Hampi
climbing trip story
Hampi offers world-class
bouldering and the
opportunity of getting deep
inside into south India
The Trip
The last week of Nov'06 we left Spain heading to
Bangalore. The first memorable experiencie of the trip was getting our
bagagge lost, all of it (crashpads, clothes, climbing shoes,
medicines...). This started at Frankfurt when lufthansa (LH) offered to
all passangers to change the flight tickets to fly with Air India (AI)
giving an interesting reward. The AI aircraft was leaving one hour
later than the LH plus doing one stop at Bombay before arriving to
Bangalore (LH flight was direct). Anyway the reward was very good: 300
euros in cash or 400 euros discount in any LH flight so we took the AI
aircraft. The trip itself was good, a first glimpse of india: native
passangers and crew, old and dirty aircraft, indian food -some of it
just impossible to eat- and also some funny Bollywood movies with those
scenes packed with hundreds of people dancing and getting crazy all
together. I remember a scene in which two guys were so much happy of
meeting each other once again before a long time that they were just
running and running, smiling, yelling, both arms full open ready for a
big squeeze and well, they kept running, like forever, like
from infinitely separated points within the same room, and well, I
actually don't remember if they make it at last; It's when I see these
kind of crazy indian things that I understand that theory stating that
the european
gipsies, like those setteled in Spain, came from India many centuries
ago; well, the point was that after landing in Bangalore our bags were
missing -they get lost in our stop in Bombay in which for some reason
AI decided to change the aircraft-; fixing this involved a lot of
paperwork and we get a little bit nervous filling like we had no idea
of what was about to happen; but at last we get our bags and crashpads
back, just the following day and in February'06 I get an LH flight
ticket to Moscow for free; so at last it was not that bad. From
Bangalore I remember the big dark-green trees, the eagles roaming the
sky looking for rats and the excellent food of the ebonny
restaurant. Lots of foreigners
everywhere; most of them well-dressed people working in the blooming
e-business of the IT capital of India that is Bangalore.
After being less then 48h in Bangalore we head to Hampi, psyched to
climb there. We took a hired jeep with a very nice indian driver. The
350km
to Hampi took us allmost 9 hours by the highway!!!. Well, the highway
is full of big holes and at some point we met one of those old white
cars spread all over India fully within one of those holes. Another
feature of the trip was to see people the entire way. There's people
absolutely everywhere in India. I remember one day trying to pee next
to
a tree in Hampi just because I felt stupid about having to pay to use a
horrible dirty toilet and there was no way of doing it without being
seen by somebody. At some point we met a scattered
group of young boys aged aroun 20 completely naked walking the road
with just a bottle to carry some water and a strange artifact to make
themselves some shade. Those guys were enrolled in a many-hundred km
pilgrimage to some distant temple just living from what farmers were
giving to them. That's another aspect of India. So at last we hit
Hospet, a small city vibrating in pure chaos of animals, vehicles,
people and everything you can imagine. And after one night in the
nearby town of Kalamapuram we finally get into Hampi where we stayed
climbing for the following three weeks. Extreme poverty was seen all
along the trip from the suburbs of Bangalore to the streets of Hospet.
The
Climbing
As soon as we
arrived in Hampi Island we started climbing. The first day we crossed
the river to climb on the plateau right above the temple. Some
spectacular rocks are in there but in just two or three hours a
policeman came over and asked us to quit. 'It's not safe' he said and
then we thought he was talking about the danger of falling into the
ground but later we understood he was referring to another thing. After
this, we spend several days bouldering on the other shore of the river,
in the egg boulder area, which has some very nice problems, including a
warm-up highball crack, the 'classic dyno' (6a), a technical arete
(6b+) and the prow of the egg boulder (6b). One day, goin' up to this
area we discovered the 'hot slapper' boulder which has a very nice
7a; a wall problem starting with sloppers and finishing with reachy
crimpy moves. Few days later we discovered the Goa corner
(exceptional 7b+ arete) and next to it, the Rishimuck plateau with a
bunch of good problems: the 'long reach' (6c), a couple of 6b's, the
shield (6c), the hari's traverse (7a).... After this, we started going
to
the plateau between Rishimuck and the Egg boulder area which also has
some very good boulder problems. And then we visited the Baba
Cafe boulder which is probably one of the best rocks in Hampi. Dont't
miss the classic arete (6c+), Curt Albert's pocket (6a), space baba
(7b) and classic mantel (6b+) here. In the way to the Baba Cafe boulder
there is the Double Arete boulder, full of high quality problems
including the double arete itself (intimidating 7b). Before this, there
is a
huge rock in which an indication to the Baba Cafe is written. On the
other side of the sign there is one of the hardest problems in Hampi
(8a). Also it's worth visiting
the Seth plateau with the very good 90º arete problem (7a). Well,
at last, after 3 weeks of intense climbing we feel like we have
visited 1% of the total boulder space available.
