...... more about Anantgiri

The next day morning we woke up to the song call of birds and stepped on the balcony to see the valley veiled with mist. Closer below,  in the resort garden,  there were many  exotic birds hopping on the ground. We  found a bird with copper sulphate blue and dark blue plumes.

We decided to go sighting  birds so that we could find some exotic birds in their natural habitat and our  teens were eager to capture them in the new camera. They had gone through many online photgraphy  journals  the day before we started so that they could shoot some pictures.

 We  left our room  armed with camera but before driving out we hopped into the cafeteria for tea. We found that the cook arrived only at 7.30 and there would be no tea till then. The next tea shop is 6 kms downhill at Vikarabad or the one opposite the temple. We drove to the temple site and had tea outside the hotel.

As we were sipping tea , the sun was slowly peeping leaving a lovely morning weather. This was supreme driving weather  and we wanted to make use of it. We decided to explore and find where the road to the temple’s right would take us. (the road opposite to vikarabad)  and so off we went for  a joy drive early in the morning.

As we travelled down the road  for a kilometer, we saw there were many lorries giving us company. The road was excellent without any potholes and after a km, we found we were driving down hill, the road went in circles and we saw the real terrain here. Rocky and dry vegetation,  we could see a lake in the far end , we decided to drive there.

The destination of the joy ride  was the lake but due to a misguiding or miscommunication between a villager and me, we found ourselves  driving onto some plains on the right side amongst flower farms and tuvar dal farms, cabbage patches. The village which we entered by mistake had village houses with unique roofs. The roofs had stone slabs stacked one over the other. From the road, I could even see women using the chakki for grinding some grains.  A sight which I had seen in movies and in some urban museums depicting village life. This was a surprising sight as well. Most houses had dish antenna but relied on stone grinders instead of mixies.  I later came to know from a resort worker that this place was called Tandur and is famous for the famous tandur blue and yellow stones. These stone slabs are used for wall cladding and flooring and the creative people of tandur have even used them for roofing.  This was once the fluorishing and prospering town during the Nizam's times.  The rich forests in the nearby areas were the hunting grounds for the rulers of Golconda. But due to deforestation, many wildlife like tigers don't thrive here any more.  The stone slabs are transported to many places in India and abroad and now that explains those lorries which must have been on the way to the quarry. 

 the houses at tandur village, here the women were using chakki to grind. I heard later that jowar roti called bakri is the staple of the folks here. Perhaps, they were grinding the same( wish i had clicked that too).

                                    don't miss the dish tv antenna on the roof top and the roofing of course

Now,  that was indeed an unique joy ride and we drove uphill (resort) for breakfast and left for our trek. The same trail through those 50 steep steps, past the temple tank and three  kms into the forest amongst wild insects, trekking through some zig zag paths, bushes, chasing butterflies,  crossing brooks and listening to the calls and chirps of some unknown but beautiful birds. How i felt here  away from civilization( except for the off and on mobile network ) is something i won't succeed putting in words. The forest was'nt dense but it definitely was lonely and for me it was quite a task to pull out my adrenaline junkie family out of the forest.  We spent more than three hours there.

Perhaps the pictures taken by my teens can paint a picture. 

 My dot wanted to test one of the technic she had read about photography the previous day. to make the back ground hazy and the object sharp. She did it the other way round. hence the sharp background contrasting the hazy parrot.

 the size of the spider not just surprised me  but also made me wonder how much the forest provided for these to thrive. There were many such on our pathway.

             yeah, not very dense you can see the sun filtering in,  the pathway was easy.

                             some tree inter connections are fun for children to climb, hang and swing

                               this contrast in barks and the twining was interesting and there were many like these

                                                little  clear water streams that we crossed

                                         all these were grown enroute and we hoarded some home

                                                                           the tuvar dal plants in tandur 

 This is one of the easiest trek paths we had taken so far. (The toughest was at Abbey falls in coorg with leeches for company, but we were 13 years younger than). My energy levels have dipped since then.

We had an excellent time no doubt on that. But, was this the hunting grounds of the yesteryear kings? Sadly, we have lost lot of forest cover and we did'nt spot any wild boar or any animal not even a snake. This place was supposed to have had  good population of tigers once upon a time. Perhaps,  they have been the victims of animal-human conflict. It was evident from the amount of plastics strewn by the tourists and trekkers inside the forest other than the sharp edges of liquor bottles.  

Reams and reams have been/ are written in global press about conservation , protection, creating awarenss and threats to ecological balance and nature. The protection that nature provides for free might prove dear to replace unless some serious steps are taken. A nilam here and a sandy there often remind us to take care of the planet. 

Anyways, i put these thoughts aside, travelled down hill  to Vikarabad and found a beautiful mess which served homemade food by a lady.  After our lunch, we headed back home  hoarding  back some farm fresh vegetables  and we travelled into the festive city which was all decked up for Diwali. We did  some last minute festival shopping.

The next day, Just like you all, we too enjoyed Diwali :)