Happy 4th!

July 4th: We woke up late (8 am) the next morning, so thankful to have slept in a bit and had some breakfast. Traveling with 10 females for the last 3+ weeks has been a bit overwhelming for me so I decided to take a little solo walk down to the river. At the edge of the hotel property was a tall fence with a locked gate. Well, fence nor locked gate has ever stopped a Fulkerson or a Wyoming girl so I just jumped the fence and went on my merry way getting a few strange looks from some fishermen downstream. It was an absolutely beautiful morning on the river. The scenery reminded me of our camping spot up Wood river with huge mountains surrounding me plus a thick, dense, wet jungle. The sun was shining just enough to dry up the dew without it being too unbearably hot. There were men swimming, little boys fishing, some men doing their laundry on the rocks. Throughout our entire experience here I've often found Indians to be very interested in meeting and talking to us. One man came up to me and asked my name and where I was from. He said he was trying to practice his English as he is tying to open up his own business down the road. I was happy to help him out and learn a bit about him. He had previously worked for a company which exported 180-thread count sheets and prior had worked for a U.K. based management company. We talked about the river which lead to talking about the Ganga and he said that this river was nothing like the Ganga. Instead of being filled with ash, he said it was a healing river, full of the roots of the best Ayurvedic plants and trees in India. He pointed out the falls that my group would be visiting later and I taught him the word "mist." Just as everyone else I've met he espressed his extreme gratefulness for speaking with me and we went our separate ways. Unfortunately when hopping the fence back I ripped a huge hole in the butt of my pants (yes Katy, my Piranha pants) but I suppose that's the karma I get for trespassing haha.

Next we got onto the bus and headed for the Athirappally waterfalls. We spent probably 45 minutes in awe of the beauty and sheer force of all that water. When it would rain all the Indians would pull out their coats and umbrellas but I laid out on the rocks and let my body soak it all in. Between the heat of the sunbaked rocks and the cool of the light monsoons I laid in bliss. Still though, I couldn't help but wish a little bit that I was waking up to meet everyone on main street for the parade. I did my best to shake the negative thoughts out of my head as Kathryn suggested we try to catch frogs. By we, I mean her, and "try" was the key word. Eventually w gave up and took a hike down to the bottom of the falls. It was a pretty steep hike but my chaco flip flops have a surprisingly good grip. At the bottom was the loudest, wettest roar of thundering, foamy, misty water spraying us from every angle. Getting absolutely drenched was unavoidable, and this point, being wet was becoming a bit of a theme for the trip anyway. I couldn't help but climb on top of the highest rock I could find (without Mr. Waterfall Police blowing his big bad whistle at me...as he had already done twice to Kathryn and I for going outside the roped off area) and throwing my arms up into the air letting the waterfall's spray soak me all through my clothes and skin. Eventually all of us were on the rock screaming and smiling and absolutely loving our 4th of July.


Now the hike back was another story. We decided to follow some Indian men who seemed like they were taking an off-trail shortcut (I know, not the most eco-friendly thing we could have done). Usually following the Indians always produces the best outcome: they lead you safely across a busy street and into the best restaurants. But when taking an even steeper shortcut from an already steep trail after 3 weeks of carbo loaded indian food, well, let's just say I was a bit winded. But I figured I better toughen up because if Indian women in their Sarees and sparkly heeled flip flops can do it I better just bite the bullet and trek it on up.

We finally made it back to the bus and saw 2 more waterfalls before heading back for lunch. After lunch a fat nap was in order, obvi, so I fell asleep and didn't wake up until 6:30 pm. Oops, clearly my 15 minutes of strenuous hiking had wiped me out haha. By now a full on monsoon had hit so I pulled out my raincoat and went for a walk with some of the girls. Oh how I wish I could just pack up the sounds of this place and mail it home to you all! As if the sound of rainfall isn't enough, there's the river flowing by, the tropical birds chirping, the frogs croaking, the insects buzzing...I'm sorry but there's just no other way to describe it but magical (or Fern Gully-esque I suppose). Once it started to get dark we headed back to the hotel for dinner and our beer in a meager celebration of our country's independence. Though today was nothing like my usual parade, city park market, hot dogs, cliff jumping, Stampede rodeo, silver-dollar bar type of 4th of July, it was certainly a memorable one in itself and a perfect 4th in its own way.

Now to bed for our 4 am departure to the house boats! The last day of our Journey through India awaits and soon we'll be back to Coimbatore!