. They all were very small, but very hard to get off. And bleeding didn't stop for a few hours.

To get to our selected mountain, we had to cross the river and somehow get to road which was running alongside the river, but was behind thick bushes about 100m in between. When we got to river, which was full of very big and not so big boulders, it was clear that there is no easy way to road and we continued down the river. This was very slow, but exciting going. Lots of jumps, crawling underneath boulders and just getting our feet wet. After completing maybe 200m (and a good 40 minutes), we found great place for a swim. Water seemed clear, so we took a refreshing dip. Great chill.

Found a way to road nearby with relatively small mountain just 10 meters from it. So we decided to climb it instead of chosen one (we couldn't find it anymore) and call it a day. Slope was very steep. From 45 degrees (average) to sometimes 80 degrees. Yes, sometimes it was almost vertical climb. Camera in one hand while another was holding packs of grass for safety. Very exausting, but satisfying climb. It turned out to be much larger mountain than we first thought, rest of it hidden behind step-like formations. After tons of sweat and heavy breathing we reached the top, and... IT WAS THE SAME MOUNTAIN WE CLIMBED 2 DAYS AGO. It turns out river brought us behind the mountain, so we didn't recognize it. Remember, that there are no paths leading to the top - we just chose the side and climbed up.

It was cool though. Great view, some sweets and deserved rest.

Another hour and we were home. Great day.