The Frog...

I still don't know the species and would love to know it. These frogs were seen prancing around in the middle of the tar road through the jungle in Dandeli Anshi. The second day it started raining from nearly 5 AM in the morning. i had recovered and feeling fresh and very hungry.

We planned to drive to Anshi today and do some trekking is possible. We would also lunch at Anshi and the logde person has arranged for us to lunch at the camp in Anshi which is also in the middle of the forest.

It rained continuously, damping our chances of seeing too many birds or animals. But, the rain in such an overwhelmingly beautiful and splendid place was mind-blowing. I was signing and exclaiming all the time, taking deep breaths of the fresh air. I was spell bound so to say. I just wanted more of it. I didn't want to go back to Hyderabad so soon. To me this trip had been too short and I would not have enough of the place.

We took the route recommended to reach Anshi, all of it was through the jungle, except for a small village called Joida and then again drove back into the wilderness. The thick evergreen growths overtook me several times and I wanted it to last as much as possible. We realized after about 30 minutes of driving through the jungle that we had missed a turn. There was hardly anyone to ask. Finally two people on a scooter turned up and told us to go back in the direction we had some. I didn't mind getting lost as we had enjoyed more of the jungle. On the way back, the road we had taken 20 minutes back was blocked as a bunch of huge bamboo trees had fallen. We stopped and then took another route to reach Anshi. As we went deeper into the jungles the winding ghat roads and the forest just got deeper and thicker and the valleys were a beautiful spectacle with light fog, sunlight and rain and very tall trees.

On reaching the camp at Anshi, we were already very hungry. We gorged into the food thinking we'll go for he trek after lunch. After lunch we were informed that there were too many leeches and trekking was canceled. So we decided to take a walk on the main mud road into the jungle. A friendly dog accompanied us pretending like he was looking out, sensing something, taking a look and coming back to walk with us.

The walk was enjoyable but it started drizzling and then raining. A couple of us had umbrellas and the rest had to walk in the rain. It was enjoyable. After a while we decided to return as the rain was really heavy.

On returning we were drying up to get back in the car and return to Dandeli. One person felt something climbing up his socks. Only to realize it was a leech. Then another person opened their shoes and found bloods and a big fat leech. All of us panicked and started checking ourselves for leeches. I was bitten badly by a small insect and it was psychological to feel we had some itching all the time. :)

We got back to Dandeli and had a fun dinner and evening. We would start to drive back the next morning.