At some point, just when we were
thinking about exploring, spliting in smaller groups and stay up in the
boulder
fields until dark night, we started hearing about the unsafety of the
granite plateaus. A lot of weird stories about murdering, raping,
violent attacks... always involving foreigners. A lot of people talked
about that, some of them indians. One day at Rishimuck, the policemen
were around asking people to go away back to the guest houses. It was
getting dark and they said: 'you are not safe here'. At that time I
thought it was all exagerated and only half, or less, true; but now
there is that web site of Pil, a
guy that has been
climbing in Hampi for a long time; you will find more details about
this intimidating stories there (and also other interesting stories and
nice
pictures). In any case, if you avoid night and you go with other people
I think Hampi should be always very safe; I think the main concern is
to fall from a rock and get some serious injury. The other point is
that police controls the site. Alcohol drinking is
strictly forbidden in Hampi because it's a holy place but the true is
that there is a lot of beer aivalble everywhere so the owners
of the touristic business just pay to the police to avoid problems. Com
bé ens va dir el Bombolla: 'Hampi és una paranoia
de lloc'.
The
'resting' trip to Gokarna
So after getting our finger tips trashed out we
decided to stop climbing for a while and make a relaxing trip to the
beaches of Gokarna; a trip that at last it was not so relaxing. Gokarna
is just next to Goa, few kilometers to the south. Although not as
famous as Goa it's supposed to be cheaper and more quite so we choosed
this place. We picked up a bus departing from Hospet at sunset. Again,
it's not a long way (around 300 km) but in India this takes the whole
night. Around midnight we stopped at an indian version of a
highway-service-area with a bar-restaurant really impressive for being
soaked in pure-dirty and an door-open kitchen with wooden-fires to cook
and
with the ground full of onions, tomatos and other stuff as well as
chickens walking around; I remember a couple of adventereous jewish
guys that stepped out the bus, barefood, and go for a chai in that bar;
at some point the driver was asked to stop and then some people went to
pee and pou in the surrounding fields, I think one girl was on intense
diarrea; around 3 am the bus stopped again in a place in the middle of
nowhere and we were asked to leave the bus since it was goin' north to
Goa; well, we didn't know anything about that so we were left alone in
that road; few minutes after a rickshow appeared and we took it heading
to Gokarna; that was a one hour trip across the night getting cold and
cold with the speed-wind of the air-open rickshow; the air smell like
putrefacted fish; so at the end we get into the beach and we asked the
driver if the guest house was going to be open at that time and he
ansewered 'yes, yes, yes' -in the indian style, shaking the head in a
way that in western conuntries inspires 'no,no,no'- but then, after
walking down the
stairs to the beach it was closed so we finished our marvelous trip
trying to sleep on the sand at the seashore; at least it was a nice
clear moony night
and with the sunrise I had a good bath in the sea; and then the
surrealistic combination of a paradisiac tropical beach with roaming
cows
shiting here and there happened; before noon we get a good room and
then we spend three days enjoying the big waves of the arabian sea and
walking the streets of the holly town of Gokarna. The last day we had
an amazing ayurbedic massage at the guest house of the beach. We get
completely soaked in aromatic oils that were partially removed by a
steam bath at the end. So then we were in hurry because our bus back to
Hampi was about to leave. Our clothes were very dirty at that moment
and then -no time for a shower- they get sticky with the oil still on
our skin and then we had a rickshow trip in a cloud of dust so we get
covered with it, and still, 12 hours ahead of us full of indian road; I
never had felt so much dirty in my live before; but anyway we catch our
overnight bus and then because the driver was goin' faster and our
seats were at the end of the bus we started flying off the bead-seats
every
time the bus hited a big hole of the road. We started laughing and
yelling crazy with the funny flights but at the end we almost cryed. We
were tired and with that movement was just impossible to sleep. At the
end we met the sun again and we arrived to Hampi. When the bus stopped,
hundreds of hands appeared around us holding cards anouncing hotels and
guest houses. So welcome back to Hampi even more tired than when we
left and with our
fingers still burned out because of the humidity and the water of the
sea
are not the best cure for trashed skin.
The
last days in India
Not so much climbing after the trip to Gokarna.
We were just feeling still too tired. I remember long walks across the
boulder fields at the peak of the sun. Walking barefood on the granite
ground, playing with the shades. Hampi is not only a bouldering
paradise, it also has something
special that goes beyond the climbing thing. Don't miss it.