[Day 15-17] More Hampi

It seems taking along a well-prepared aid kit has its merits. After being sick for only one day, I had recovered!

Of course, I didn’t know this, so hadn’t planned on doing anything the 15th. When it became clear that I wasn’t going to be sick anymore, I set out for a stroll between all the temples across the river.

I first visited the big temple, which you might have already spotted in one of the previous pictures. It was pretty nice inside, and is actively being used as a place of worship. For some reason they also have a live elephant there which goes bathing in the river every morning.

Rather crappy photo of the biggest temple in Hampi.

Bulls, bulls everywhere! The town is flooded with this kind of statues.

A shrine to Ganesh with some recent offerings.

Afterwards, I took a walk along the river to discover some of the many, many temple ruins. I also climbed to a temple on top of the highest hill in the neighborhood, which offered a very nice outlook over Hampi.

The big temple seen from somewhere upriver.

One of the many smaller temples in the neighborhood.

The gate of another big temple ruin.

Looking down over that same gate and the rest of the temple complex.

A view towards Hampi from the top of the hill.

It’s incredibly hot here, 35 degrees or more in the shade and a humidity of 100%! There was a girl lying on the flat, shadeless roof of this high temple who exclaimed: “Too hot, way too hot!” Meanwhile the sun was at its highest point in the cloudless sky. I’m not sure which kind of temperature she was hoping for in that position, tss :)…

While strolling between all the rocks I saw lots of cool animals. Most of the colorful birds were impossible to get a decent picture of, but I managed to capture a few of the more down to earth animals.

Very pretty almost neon-yellow dragonfly.

These huge bees live in wooden beams at my hotel. They are at least 4-5cm in size. So far, they have tolerated me, let's hope they continue to do so :).

This lizard was at least 30cm big and was making big jumps between rocks.

Very cool looking toad that I saw near the hotel at night.

The 16th, I decided, would be the day I would finally go climb. Since it’s so hot here, the only realistic moment to go bouldering is between 6-9AM. So, I got up at 5:30AM and went to the meeting point I was originally going to meet the Spaniards two days before. Unfortunately, there was no one there…

So instead, I spent the 16th typing out a long overdue post for my other blog, which might help me land a job (at least, that’s my hope). Turns out that takes ages on a smartphone, by the time I was finished 6 hours had passed…

That same day, however, I had met a German guy, Toby, who was up for climbing the next morning. So the 17th, 5 days after arriving, I was finally going to climb! In the end, I bouldered with quite a few people today: Toby, a local Indian guy, a French couple, 8 Spaniards, …. So, even though the village is slowly but surely emptying, it’s still pretty easy to find people to climb with.

Toby and me went out to the rocks at 6AM. It’s all granite here, which is incredibly hard on your skin. After 3 hours of bouldering, it was becoming increasingly painful even to hold a good handhold, so I called it a day. The rocks are really nice though. I still have to get a bit used to the style, but I already managed to top a 6B and got within 2cm of finishing a 7A. The plan for tomorrow is to try a famous 7B, Double Arrete, that should be more my style. Also: new climbing shoes + hot weather + weakened skin due to sweating = ouch.

I guess someone had leftover paint :).

Little Tony is ready for climbing :).

On top of Cosmic Arrete.

Ouch :(. Luckily, one of the Spanish girls had some paper tape, so climbing could continue :).

The afternoon was spent trying to hide from the sun and doing some laundry. Exciting ;)!

Laundry day: exciting!