Annadana Soil & Seed Savers at Ishana, Gopathi Farm

Upon a recommendation, I gave Sangita Sharma a call about helping out at Ishana Gopathi Annadana Farm in Bangalore. Sangita is a passionate eco-activist and is a trustee of Annadana, experts in soil regeneration and seed saving, which has farms in Auroville, Kodaikanal and Bangalore. Annadana provides educational workshops and materials on low cost integrated sustainable farming techniques. Sangita also writes a blog called My Right to Safe Food. Her farm on the outskirts of Bangalore had only in the last nine months been converted into a seed-saving farm and their progress was impressive. Before arriving here I spent several sweltering days at Sai Baba's ashram in Puttaparthi. Since taking photos was not permitted in the huge high-security ashram, I don't have any good visuals to post from my visit there.

A display of some of Annadana's recently harvested open-pollinated seeds

Geetha and Sangita posing with seeds...

Above is a graphic that I designed for Annadana's education program. (Not my photos)

Nagaraj weeding rice paddy

Gopala watering

Sagar, Nagaraj's son

At Annadana, they regularly plant cover crops. These beds were sown with sun hemp, chick pea, cow pea and sorghum.

A few days later seedlings had emerged...

chard

Venkatanna a handicapped farmer with his fresh harvest of beets and radish

To maintain the varietal purity of seeds at Annadana, some plants are covered with nets so their flowers will not cross-pollinate with those of other rows.

Here's Sangita throwing some truth bombs at a cooperative of farmers who came to visit from Andhra Pradesh.

Here's Sangita distributing seed to women farmers.

Rice...

Lettuce going to seed

A view of some of the fields at dusk

Holi in Hampi

Holy
Holi! This is India's Festival of Colors, a celebration of the arrival
of Spring, although in Hampi it felt very much like summer already. I
rushed to make it to Hampi for the Holi celebration for most areas of
South India don't recognize this day of colored powder throwing
exuberance.

Holi
may be celebrated in Hampi just for the sake of all the western
tourists...Indian children continuously pleaded to get on our
shoulders.

Stalls along the main bazar road sold the colored powder...

Ran into Allison who I met at the Sivanadanda Ashram...

Lots of drumming and dancing...

The
ferry across the river to the westerners' guest house area was closed
and so we swam both ways across the current, simultaneously sort of
cleaning off the colors. I swam with one arm, keeping my camera in a
plastic bag above my head.

And cooling off...

Hampi

Early morning washing and bathing by the river...

Here's a sign showing the local police department's attempt to encourage western women to cover their skin. Meanwhile, Julie shows off her shoulders. Her travel blog details a journey much more extensive than mine.

Hampi is famous for its dreamy boulder-spotted landscape and is a destination for climbers. However, it is better known for its 14th-century ruins. The town of Hampi is set amongst tons of ancient ruins of the monkey kingdom. Over 500 years ago, it was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire before it was captured by Muslim invaders.

Adam (from Denmark) and I climbed some boulders to take in the sunset.

As I was inquiring about renting some climbing shoes, I hear someone call out "Fire Belly" in a Spanish accent. It was Pedro, seen above in lotus position, a Spanish climber that I befriended last fall in Yosemite on my PCT hike. I had camped with him and his friends in the Yosemite Valley for a few days. Pedro spends most of the year scaling rocks in climbing meccas around the planet...Small World!

Hampi is where I first really started to feel India's HEAT. When Adam and I left to go bouldering at 9 in the morning, some people asked us if we were crazy to try and go climbing so late in the day, because by 9 am it was already too hot. (This was in March.) By midday, it was so hot that it was too exhausting to be in the sun and one had to lie down and take a nap until the evening.

Hampi is the abode of Hanuman, the monkey god...

Hanuman

Hampi's main temple

One evening Adam and I rented a scooter. It broke down several times and we tried to get some money back as we had to pay a mechanic to fix it in another town...but that's another story.

Ruins...