I don’t see elephants, but they sure are close. At least that’s what the guide at the Periyar tiger reserve says. The dung I just stepped on is the ultimate test. We continue the walk. I spy some macaques, parakeets, the skull of a buffalo. Around it closes the crowded green screen of the jungle, with its plants, lianas and trees, flowers that hang from the trees and trees that eat other trees. Of tigers, not a trace. And that thing over there that looks like an elephant… is a trunk that looks like an elephant. But what I do find is a horde of leeches. From the ground, from the leaves, they lean towards me, they climb up the protective socks that I have put on my legs. From the three hours of walking through the jungle I get mud, rain, an overwhelming landscape and an extensive collection of leeches. When I sit down to eat, I still find one stuck to my elbow and already swollen like a plum.
I am on the border between the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, high up in the Cardamom Mountains. They are part of the Western Ghats massif, which is hunted by the monsoons at the end of April and is not released until October. The annual precipitation multiplies by ten that of Valladolid. Hence, the stock of water drains down and, along the coast, the state of Kerala has a maze of lakes, canals and rivers known as backwaters. Canoes, bedroom boats, ferries or the impressive snake-boats with 128 oarsmen ply those waters. And it is further, already on the edge of the Indian Ocean, that the city of Alappuzha is located, where they are waiting for me tomorrow.
I try to figure out how to reach my destination, but I give up. So I ask my host. His hypothesis is that in Kottayam… they will know how. In any case, the city of Kottayam, before reaching the backwaters, has to be my first stop, and I ask there.
At 9 in the morning it rains, of course, and I find myself queuing to get on the bus. I’ve already gotten used to its dilapidated command bridge, to the skein of cables coming out from under the steering wheel, to the background music. The advantage of these buses over other vehicles is that they are like a tank and move at a reasonable speed, which would allow me to hop out for tea and get back on without forgetting to check my change. In any case, I always try to sit near a window, in case I have to jump. And we left by a road attached to the slope that runs between tea fields. The bushes appear brush-cut like academy cadets. They have also arranged poles for the pepper plants to climb on. That for a reason this is the Malabar coast where the Greeks, Arabs and Portuguese came to fill the holds of their ships with spices.
Follow a descent with three hundred curves. And we’re passing a latex plantation, when there’s an explosion and the bus lurches. We stopped on the shoulder. All men, accordingly, went out to study the cause. A piece of the fender has stuck in the wheel and has destroyed it. It rains, of course. And, when another bus passes, we take it by storm. Where a cramped passage fits, now we go two. But I reach Kottayam bus station. First stage passed.
I approach the boss’s office, who pushes me onto another bus. We got out, and the driver tells me to get off and points to another vehicle. And this one leaves me on a bridge in the middle of the field. “Kumarakom, Kumarakom”, says the driver. It will be something important, I suppose. I peek from the bridge. Below is an abandoned pier and a small kiosk where I can buy mango juice. As they say around here, with mango juice on hand, every trip is light.
I wait almost an hour. Then a couple of motorcycles, three bicycles and some pedestrians approach. And a water bus arrives. Their state is the same as that of the terrestrials. And we tackle it. The next stage is to cross the Vembanad Lake, the longest in India.
On the other shore, the passage disperses. Only me and a rickshaw remained. I ask him how much he asks for. Thus, by eye, I suppose Alappuzha will be five minutes away… What he proposes seems excessive to me. I make a counter offer. In the end he gives up and accepts my price, I climb on the trike and we head south. Thirty minutes later, having linked six means of transport, after taking ten hours to travel a hundred miles, I reach my destination, paying the fare that the rickshaw driver had proposed.
