Solo forest trip to Vythiri (Wayanad)

Started with a longing for the place

During my family vacation in October 2014 to Vythiri, wayanand located in the Western Ghats in Kerala, I decided to come back to this place again “Alone”. With kids during my first visit, me and my husband, because of kids, couldn’t go for walks together. Instead we took turns for such walks. I wanted to go for long walks apart from nature walk and plantation walk conducted by vythiri resort. Even after getting back home I always felt the urge to visit this place again to complete my walks which I couldn’t do in that trip. Thus, trekking in that jungle became part of my bucket list.

Finally Day 1!

Finally in March 2015 I decided to go solo to vythiri jungle. After dropping kids to my brother’s place at Ahmedabad I took a flight to Calicut. From Calicut airport took a cab and reached vythiti resort. It’s a 3 hr drive. And finally, the trip began! Next day morning we headed for long walk. I was accompanied by naturalist as its not allowed to go alone in forest.

First day of our walk, we climbed uphill approximately 5 kms. Sunrays coming amidst the branches of numerous trees were creating an altogether a different and surreal world.

Since it was month of march we encountered very less leeches. Leeches are seen in plenty in all the seasons except summer. But anyways need not be afraid as while leeches are blood sucking parasites, but bite of a leech is painless, due to its own anaesthetic. I have observed people to be afraid of leeches. People keep shouting in forest when they see one or more leech on their body or get bitten.

The forest was green and the trail was covered with brown leaves. While walking Dr. Rao(naturalist) briefed about flora and fauna of the forest. There are more than 60 species of fern and more than 3 types of mosses. Though I have seen mosses earlier but was amazed to see large cluster of ferns. In further walk we came across a waterfall. I was disappointed to see that the fall had completely dried up at that point in time. During my previous visit water fell from aprrox 20-25 mts and it was fun to climb down the waterfall, with the stream, taking help of huge rocks, and getting drenched in stream.

As such, this forest also has some aquatic animals. There are about 10 species of amphibiams and fewsemi aquatic animals. I also saw variety of frogs and tortoises!

Across the road there is small place for bird watching, rather insect watching. Spotting birds or insect in tropical rain requires lot of patience. It is not like spotting birds on plains. Visibility of variety of insects is much more than birds. Since march is mating season for insects one can easily see male insects wooing females. For the first time saw flying mating!

We trekked for about a km and saw one huge tree, broken and fallen on the ground. Climbing on top of it was a challenge and walking on it an even bigger one, but a pleasure when I did it.

Randomly walking in the forest, we came across large rock. It was actually a resting place of a leopard. Well, there was no leopard waiting for us there, but the place was nice, cool and shady and gave a sense of peace as well as jitters!.

By this time I had walked approx. 15500 steps. Rested there for some time before we could reach from where we started. To my surprise we spotted nest of king cobra. Came to know that there are about 6 species of snakes in the forest. With the sound of leaves crunching of dry leaves I thought I might spot king cobra but a crab came out from nowhere. Nature has vivid colors and shades. It was beautiful to see orange crab on brown dried leaves.

The forest was full of bracket fungi. Throughout the trek, Dr. Rao kept sharing his knowledge about different flora, fauna, reptiles, mammals, amphibians found in the forest. That day went really well and clicked lots of photographs, which will surely serve as a treasure for lifetime.

Ending the day with a good massage

I ended the day with a good massage in the resort spa and good sleep. Humans tend to be greedy. I started expecting more for next day trek.

Next day

Next day trek was going to be longer with steeper walks. Morning tends to be good when chirping of birds wakes you up instead of alarms.

That day I walked almost 7 kms uphill on a beautiful path. Initially I couldn’t get the same feeling as the day before as today I was walking on tarred road. Throughout there were green bushes in the middle of the road, which was a good view when combined with mixed hues of sunrays.

That day, also came across a tribal temple, abandoned houses, few butterflies and huge rocks to simply rest.

Overall, a great trip and must for nature lovers. Would be soon posting further details of stay, people and places for enthusiast who might want to plan a trip.