a touch down of limits.. KODACHADRI.. continued...

PART II

DAY 2—27 OCTOBER

A long break between the two parts… hmmm… couldn’t have helped it, just got busy with the last ODD -END SEM exams in the college.

Well, starting from the point I left. So, after a true trip cum trek day out, here comes the night… a long one, a cold one, a non-sleepy night. Having given my jacket to GOGO, who had nothing to put on to protect himself from the punishing cold, I had to share a thin blanket with Mr. 6’2”,Alok, which I think I got so conscious of to not to pull from him that throughout the night I only didn’t get anything over me.

Anyways and SOMEHOW the darkness gave way to the sunlight, people woke up, all in the same tone,

“I couldn’t sleep at all yaar, it was so damn cold”. Also, now the much famous (actually infamous and dreaded) Bansal’s loud exclamations of deep sleep getting proper words.

The morning was lovely pink cold with bright yellow sunlight bathing the green slopes. Wohh…!!!! somewhere one would like to stay and spend his life, a beautiful experience, clicked..!!!

A little yes-no but finally we stuffed our breakfast, though I gave it a miss to avoid any of the nature’s call later going down the slopes, u gotta take care of these things :P. Careful and cautious, as we were, we descended the slope in an hour and half, the same slope we took 3.5 hours to climb.

At the base, Santosh Hotel, our lunch was ready. An early lunch was followed by an awesome mimic session with the stylish cat-walks of Tripathi, Shiva, Gaurav, Shenoy and others getting showcased, people getting swiped by a cow and some playing around. This small stoppage gave me a little time with Ro’s pod, a short lone walk with some soul cleansing, and high volume music under the slopes which pumped some serious thoughts in my mind :).

Now was the turn of the most dangerous part of our trek, the one to the Arashinagundi Falls. We had already booked for a guide to help us through the jungle, which I am so glad we did. Through the jungle with regiments of leeches, rubbery slopes and a superfast team of the identical twins, ’guide and Deba’, it was tough to be on the way. So many times it felt like a trek can never get any tougher than this. I kept on wondering how some souls of our class were able to walk through all this. The only one who gave up was, VARUN SHENOY , and it was hell of a task to pull him all through the trek, Sandy did an excellent job in being with him and helping him transverse the miles. Some tense moments with GOGO getting irked with repetitive calls of moving fast, Shenoy’s red, sweaty face and body which looked like dropping any moment. Well, these later gave way to Macha’s OOLA-LALA-LA-LE- O, our anthem for the later stages of the trek. This was real fun with Macha singing his piece and the ones walking ahead putting up a proper response to it. A special mention and thanks must be given to Tripathi for his ‘unintentional and asked ‘ help to ‘just the other gal, Christina’. :P

A few more minutes of rough trekking and we were at the much awaited, rather much wanted falls. Whohh, nice pearly water falling from the top reflecting sunlight and refracting some to form small rainbows. An apt destination of the tiredly and sweat sapping trek. Relaxing by the side of the cold water, resting our heels. A nice little closed photogenic place the shuttermen exploited fully. Though most of us enjoyed the water keeping out of it, but some did get in and took full quota of their fun.

After about two hours of masti at the falls it was time to pull up our socks and start back. The guide left us at the juncture where the track to the gate starts and we started the long 6 km straight walk. This particular stretch was just too much for so many of us to handle, with most of them already tired at the falls, they dejectedly walked the distance. The journey where even GOGO got restless, Shenoy took an oath of never going for a trek in future. The look on their face on finally reaching the gate will be the last thing I’ll forget of the trip.

This brought us to the end of the most grueling, most funfilled trip we can ever go to.

Hope, we can pull off something similar in the next sem.

SHINING STARS of the trip:

FLYING DEBA, DEEPTI ‘the WONDER GAL’, DARSHANJI ‘the PATH SHOWER’, GOGO ‘the gravity defying heavyweight’, TRIPATHI n CHRISTIE ’the unbreakable pair’, DD ‘the JOINT convener’, MACHA ‘the OOLA-LALA-LA-LE- O man’, GAURAV ‘the MULTI-WOMAN man’, SHIVA ‘Mr. CHEMICAL trip’

DOOMING STAR of the trip:

VARUN SHENOY, VARUN SHENOY AND ONLY VARUN SHENOY , “ cramps”, “this is highly impossible”, “my body can’t take it”, “I can’t climb this”, “I am very upset with my physique” etc. etc. etc.etc.

a touch down of limits...KODACHADRI

Well... this one'll be a long one, no doubt about it...!!! So will be putting it in parts.

