Day - 3 (Chikkamagaluru to Shankaraghatta) - It keeps getting better - India

September 4, 2023

Day - 3 (Chikkamagaluru to Shankaraghatta)

Today I started late at around 11:10 AM but had beautiful weather and terrain to ride through.

Chikkamagalur is the land of coffee and where the Coffee Board of India is based. The second tallest mountain range in South India is also here. So a lot of coffee, spices, forests, and wildlife call it home.

The way coffee is grown here is quite different than what I saw in Colombia and Ecuador. The coffee here is grown amongst silver oak plantations. These lanky tall trees provide shade while also acting as trellis to the black pepper vines.

The coffee shrubs are at about my bike's height, while the black pepper vines hug and climb the silver oak.

I was fortunate to buy some local guavas, plants of which were planted by the seller's grand father before the coffee plantations took over all the land here.

These guavas came from the farm that's behind in the metal gates we see in this photo.

Along this beautifully shaded route, I kept seeing creeping Lily (gloriosa lily). As a kid, I was smitten by this lily which I saw every year or so during the monsoons. Then I had not seen or thought of them for the next 30 or so years and now it was so omnipresent.

Then I started leaving the coffee estates behind to climb through the mountains. Signs of the wildlife I might encounter were everywhere and I was equally excited but scared as well.

As I was riding through this elephant corridor, I passed a little kid sitting on a "high chair" keeping an eye on his farm and the hills beyond. His "high chair" was made of twigs and it sat on the highest part of his property. First, I was jealous of his "luck" and the scenery he enjoyed every day.

Then it dawned on me what he was doing. He's protecting that farm/crop from the marauding herds of elephants. Those encounters can be deadly (mostly to humans). I remembered the news article from previous night.

Very glad to have only seen a sign and not a real leopard.

After a longish lunch/coffee rest stop outside a village that's on the other side of this mountain range, I pedaled towards Shivamogga which was still some 3 or so hours away.

In Shankaraghatta, I stopped to get directions and the police said that it's not safe to cross the forest/Badra Tiger Reserve in the dark as a lot of animals do call it home and frequently "stop" traffic during the night or early mornings.

So, I ended up calling it a night even though I had not reached my destination/mileage for the day. Then again, I am a chicken and didn't want to encounter any of the wild beasts.

Today's ride: 82 km (51 miles)
Total: 344 km (214 miles)

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Rich FrasierYou don’t seem like a chicken to me! I’m really enjoying following along on this trip. So please don’t get eaten or stepped on! :)
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7 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesThe difference between you and a chicken might be that the chicken ends up as a tasty meal. Please do not do that.
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7 months ago