Dear Josh, Thank you for telling me about Hampi...

Back in Toronto, Josh Tuffin said to me "Oh my goodness, you are going to India? - You have to go to Hampi! They have the best rock climbing in the world!" I replied with me usual response; "Josh, I don't rock climb, remember?" But, he kindly dog eared the page in my lonely planet none the less and now I will thank him. Hampi is amazing.
The landscape here is like nothing i have ever seen before. As the legend goes, Hanuman (the monkey god) was send by a Baba to get some plants from the mountains for healing. But instead, he brought back the whole mountain. The Baba tells him to return the mountain and so he simply dropped all the rocks on top of one another in... you guessed it: Hampi. For a while this place was the capital of ancient civilizations (of which I cannot spell). The story as well as the ancient temples and ruims that litter the land here help to explain the almost overwhelming beauty. It is majestic. Huge boulders rest on one another looking as though at any moment they will topple. The strangest formations I have ever seen exist here. We climbed yesterday to quite a peak, sat in a little gazeebo looking at a temple and over the vast rocks, the ruins in the distance. It was amazing: seven of us travellers sat together is ininterupted silence, all in awe of what we saw.
Today Darius, Meika and I rented bicycles and biked to the resevoir for a swim. There we met a young man, Moses (he was not in the reeds, but perched on a giant rock). He brought us to a swimming spot and sold us cold waters, sprite and mango juice. Then he took us to cliff for jumping where we met up with the sweedish boys from our Goa->Hampi bus. I must have jumped off this crazy 5m cliff about 4 or 5 times. It was such a blast. The bike ride through dirt, sand and potholed roads was wild and we weaved our way through water buffalo herds returning from grazing in the hills. As we biked home through the village (at I guess 'rush hour') children hopped on the back of our bikes and laughed at the free ride from us foreigners. It was kind of magical.
Tomorrow i hope to see a Hampi sunrise, do some yoga, and then see the rest of the temples i only saw from the distance.
So while I haven't climbed any mountains as the nimble Josh Tuffin might, I am doing it in my own style, on the bicycle, in the mountains, soaking in the sun, making good friends and enjoying life as a traveller.

Until next time...