Thanksgiving weekend

For the Thanksgiving weekend, we made a lot of plans - Santa Cruz, Monterey and Point Reyes. But of course its the holiday season, its cold outside and we got lazy. So we ended up doing only one of those - Santa Cruz! We got lots of rest and an appropriate dose of fun ;)

We picked a pleasant sunny day for our trip and took the longer, but more scenic, California State Route 1. And WOW, what an awesome drive! Running along the beautiful Pacific coastline, it is THE most scenic route I have ever been on.

En route pics of the coastline

Picnic benches en route

On the way we spotted the Pigeon Point lighthouse and stopped to soak in the view. Visitors aren't allowed inside the lighthouse, so we had to content ourselves with the beautiful views outside. Right beside the lighthouse are the ex-housing quarters, which have now been converted to a Hostelling International hostel. Apparently, the highlight of the hostel is this nice hot tub right on the cliff edge overlooking the lighthouse. Tempting, isn't it? The husband and I immediately decided to come back and stay here a weekend.

Pigeon Point lighthouse

View at Pigeon Point

Pier at Pigeon Point

From here we went on to the Santa Cruz wharf. We had our lunch at a seafood restaurant on the wharf with pretty views of the ocean through porthole shaped windows. With happy bellies, we went exploring the wharf. And this is when I fell in love with sea lions.

My first sighting of the Sea Lion

Sea Lions lazing around

It was a nice calm afternoon we spent on that wharf, filled only with sounds of the sea, barking sea lions, squeaking sea gulls and squealing kids. I know I mentioned in my last post that the bark of the seals was annoying. No longer do I find it annoying. On this trip I fell in love with that bark, so much that I recorded some of it!


  

Barking sea lions at Santa Cruz

We saw some solo, we saw a herd. Some were floating around lazily in the water. Some were napping on the platforms below the wharf. Plonking themselves on one another to find a comfortable sleeping place. Yawning. Scratching themselves behind the ears. Sniffing and sneezing. Even peeing! 

Some of them were squabbling amongst themselves - we saw a rogue sea lion push away others off the platform. Cute, aren't they? All in all, I found them so charming that I spent most part of the day looking for them, watching them, listening to them. 

After I had my fill of sea lions for the day, we went on to see what else the city had to offer. We spent what was left of our day at the amusement park right on the coast. We got into some scary mazes, some rides and then settled down to play some arcade games (we won some bouncy balls! :P) After a nice fun day, we bade goodbye to this lovely city and the adorable sea lions to head back home. 

The Golden Gate and thereabouts

This weekend, PD and I decided to check off the most obvious to-do for newcomers to the Bay Area - we went on a drive to the Golden Gate bridge. While the Golden Gate (the strait) itself looked pretty, my first sighting of the Golden Gate bridge was a little... underwhelming. I know, the bridge is one of the oldest, and has a number of firsts to boast, but I just couldn't see why this was the internationally recognized symbol for San Francisco (For very different reasons, I never figured how the Charminar is the signature monument for Hyderabad either. I mean, clean the place up, for God's sake!)

My first sighting of the Golden Gate bridge

Horseshoe Bay

It could be that I had totally upped my expectations based on the beautiful shots of the bridge all over the net, and we weren't at the right place to get the best view of the bridge. So we went around looking for better vista points, and we were well rewarded for the effort! 

The Golden Gate and thereabouts - our weekend trip

We got excellent views of the Golden Gate bridge and the Pacific. Oh, the views, the pleasant environs, the quiet! It was quite a thrill to be at the very edge of the continent.

A view from a vantage point

Point Bonita in the distance

At the very edge of the continent

After a little bit of driving around, we found these nice picnic benches with an awesome view and settled down there with some snacks we had packed from home. Lunch with a view, and what a view it was! Did I mention we spotted a deer?

Our view during lunch :)

Spot the deer!

From here, we headed onwards to the Point Bonita lighthouse. I guess this was the highlight of the trip. Reaching the lighthouse involved a short hike, walking through a small tunnel and a short suspension bridge. With breathtakingly spectacular views of the Pacific throughout! By now I was thoroughly enjoying myself.

