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Nagarjunsagar and Ethipothala Falls
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Srikanth S Perinkulam
 
February 25, 2008
Nagarjunsagar and Ethipothala 
My cell rings at about 5:00am . As I’m already awake by then, I recognize the person at the otherend to be Gaurav Saxena. Just a wake up call he says! Gaurav’s been one of the most activemembers of Hydventura and today morning he’s taken the responsibility of spoiling everyone’ssleep just to see to it that things go as planned ! A few minutes later I get a call from himinforming that he just had a bad fall and would not be able to join us for the trip. A pity that thathe couldn’t join us!The earlier day we’d planned to start off from Infycampus by around 5:45 am. Nayan and Gaurav hadarranged the Swaraj Mazda and Venkatesh happilydonned the responsibility of being the treasurer forthe trip. The group had decided on the route that thevehicle would take to pick up people as close aspossible to their residence. As planned, everyonewas ready at their respective pick up point more orless on time. We reached the city limits at about7:15 am and from there started the three and a half hour journey to Nagarjunsagar.We’d arranged for a quick breakfast right in the bus to avoid getting delayed any further. Gauravand Co. had made arrangements for Bread-Butter-Jam, Frootie packs and Water. I’d got Chipspacked from Hot Chips. We also had Haldiram’s namkeen and biscuits doing rounds . Havingspiked our energy levels we decided to have a brief introduction. We were 15 of us ( Gauravhaving dropped ) , and not many of us knew each other prior to this. It was quite surprising toknow we had an amateur photographer (Gourav Bhaduri ), Ace advenurers ( Abhishek Tiwari ,Aishwarya) et al in our group.The only outfoscion in our first Hydventura trip was Chaithanya- Sushyamala’s bro. As with any group outing we decided to play Dumb charades. SandeepSarda made the whole activity lot more peppy with his gyan and out of the blue thinking . Bythe time we’d reached Sagar, it was almost 10:45 am.We’d decided to finish the NagarjunaKonda visit beforelunch. The next launch ferry was at around 11:15. Thelaunch was a Diesel boat capable of holding about 300people. The close to 45 minutes ride and the beating sundid go a long way in helping the vendors sell cool drinksand other snacks. The ride was more or less monotonousand at times it was frustrating to move at that slow a speed.Yashawant and Nayan had a different experiencethough.They had kids who’d come for an excursionteaching them telugu! Reshma was no less in getting gyanfrom kids on the other side . Things travel teach you !
 
We reached the island by around 12:30pm thanks to the delayed start of the launch. Being given1hr to get back to the launch, we started walking towards the Museum. The stupas and the Altarswere pretty impressive. I’d been to the Museum a few years back so it wasn’t really thatenthralling to me. But it is a must watch , for first timers. It gives you a brief glimpse on life inthe early ages.Done with this we moved over to the strategicallyplaced canteen. From here you get to see the vastlyspaced out reservoir totally devoid of any urbanrepresentations. The blue waters, seemingly flowingonwards to meet the blue hued sky and the rocky landsat a distance is a sight you need to see with your owneyes to admire. Truly breath taking! With a brief photosession here by our ace photographer, we hunchedback to the launch point.Again a 45 minute ride on thereservoir waters and we’re back to the main banks.About 2:30 pm now, All we needed was some food (For thought ? ) ! We walked towards the closesthotel and ordered Thalis for everyone. I’m still not sure what to give credit to - the relishing mealor the gnarling rats in our stomachs. But whatever be the case, we did have one good sumptuousmeal !It was about 4:00 pm now and we decided to move over to Ethipothalla falls. The 12kms drivetook us about twenty minutes to get there. I was initially very keen on visiting this place but onlythe moment I was there did it loom on me that I’d actually been to this place before. The waterthen in the falls was pretty murky and the whole experience was pretty bad. But believe me, thistime it was far far better. The flow was pretty good and the waters much cleaner. Varun ,Sandeep, Abhishek Ramakant and Abhishek tiwari had brought their shorts and hence movedover closer to the falls. The stones were pretty slippery but why fear when we had an 80 yearyoung lady to help us cross it ? Most of us finallymade it close to the falls when Suyshamala slippedover the algae and got her dead cells on one of hertoes chipped out. It wasn’t a big hurt but then shecouldn’t continue standing in the waters, so she hadto get back to the other side. Just a few moments afterwe finish cleansing her wound, Aishwarya took thenext seat . Thanks to the old woman who steppedon her feet while she was getting back to the saferside . Venki got so tempted by the crabs there thathe asked the woman if she could catch some for him.How good would it have been had the womanaccepted!
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