LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL: Trek to Savari Waterfalls

The trek to Savari waterfalls has the best scenic beauty.The landscape is rustic and enchanting; especially the sunlight through the foliage; The movement of water through the rocks; the brown, black and beige coloured dry leaves on the forest floor; the same coloured leaves in the crystal clear water, the trees which are 100s of feet tall trying touch the sky or wanting the sun?; the fallen trees on the ground, in the river, on the rocks, oftentimes on other trees, as if cradled in the laps for ever (?), suspended in pace and time; There was a tree in particular, which grew upto 60'-70' in height, abruptly bent at 60 degrees, and grew another 30', and went over another tree, and kept growing tall / long(?), entwined with another tree, mind you, all this at an angle or horizontally, and passed another 20'-30' and got tangled up among other trees. The last we could see, it crossed diagonally across the river below. We could not trace its journey beyong this point. God knows where all it went! First time for me to see a tree which behaved like a giant creeper! The tree must have been easily 300'.

It was a perfect trek, as far as I am concerned; the location of Savari waterfalls (in Rivona), was far enough to get away from the city, sumptuous breakfast in the midst of Mr. Patil's spice farm, Great weather, neither hot not humid, with a slight cool breeze in the forest, terrific group of trekkers for company, thick jungles, irrigation canals, paddy fields, bright sunlight, mountains and valleys covered with vegetation, the black rocks in the river bed, finally the very high waterfalls, the backwaters of Salaulim dam, a great picnic lunch by none other than Mr. Patil and his team, and many more attractions.

Most of trek was connected to the water in one form or other. Initially it was walking along or on the embankment of a irrigation channel, a few times crossing it, and then along the Savari river (?) and crossing it several times. there was not much water in the river as most of it was diverted to irrigation for the fields; second half of the trek was in the river basin. May be you are conjuring images of sand covered river bed and knee deep in water? no, this river bed was different; it was completely strewn with black Basalt rocks the size of a 3' - 5' in diameter; sometimes going round them, other times climbing them. if you are not sure footed, it is a bit risky.

The sumptuous breakfast of Dosas, spicy tomato chutney, pea curry, and Raagi floor cakes and hot tea! Have you ever seen a lone leaf jetting out of a cut-off banana stump?