Point Bonita lighthouse

The Golden Gate bridge from Point Bonita

The blue green waters of the Pacific

We realized after we got there that the Point Bonita cove is home to harbor seals and wished we had brought a pair of binoculars. We did get to watch them lazing around on the rocks from a distance though. We even saw some of them jump off the rocks into the water, and back from the water onto the rocks. They have such a cute way of flopping around, who would have thought they bark! And not even a cute puppy kind of bark, more of a hoarse annoying bark.

Spot the seals!

Here is a close up of the lazy seals

I loved the trip, and I am sure we are going to go back to the Golden Gate again. There is so much more to explore, and the sights so beautiful. I can't wait to go back again!

The Golden Gate beckons!

Beach time!

Amidst the crazy time that was August, PD and I still found time to go to the beach in Vizag. This was my first visit to a beach, and I loved it (apart from all the humidity of a port town, of course)! We went to the Rushikonda beach early in the morning (a lovely drive), and we had the beach pretty much to ourselves. It was a beautiful feeling walking along the shore, sand between my toes, waves splashing up to my feet, each wave trying to sweep the sand away from under my feet. We collected sea shells, watched snails attaching themselves to the rocks on the beach, and spotted crabs. PD tried horse riding too, and he loved it!

We took along PD's GoPro camera on the trip and captured some amazing pictures. GoPro cameras are shock proof, water proof, wide angled cameras which were initially designed for surfers to capture action photos. Since we planned to get into the water, this was the perfect camera for the beach. The GoPro doesn't come with a viewfinder, instead it can be remotely controlled from your phone and can be set up for interval shooting. And, we were still experimenting with the GoPro. So, we ended up with a LOT of badly framed photos, and a few awesome ones. Here are some of the awesome ones:

A lovely morning by the beach

A beautiful shot of us on the beach

A beach all for ourselves

Majestic waves

Experimenting with the camera underwater

PD riding a horse

Badami-Pattadakal-Aihole: A heritage tour

(Hereafter shortened to BPA in the interest of typing effort)

Fields full of smiling sunflowers standing tall. An interesting set of co-travelers. A couple from Bijapur who took offence because I wasn't suitably impressed by Bijapur ("You should have taken a guide beta"). Another who was indignant that the Cholas are never given their rightful place in history books ("Cholas are relegated to a 5 mark question in history exams!"). A fairly explicit sculpture of the Goddess of Fertility. Awfully hot weather in the middle of January. An artist sketching away in a corner of a monument using the stone sculptures for models, making me wish I was half as skilled. Lots of time spent catching up with my mom. Even though BPA isn't as charming as Hampi, nor the sculptures as intricate as Belur-Halebidu, these are some of the memories I will carry from my BPA trip.

Having decided that it had been a long time since I traveled for leisure, me and my mom sat down to pick a destination for a three day weekend. BPA had been on my list for quite sometime and satisfied my criteria of  being connected by train (I suffer from a not-so-mild case of car sickness), while the name was tongue-twisting enough to pique my mom's curiosity. Train and hotel bookings done, we reached there early on a Friday morning to find out that 3 whole days was probably overkill for BPA. So at the last moment, we decided to add Bijapur to our itinerary.  

On Day 1 we covered Aihole and Pattadakal during the morning and the Badami caves in the afternoon. Aihole was a little disappointing, more so as our driver wouldnt stop at any of the smaller monuments we wanted to see ("Ye saara ek hi type ka monument hai madam, aapne ek dekh liya na.") Pattadakal was one sprawling campus full of beautifully sculpted monuments - a visual treat indeed. The Badami caves were a tiring climb, but were totally worth it.  On Day 2 we went on our impromptu trip to Bijapur, where the only noteworthy monument was the Gol Gumbaz (which had an equally tiring climb up, but wasnt nearly as interesting as the Badami caves). On Day 3 we covered the other monuments in Badami during the first half, while the second half was spent recovering from all the exhaustion.

Here are some shots from the trip:

Durga temple, Aihole

The sprawling Pattadakal campus

A recurring motif across BPA

Cave sculpture of Vishnu that is synonymous with Badami

Resting point in between some heavy-duty climbing at the Gol Gumbaz

Dancing Shiva at the entrance of Badami caves

Bhootnath temple complex at Badami

Reclining Vishnu - one of the numerous sculptures all around Badami