Salim Ali Centre

Day 5 - 1st Oct, 2009
After the Early morning safari, we ate the breakfast near the information centre, saw the displays at the exhibition centre, rested ourself below the trees near the information centre. We left around 12:30, reached parambikulam village, ate our lunch, refreshed a bit, took the neccessarry stuff for next couple of days to stay at Salim Ali centre and Full Moon Census. Initial plan was to get the material with us and someone will cook for us near salim ali centre. Unfortunately, some one passed away in parambikulam village and most of the people who stayed near salim ali centre came to parambikulam village. So, change of plan. For the next two days, We packed enough chappatis, tomato rice, curd rice, eggs, bread, jam, banannas, candles, etc.

Since Salim Ali centre is on the way to the cochin tramway trek and we already covered that trail, we didn't want to walk 10 Kms again on the same trail. We reached Salim Ali centre in the SUMO and we released the SUMO. Babu didn't come with us. He was there in parambikulam village to attend the rituals. New guide came with us.

We reached around 5:30. Guide cleaned the salim ali centre dormitory. That facility had Bamboo cart, very basic toilet, water arrangement for the toilet, no power. We off loaded our lugguage. Bliss went to river to take bath. Rest of us asked our guide to make the arrangement for fishing. We have already brought the fishing thread and the fishing needle from parambikulam village. We got three fishing rods, tried to catch some fish. We got some pull from the fish, but they are smart, ate the earthworm and went off. It started getting dark, we went back to salim ali centre. Ate our packed dinner. Went to sleep. It was raining whole night.

Next day, day 6, Got up around 8:00AM, it was still drizzling. We brushed, asked our guide to boil the eggs through some villagers who stayed near salim ali centre. We ate chappattis, eggs, bread, and jam. Bliss went outside, did some Kalipayattu practice, followed by Rain Yoga. Since we need to be awake on full moon census night, We rested ourself in salim ali centre. Babu reached salim ali centre around 12:00. We ate our lunch around 1:00PM, relaxed a bit, packed our stuff, vacated salim ali centre around 2:30PM and headed to Full Moon Census.

You can read more about our parambikulam experience from the main blog entry on the parambikulam trek blog entry .