Today was an early start and at 6 am I was already setting off in a group of 8 scooters and 16 people on a ride to the Aravali range, on Mount Rayta, to watch a beautiful sunrise from the top of the mountains. Then we went to see Lake Badi from Mount Baahubali and take a photo with the turtle-shaped mountain, and we also went to Lake Fateh Sagar.
We got back to the hostel at nearly 11 am and I took the chance to have a second breakfast on the terrace, this time the traditional Poha, which has rice, onion, spices, peanuts and lime juice.
On the terrace I found Celina, the French girl I had had dinner with the night before and who had stayed at the hostel sleeping, and I challenged her to climb on foot with me up to the Karni Mata Temple, and she accepted. Before that we stopped at the Jagdish Temple, which was full of people singing, offering food to the gods and praying, to see if he’d help us with the climb.
Then we started the climb on foot, up the stairs, to the Karni Mata Temple, which took about 1 hour, even though I knew there was a cable car. The climb was harder because we went at noon and it suddenly turned into a hot day, I could even go in a t-shirt.
We got to the top and stayed enjoying the lovely view over the lake and the city and looking at the temple. To avoid going back the same way, we took a chance on going down the other side, following the fortress wall, which had a staircase running down the whole hill and which reminded me of the Great Wall of China, and, even though the path wasn’t officially open, off we went.
The descent was hard, since there were some very high steps, but the worst part was when we got to the bottom and everything was closed and the fortress wall was too high to jump. We had to climb back up part of the staircase to a point where we had seen another staircase and managed to find a way out.
Then I went to the hostel for a lovely shower and to rest stretched out on a lovely sofa on the terrace, drinking chai and soaking up the sunshine until it set.
In the evening I went out for dinner at Restaurant Tatya, a Kadai Paneer, with rice and paratha bread and Gulab Jamun for dessert, all for 800 rupees with tip.