When it should have rained, August was unusually dry in Munnar, a hill station known for its misty tea gardens dating back to the late 19th century, in Kerala’s Idukki district. It brought bad news for John Quintez, a 55-year-old tour guide, as his clients made last-minute phone calls to tell him that they were calling off their scheduled trip in view of the dry weather.
This year, the town in the Western Ghats, with verdant forests, ravines, and a national park that is home to the endangered mountain goat, the Nilgiri tahr, recorded its lowest rainfall in 10 years for August. At 1,600 metres above sea level, a 63% drop in rainfall was particularly worrying.
“Monsoon tourists just need a tent or a small place to stay as the prime attraction is the microclimate of the hill station. Most tourists check the weather of Munnar once they are in Kochi, the closest city some 120 km away, and give the place a miss if it is raining heavily or is uncharacteristically hot,” explains Quintez, a fourth-generation member of a family that arrived in Munnar for plantation work from Tamil Nadu. A tour guide for 23 years with mostly foreign clientele, he says mindless construction activity has changed the character of the hill station.
