I left home at 5.30 AM and I reached the office at 5.55 AM, just to find no one there. Soon I saw Ram Yadav and we started abusing the organizers that they were so strict with us about the timings and confirmation for the trip, but no one of the group leaders or the bus were anywhere to be seen till 6.15. We called up Bhaskar and then called up Jinx, who told us to come at the main gate from where the bus will pick us up. So off we went to the main gate sharing the jokes and having some chit chat. We were supposed to be at least 12 people to be getting into the bus from the EON, but not all of them turned up. Finally a bus came and to our surprise it was a 17 seater tempo traveller. The driver said..."Sorry for late" which came as a pleasant surprise and we exchanged smiles when we heard him speak English. But, everyone was thinking how this 17 seater but will accommodate about 25 people which were from to be picked up on route. Suddenly, one person appeared from nowhere and asked us, "Is this Sungard group?” No!!" came the reply from about 7-8 people, "This is Allscripts group." The guy said ..."Sorry! This bus is for Sungard group and not for Allscripts!!" .. Ohhh!!! We felt partially upset to get down from the bus and partially relieved that now we can hope for a bigger bus that can accommodate everyone. Soon at around 6.35 the scheduled bus came and one by one it picked up the people from Red Chillies, Reliance Mart, Magarpatta, Dominoz (near Noble hospital) and Swargate and reached the Mumbai Bangalore Express highway at about 7.15 AM. All the buses were supposed to gather at that location before we proceed further. It turned out that one of the buses had some problem (punchered wheel I assume) at Bund garden. It took another 1 hour for us to start from that location. Meanwhile, we started our photo session and got a chance to have some road side tea and biscuits.
At 8.15 we started from the Dhayri Phata and reached the base location of the trekking at around 9.45 AM. Breakfast (Pohe and Tea) and attendance followed. The organizers distributed the plants to all the people interested in plantation. We took the plants clicked a snap and followed the red capped leaders on our way to trekking at Rajgad.
It started raining as soon as we started climbing up. People like Sachin were very happy with this. But, I moved my hand toward the sky rotated the knob anti-clockwise and soon the rain stopped. :) :).. I dint want the rain to start so early. Sachin was kinda upset with this. But, we carried on further.
Life was difficult ahead. The trek was more difficult than we assumed. I had an earlier experience of Raireshwar which was not so bad. But, this was in real sense some trekking. At certain points we had to climb steep 70 degree angles and it was muddy and sticky at some points because of rains. At every difficult point while climbing we felt that it was good that certain (healthy :)) people did not come to this trekking. It would have been difficult climbing for them at certain points.
We reached the Rajgad fort Sanjivani Machi at around 1 PM through the Chor Darwaja. Once we reached there we realized that it was worth the effort as we were totally refreshed by the scenic beauty around. As expected various groups started photo sessions. We were totally engrossed in the photo sessions when I heard Sandeep Kulkarni telling that we must reach Balle Killa which has an even more outstanding view.
So, we started Climbing for Balle Killa again. If climbing to Sanjivani Machi was bad, this was worse. At certain points it was steep way up and only one person could climb at a time. To our discomfort there were a few people who wanted to come down as well. But, they had to wait as there was no way 2 people could go across each other through that pass. We kept climbing at a crawling pace and thanking the people who had installed railing to hold while climbing up. Once we reached atop it was mesmerizing. We were literally in the clouds. Sandeep asked whether we had seen Zunjaar burud which was at the extreme end of the Balle Killa. We (Shobhit, Sachin and Me) obliged and went to see the view from Zunjaar burud though we were very tired after climbing Balle Killa. View from Zunjaar burud was absolutely fantastic. We thanked Sandeep for insisting us to have a look from there. It was fantastic view from there. The best photographs of the whole trekking event were taken there.
We also did the plantation at the Balle Killa. Then we decided to have lunch as we had seen various groups of people from our trekking team having lunch there. But, we were told that we should have our lunch after reaching down at Sanjivani Machi as otherwise we would get late. But, when we saw that there was literally traffic Jam of the crowd climbing down and we realized that it would take long before the traffic of people clears out. So, we decided to use this time and opportunity to have our much deserved lunch. Having food at the top of the hill among the clouds is a wonderful experience. The air flowing was so fresh that a few people decided they would want to spend there retirement life at the top of some hill. We ate to our hearts content and still we could not finish the food that Shobhit and Sachin has brought. A few folks joined us while having lunch but still we had enough food that we had to carry it back.
After lunch we started our descent to Sanjivani Machi. Reached there in about 40 mins. There again some photo sessions and plantation activities started. We also cleared some plastic stuff from the fort and carried back the garbage bags with us. We started to move back at around 3-30 PM from Sanjivani Machi. After the tiring effort of climbing no one thought in the wildest of their dreams that coming back down would be more adventurous and full of risk. To make matters worse it started raining very heavy when we came down from the Chor Darwaja of the Sanjivani Machi. The same track from which we had climbed up was now a mini waterfall because of the heavy rains. We kept holding each others hand and kept coming down at a crawling pace. It was full of adventure coming down through a water fall. Somehow finally we reached the base after lots of hiccups and small slipping and sliding here and there. Shobhit had some minor sprain in his left hand when he slipped at one point.
Soon as we reached the bus we changed into dry clothes and removed the shoes and shocks. Most people were literally in pain because of fatigue of the whole trekking event. But, none of us were complaining. Every body had a gala time. Everyone who had come there had stories to tell to those who missed it. Finally, we reached Pune and I took my bike from the EON office and reached home.
It is worth saying here that those who missed this event really missed it. If there is heaven on earth it definitely is on the top of the hills in the Monsoon around Pune. :) :) I still have to see Kashmir to prove myself that there are still some better and beautiful places in the world..:) :)
For those interested to know more about the fort and the trekking here is a link from wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajgad
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