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Photo credits Optical Illusion

The Cinque Terre — five picturesque fishing villages perched on Mediterranean hillsides, splendidly brushed in sun-washed colors.

Or so say websites and it truly a paradise on earth…  Ever since I saw this place on the way back from Rome, I’ve been soo wanting to come here and spend a couple of days and trek along the cliffside.  And this petty dream has come true today… with my generous PM offerring to give tomorrow off!  Friends heading to Rome and I’m headed to the Liguria province where Cinque Terre is located.

For those that’re not really comfortable with Italian, heres what Cinque Terre means: Cinque (Chink - kweh) meaning 5, and Terre (Therre) meaning land.  And it is… the paradise consisting of 5 small villages from south of the coast to north namely: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Cornigilia, Vernazza, Monterosso al Mare.

I’ll be spending 3 days at Riomaggiore and covering as much of the rest of the coastline by foot and by train.  This is gonna be an awesome trip!!!  Expect some good photos when I get back.

’til then… Ciao!!!!

Kumaraparvatha or KP as its fondly called by a lot of trekkers is one of the most beautiful peaks in Karnataka. Situated in the Coorg district, this place is awesome and is as amazing as nature can get. And for this reason, it’s frequented by a huge number of people… And for this reason, this place is sh*# screwed up…

Nisarga is organizing a backpacking program called “Trek to Clean” to Kumaraparvatha with the intent of enjoying nature in the best way possible and also cleaning up the place enroute…

This is happening on 15-16 December, 2007. Participants will leave from bangalore on 14th night and be back in bangalore on the morning of the 17th so that they can get back to work…

As I mentioned previously, the trek is a complete backpacking trek, so, everything is taken care of by the participants… From Cooking, to cleaning up the vessels to cleaning up the route and dumping the garbage collected. We will be providing the the tents and carrymats for you to rest yourselves during the night… So, rest assured, you will sleep with a satisfaction of having done something good… Oh! And, Nisarga will also provide you with the ration, vessels, the stove, gas and the likes for you to get your hands into the cooking department…

We expect each participant to pick up approx. 2kg of garbage in bags provided and we will ensure the safe disposal and cleanup of garbage once we touch the town limits… The collection of garbage is on you, the cleanup and disposal is on us…

The total cost of the trek inclusive of travel will be Rs. 1600 /-.

Those interested in the trek call me at 99453 94216 / Rajendra at 94480 38220 / karthik at 99800 17105 or mail us at info (at) nisargaindia (dot) com for more details.

The post is a bit late on the page as I’ve been quite caught with a lot of stuff to organize and lot of camps to take care of… But then, here it goes, Trek to clean!!! Keep your environment clean. And as we say at Nisarga, we have one planet! Lets not dig graves for our own future…