Hampi - night bouldering

The landscape around Hampi is so surreal, that no photo can capture it´s magical spirit. As I got briefed well about this place I hired a bicycle and started exploring the areas surrounding the town following a hand drawn map created by the biologist I had met on the beach. Over stones and sand I went with this one-gear-crap-bike which was falling apart little by little. At some point I had to leave it behind and hike and climb over big boulder-rocks (Hampi is a paradise for climbers…) to find ruins of temples and palaces.
In the afternoon I decided to search for a waterfall I had heard of. After some time and only with the guidance of a local, Fritz (a German guy I met somewhere lost in the middle of nowhere) and I reached the waterfalls, not without climbing and jumping over smaller river arms. Enthusiastic and in total bliss the two of us had a swim against the current, climbing on rocks in the middle of the stream and like this moving upstream. Swimming back to our base I felt like a Olympic swimmer because of the additional speed by the current.
Over taking photos, jumping form rock to rock, swimming, having a picnic and just enjoying the sunset we missed the right moment to get going back. Too self-confident and having underestimated the way, we got lost on the river, trying to find our way climbing over boulders, searching for a way which would not lead us through the water and high vegetation further down stream as there most likely live crocodiles (the biologist had found a dead crocodile when see was here only a few days ago) and snakes. The whole situation turned out to be a bit like in a horror-movie, where the protagonists die one after the other because of getting separated. Fritz (who had been a total stranger a few hours earlier) and I did not agree on the way, as I was not willing to walk through the water and high vegetation without seeing where I stepped… So under the threat of separating us (which was not fair at all from my side, but my urge to survive was stronger than my wish to be diplomatic and considerate at that moment) he followed me over the rocks until we reached a barbed wire fence, which we crossed to get help of the only family who seamed to be living on this Island in the middle of the river with it´s huge rocks. I guess that the river bed was about 100 meters broad, so even with the guidance of this local it took us some more time over boulders, through shallow water-passages and finally out of the river bed, where we found our bikes. Exhausted, but happy for having gotten out of there without a scratch we brought our bikes back through the moon-light of the night before full moon.