Monday, January 10, 2005

Jiva shivachi bail joda...Jayee begeen apli pudha...

This was the very first time that i had been to a real trek with a trekking group, Explorers. We started at 1230 pm on saturday. We reached some place called Bamnoli at around 520, sunday, dawn. It was pretty chilly & we were fortunate enough to get a chai garam. We spent some time before sunrise near the lake, gazed at the sky. It gave a celestial feeling to witness the time span of dawn, gradual change of colors & the wisps of fog floating over the calm lake! Tushar, hereby referred as TNT happened to see some moving star & dogmatically claimed it was a geo-stationary satellite. A moving-geo-stationary, we had a hearty laugh, n people started talking about may be it was a satellite with different operation modes kabhi stationary kabhi moving etc etc. People like us, techies always end up proving that everything is a analogy.

We then went to base of Vasota, the paytha by a 1 1/2 hour long boat ride, with amateur antakshari for company. Then started the trek, we walked for about 3 hrs intermittently. A large part of the walk up was over a dry stream n my ankle must have turned 60 degrees in both directions a million times while doing the balancing act over the unending route of round n big stones.Thrice i missed from straining my leg n breaking a ligament or two. TNT's mouth continued to utter gibberish all through the way. The stress n the strain didnt seem to bother him, n kept us going as well. We took the Linux Vs Windows battle even over there, with Batman, AG & i Vs Sameer (who apparently was on both sides) n TNT as the referee. I was supposedly the founder of the KillBill movement, which i preferred to call PLF, the Penguin Liberation Front.

The afternoon heat, the physically demanding route led to massive dehydration, Minu broke. But she managed it later though. We reached the Nageshwar top at around 1230, had our lunch n even napped for a while. Damn i slept like a dead, when i woke up it took me some time to get to where i was. At 2 we left for Vasota. After a very exhaustive, 8km walk that too on cliff perimeters with slippery stones below we managed to reach Mhataricha Angtha.

We began the journey back at 4. By 530pm we had reached the paytha again. The downside route was much more easier. Sameer, Saudamini n TNT took a lot of time lingering around taking snaps, of god knows what not n the Explorers' leader had a tough time getting them moving fast. We were all set to go back when it occured that a couple was missing. The Explorers' team searched them out, n to everybodys relief they were found, after 45 minutes. Reason, they were enjoying the sunset, aha great at the cost of 40 odd peoples time. It was dark during the boat ride back to Bamnoli n the propeller got stuck in some net. Relief again as the boat driver managed to dis-entangle it soon.

We hopped back to Pune, n reached at 2 am, the worst part was that we got dropped at SP & Batman n me had to walk the entire Tilak road, after walking a whole day, to get a rickshaw.

Moral of the story, you get to know how much you can stretch your physical limits, admire the organisers who were on back to back treks, make new friends, n offcourse get really really really (a phrase accredited to PanditJi) close to nature !


Category [ _Trips_ ]

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