Anthargange – A Cavernous Exploration

I just got back from an amazing trip/trek to “Antharagange” . I had heard the name many a times but this time I was just hoping for a nice ride and a laid back time on a hot summer Saturday. But what I found instead was a day full of activity, fun, sun and loads of climbing.

 Anthargange is about roughly 65 to 70 kilometers from Bangalore, you will need to take the NH 75 to Kolar. And just as you reach Narsapura ask for directions to “Anthargange”. The ride started early at 7 in the morning, the weather was pleasant and having had a short stop for breakfast and to load up on munchies and water, we headed straight to our destination. 

Then we reached the temple a little way up, a quaint temple structure with few tourists and priests about. The place is infested with monkeys , so you might want to keep those chips packets, chocolates and even water bottles tucked deep into your back pack. Then just a short while later we were traversing through a rocky climb up, filled with an array of boulders, thorny shrubs and plain dry heat. My distaste to climbing and to heat did not help or motivate me, but my fellow trekkers were absolutely hopeful and helpful, lending me a hand and putting up with my atrocious pace. With my plenty pit stops we reached the top or so I thought. The view was absolutely splendid, a nice expanse of hills and little villages nearby, a nice pleasant breeze, we even spotted a well and some stagnant green water that just added to the already amazing view. 

 

We had taken a localite with us to guide us to the caves, we had heard that there were a couple of them on top and we were hoping to explore them, the guide turned out to be an egoistic, knowledge less guy who was hoping we would give up half way through so he wouldn’t have to show us the entrance to the caves, the route to which he never knew.  Then we went through fields and then reached even more rocks, the place of entry to a cave was non existent, this disappointed our team to great degrees, we got rid of the guide and took the task upon ourselves to find the cave. We happened to bump into some local kids who said they knew the route , we had to take the chance, after all the climbing we had done, it would be a waste to let go of the caves having come that far. 

This time around it was a pleasant surprise, we not only found the cave entrance, it also had water inside it. It was too precarious to get in and hence I left it to my more agile team mates. They all went in , tasted the water and came out looking triumphant, happy and content. I was feeling low that I couldn’t get in and with that came another surprise, another cave large and awesome. We were all quite famished, with a few biscuits and water at our disposal, but we were very intent on exploring the other cave. The entrance was a deep slide and then it was superb fun, we sliding, and jumping, it was absolutely enthralling. There were places where I had no clue how to propel myself out , through a small hole , vertically upwards, with nothing to hold, but we all did it all the same, there were places pitch dark where we had to slide across a slimy rock, with a deep crevice below us. This entire experience was fantastic. 

After all this we got out of the final cave at 4.30 in the evening, we headed down, without a pause. My climbing down skills have always been exceptionally good, as good as my climbing up skills are bad, my stomach had  stretched to its ultimate hunger tolerance, all I could think of was food. After a very fast and easy climb down, we had loads of fresh cucumber and started to the main road to stop for lunch. By the time we reached the Shanthi Sagar it was already 6 in the evening. We belted on “Bisi Bele Bath” which was absolutely delicious. After the food we were all quite sleepy and tired, but we still had to do a 70 km ride back. The ride back was very pleasant, with a cool breeze, low traffic on the high way. Though the harsh reality of lights, pollution, dust, noise and traffic hit us as we entered Bangalore, we were still very happy with our little exploration and rest was the only needed thing now. 

Parinitha Konanur