Much before I came to the college, after my fling with Chennai, I had this thought lingering in my head, 'this is the last year in the college and I better make it the most memorable one'.
Guess what..!! One of the ways of doing that was to have frequent class trips, spending more quality time with the people closest to me in the college (counting the fact that I feel myself a little too much attached to my class).
So, after I got done with my placements and the class also got free from their engagements (placements, GRE,TOEFL etc. etc.), I sat down planning for an outing for us.
After scanning places throughout Karnataka and calculating pros 'n' cons for each of 'em we 'finally finalized'(after 5 date changes) down on KODACHADRI.
After a no. of class mssgs, personal calls to evry one, face 2 face persuasions and plenty of hours put in planning, 27 out of 34 of us set out for the trip on 26th morning.
The plan was simple-- a day trek to the Kodachadri peak, spending a night there, trek down to the Arishinagundi Falls and finally back to college on 27th evening.
We knew it will be a difficult trip, so got ourselves ready for it... shoes, jackets, eatables, salt to shut out leeches, glucose, ORS etc everything in place.
PART I
DAY 1-- 26 October
The trip started with a visit to the famous MOOKAMBIKA TEMPLE in Kollur, which I wanted to happen to pray for a safe outing for the class. It was really a beautiful temple, of which I realized much later that I'd been earlier.
Next stop was the Karakatte Gate, the starting point of our trek. Few group pics and the climb began. 10 mins into the trek and I heard the first of the 'many to come' frightened screams, the tormentor being Mr. Leech and the tormented being Christina, who for reasons out of my head, didn't come in proper footings and so became an easy n the first target. Socks from Sandy and sandals from Shenoy made her resume the journey, though she kept checking for any other leeches after every 20 m she transversed.
After a very easy trek, when compared to what we faced later, we reached our first pit stop-- Santosh Hotel, don't go by the name, it's just a small eatery u get only pre-ordered meals, else be ready to have IDLIs(which we had to content ourselves with).
Post lunch, the real climb started...steep inclinations paved with rocks, slippery mud, sapping overhead sun. Everything took a toll on each of us, the worst hit was Shenoy. After cramps, he was hardly able to snail his limbs but was brave enough to continue, thanks to GOGO and Tripathi along with decent amounts of glucose and ORS, who helped him and his 'really heavily stuffed bag'(despite clear warnings against it).
Snap shooting hundreds of scenics, joking around, plenty of breaks (esp with Shenoy) to reinstate energy levels and shouts of being together so as to not get lost; we made up to the guest house. Salutes to the first batch, the front runners, comprising of Darshan,Pani,Deepti,Ro and Deba, who made to the guest well before the tottering last batch, the one of Shenoy,GOGO,Bansal,Sanj,Dipankar,Raj,Arati and me.
Ohh...!!! What an achievement after 3.5 hrs of muscle swelling climb. Everyone fell down onto whatever slim bedding (only for the sake of being called one) they got.
With discussions galore about the mountain victory and a bit of nursing ourselves during the 45 mins rest at the guest house, we started the last phase of climb to the peak. Shenoy, Christina and Sandy decided to stay at the guest house. This was the most beautiful part of the whole climbing experience, with a top of world feeling with cold ambiance. Amazing scenes of multi-shaded green mountains. At the peak was the sunset point and a small temple which supposedly was Shankaracharya's meditation habitat. In absolute harmony with nature, a secluded heaven; no questions why Shankaracharya chose the place.
Spending some time there, though missing sunset :( for reasons of it getting dark, we left the place and came back to the guest house.

Now started the evening quota of fun, Tripathi’s fundae on Christina (his frank opinions) which ultimately got summarized distortedly by us to the ‘vicious circle- dumb—tease—gets angry—becomes even cuter---so like her---so dumb ‘. Our version of WWE, with GOGO and Sandy’s tag team losing to the ‘lankies’, Alok and Shiva and as in most of the fights, the referee—me here—getting thrashed :(. Some good songs from Indu and Darshan, with me in chorus. A decent dinner followed by few hours by the bonfire. Nothing better to finish off a tiring day with.

Next to come was a shivering night and the never forgettable day ahead, which will be in the next post.