Joy at Jog

It was a thursday evening, One of my friend was headed to Jogfalls. I told him that I wanted to come and soon we were planning to do a 2 day trip to Jogfalls and Agumbe. But for some reasons, we had to settle for just Jog falls.

We left on Friday night and reached Jog at 6 in the morning. There was a slight drizzle and what a MAGNIFICIENT sight it was. I instantly fell in love with "Rocket". The beauty of the water smashing and exploding is beyond explanations. The water level in the dam had risen quite a bit and hence all the gates were opened making the falls very "FULL". We could not see roarer from where we were standing, nor could we see the end of RAJA as the mist rising was so thick. THe wind changes directions often making the falls appear and disappear behind the mist.

We decided to climb down. A local shopkeeper warned us of slippery rocks. As we started climbing down, I could feel my joints groaning like rusted joints. After about 20 minutes of climbing, our path was taken over by a stream but we continued our descent with wet shoes. But, the wind changed directions and in an instant there was a heavy downpour. We carried on but soon it became an wirl wind and the entire path was water logged. Our rain jacket, umbrella and water proof bags was no match for the 'Jog Rain', so we named it cause this rain was the mist rising from Jog. It was artificial rain!

We started to climb up, escaped the rain envelop and with numerous pit stops and chocolates to make up for the depleting energy levels we climbed back up. The timing was just perfect as the crowd had just started the descent and we had had our privacy and peace being early birds.

After a second round of break fast, we sat there drying our clothes and socks, taking pictures and me soothing my aching legs. Then we decided to walk to the other side, closer to the falls near the Raja rock. We took off our shoes as it was like wearing lead boots and walked the 3 km to the other side barefoot. There is a bridge which not only connects the 2 ends of river back but also sort of seperated the calm sharavati on one side and the gurgling falls on the other.

We reached the other side and rushed to see the vertically down view of the Raja falls. We can also see roarer from this side. It is a completely guided falls gushing out from a sudden bend in the rock above. It makes quite a noise, almost a thunder clap at times. The raja rock is a projection right next to the Raja falls and looking down from this point the abyss of the falls is visible when the mist clears. Also due to it proximity to the falls you can see the water exploding to billions of drops and mist. This view is priceless and mindblowing. After multiple peeks from the edge, we try to feel satisified but then, this is one of those things thats so attractive that dissatisfaction is guarenteed. After some time we head back, have some scanty food and want to spend time at the river bank.

There was no way to reach the water front, so we go instead to a green field. The rains which were holding back till now started lashing its wet tongue at us! We surrendered to the leeches in the field and headed back to the bus stand just in time for the bus to Sagar, a near by town.

At Sagar, since we had a couple of hours to spend, we had dosas and coffee, roamed around the town. It's a beautiful little town with very good looking people with an amazing complexion. Finally we boarded the bus and fell asleep instantly. Woke up in between couple of time due to leg ache but went back to sleep after shifting a bit. Sunday morning, back in banglore to find my bangalore in a pleasent post rains mood...