Trek to Peb Fort – Literally on cloud nine :)

I was feeling sick on Friday ….
Amdocs was playing a crucial match on Saturday …
The bus was scheduled to leave at 4:30 am in the morning ….

 

So many excuses could have been given …. but now in hindsight I can say that it was a great decision to go with 6 of my friends at Amdocs , to be a part of this out of the world experience .

From the Left .... thats me ,Aniket,Samant,Patidar,Alok ,Ranjan and Pawan

Waking up is always the problem the rest is easy . Thanks to Rahul Ranjan’s call we were woken up in time …. otherwise this blogpost would never have existed . The sun had not still come out when we reached our boarding point around 10 mins late . Slowly more people started trickling in but there was no sign of Aniket,Rahul and Alok . Everyone was getting anxious as to when the bus would start but we asked them to wait for our friends . Finally they came in running ….. and at 5 o’clock off we started on this wonderful journey .

Uthne mein halat kharab ho jaata hai ... but we are still smiling

Best photo by miles !!!! God save Aniket and Rahul from Pati LOL

It was a four hour journey to the base camp in neral .On reaching there we had Sabudana Khichdi for breakfast . Because we thought we were going to have breakfast in a dhaba …. we thought we would buy some bottles of water there only … But all are assumptions went wrong and they was a real worry on our minds that we were really going to get short on water .

We had no idea of what was in store for us but there were two guides – Sam and Kaustav to help us along the way . We started by crossing a little stream .

The gradient was increasing gradually as the trek went on …. with the vegetation getting more dense . In the process of photos being clicked we were taking some rest . You just had to turn back and look in awe at the view . This would give us the motivation to continue further . On the way there were some electric towers where there was plain ground and we used to sit down there for a while . Suddenly the course got really steep and it continued this way till we reached the top . There was a little green snake on the way to make us all stop … but Sam was there to take care of this wriggly problem .

The thing that stopped our progress and hearts too ....

Every one was really tired and the question on everyone’s lips was how much more till we reach the top . Finally we reached a cave where there is a small temple inside and we were really proud of what we had achieved . We stopped there for lunch .

Inside the cave ... there is the statue of Shivaji

After having a decent enough lunch it was time to go by another route to reach a railway station from where we would follow the rail tracks and we would reach a road . I was thinking that now that we had reached the cave it was going to get easier . I was so wrong . Going downhill is much more dangerous … as you need to maintain full balance . One wrong move and you are gone slipping into the valley . There was a cliff on our trail and it was impossible to climb it on our own . So there was an iron ladder stationed there …..

On the way there was an awesome place to click some photos . One minute you can see the streams and lake down there and the next minute it was all covered by the clouds . The wind was blowing in your face and you just want to soak it all in . You can only dream of such places …. but now I was right there soaking it all in .

View from the top

When clouds are there ...

Then when we reached the railway station we were really tired by then .

Very Very tired after reaching the rail tracks

From then on it was just plain terrain as we followed the rail tracks . We could only see 10 metres ahead of us because of the clouds . It was almost like the tracks were leading us to heaven

The best part was yet to come …. as there were many small waterfalls on the way . When we went in to get ourselves wet it was so refreshing . It was a Godsend for us !!!

Sheer relief after all the fatigue !!!

After some more walking we were on the road from where you could hire taxis to take you down to base point where our bus was there … We had some garam garam Wada Pav there and ya lots of water After changing to some dry clothes there , it was time to head back home .

Finally off the rough terrain

On the way we had lots of fun playing Antakshari for some 3 hours . Our guide Kaustav was really amazing in the way that he remembered almost all the songs of the 90′s ( mostly Govinda’s ) .The manner in which he sung Kajra Re … the old and the new combined together will linger in my memory for a long time . It was so much fun …. that time just flew away .

Most dangerous part of the trek ....

The trek on the whole was simply AWESOME. We were quite lucky that there were no accidents … that there was no rain to make the terrain more difficult . There were many moments where I just had to have full faith in God and take the next step . Such treks really bring you close to nature … and you want to stay there longer …. no worries no tension of time passing away … its just such a shame that it is only a ephemeral episode and you have to come back to office on Monday

Simply Beautiful .....

Sometimes you just have to do , to see to believe it . So don’t take my word ….. go out on a trek this weekend and write an account of it . I am sure you will not regret it .

PS1: - Since I have a weak memory I wanted to write this down so that I can remember this day for the rest of my life
PS2: - 10 minutes is all it takes for registrations for treks organised by Amdocs club to fill up ….. now I know why

 

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