48 hours of bus riding for 4 hours of goodness, fresh air

zoom in on this weirdo marking up the bus station in visakhapatnam, the second largest city in Andhra Pradesh and our stop-over... zoom out on everyone staring at her (5 minutes later she was finger-wagged and the art was scrubbed off)

the bus was crowded with beautiful things

except us.  Sophie had a puss-filled staff infection up her nose and I hadn't washed my hair in a week.  We'd both gotten minimal sleep on the previous 19 hour bus ride before hopping right on this lovely bus--

the bus, which was the little engine that could struggling at 10km an hour against a mountain for about 4 hours.

--but you'd have to be a rotten jackfruit to complain about a ride with this view--

ahh Araku Valley.  You can take a deep breath now.

wandered around little town til we found a beautiful cheap place to stay.

Indian graf (in Telugu)

the view from our place!

Cahill-esque sculpture

hello friend.

we have 4 hours.  let's wander.

the biggest spider i've ever seen was then proceeded by the biggest spider i've ever seen, then proceeded an ever bigger spider... it goes on.  These things were hanging out in gangs along the sides of the path and above it (yikes).  Look poisonous. Must identify.

the purpose of this posted photo for spider-scale... zoom in and there they are looming over their prey...

beeeeeeeeeeep

bleeep

(auto rickshaw in goat's clothing)

a silent procession except for a steady splattering of urine coming from one hydrated cow

the tree at the end of the trail.

dirty water and floating flipflops omitted for aesthetic pleasure.

i was anxious about getting back to hyderabad in time for class, so we thought we'd try this shortcut... but the lady with the water pitchers just led us to some spicket in the shade.  what are we gonna do?

 of course! we hitched a ride on the back of an extremely huge extremely rickety truck!  riding it like a skateboard and falling on our asses many times, we eventually decided to enjoy the scenery.

well, back on the bus already.  Here goes another 24 hours of my life... there might as well be the cutest baby alive playing games with me