A TREK TO EDAKKAL CAVES, WAYANAD

What you are looking at to your left above is the ceiling of a cave! When I bumpy rode a rickety Mahindra Jeep up the Wyanad hills, little did I realize that I was about to enter a cave that is 1500 feet vertically! I am talking about Edakkal Caves in Wyanad District of Kerala. This rock wedged itself after an earth quake 3000 years ago - Eda =Inbetween, Kallu =Stone in Malayalam, thus giving the cave name Edakkal caves.

Edakkal Caves are just off National Highway 212 between the the towns of Sulthan Batheri and Kalpatta in Kerala's Wayanad district. This area forms a part of the verdant forests that form the Kerala - Karnataka - Tamilnadu border. The approach to the cave itself is on a sheer vertical climb. You have to climb 2000 feet above MSL to be there. This is not recommended unless you have the fitness level to do rock climbing.

The cave itself is not huge or cavernous (pun intended!), but should be about 1500 sqft floor area but the ceiling is really high! The cave etchings go back 2300 years old. If you look carefully into the second picture, you can see the head of a chieftan, complete with his headgear.

The third picture has shows transcripts in Tamil and what a guide told me was some language between Tamil and Sanskrit named Prakritik. I am not sure how far that is true.

The place is a little hard to reach except for the Tourist Department's rickety jeeps, so it is not recommended for those cannot walk steep rocky mountainsides.