High On Trekking!!

Trekking was never my forte. In fact, I am acrophobic. Even though I don’t know swimming I always choose beaches over mountains coz “girke marnese accha he chullubhar pani me dub maro”.

But somehow this time my intuitions wanted me to die with some severe anxiety hence I craved for some trek tripping. Fortunately my friends also have the same urge to risk lives therefore they agreed too.

So where to go? We wanted to choose a spot nearer and scarier so we settled for Ghanagad near Lonavala. Of course, we decided to travel by public transport to add the adventure(aur Ambani ke bête to ham he nahi). We made a blueprint of our plan on the group, the local we need to catch, the timings, and whatnot.

And the day(tbh night! Subeh 5 baje konsa day hota he) arose. I was supposed to meet my friend at the station to catch local and our other fellas were catching it from the further station. But me being me got late and we both missed the local. So we decided to take pragati express which was 7 minutes away from running. We took tickets, held hands, and ran like DDLJ’s Simran except no Srk was waiting for us. We did it. Our friends were in the local ahead of us. Further, we needed to catch the bus and we might have been late for it too. Somehow we reached Lonavala and again ran towards the bus station and see the luck we caught that Lal pari also. It was almost empty and felt like a personal ride.

The roads and paths we were crossing were very filmy what I meant by that was very bumpy, dramatically narrow and full of trees. (Crime Petrol ke episode ke liye perfect location). After the Adventure ride of one and a half hours, we reached the foot village named Bhambarde. We thought there would be many shops of Pithala bhakari, bhaji, wadapav and all. (But well bhagwan dard bhare dil ki sunata he papi pet ki nahi.) 

From farms and bushes, we started to find the foot of Ghanagad. We were completely in the zone of “aisa desh he mera hannn” and managed to find the tip view of gad. But at the foot we saw two roads to go up, one was a rocky pathway and the other was from the forest. (yes imagine a video game but please pay the subscription han), (Jindgiki do raste dikhati he ak aasan aur ak mushkil) and what we choose, of course, mushkil one kyuki khujli. Before we think of anything rationally our overenthusiastic pro trekker friend headed us on the path of the forest. We also went ahead coz duhh adventure. As we were going up, the road was getting stiff and full of dense tress. I was pushing all the tree branches coming in our road, occasionally breaking them and throwing away. Felt so like Bear grills and no I didn’t eat any insect (In Radhika apte’s voice - Pagal hekya vegetarian hu me). And at a very vulnerable moment, we realized it’s not the correct road and we can’t go ahead. With all the frustration of our mistake, we started to go down and guess what we forgot the road. Literally we talked about how after some years archaeologists might find our dead bodies or bones or fossils maybe. (Yeh crime petrol story continues.)

Somehow we again hit the bottom rock. We were frustrated, tired, and hungry. Ate some snacks and this time with wise head took aasan road. It was so easy that the only thing we had to do was climb rock stairs. Did you think wow it’s a nice trip alas no? Noooooooooo asali maja to ab aana tha. After we crossed one temple there were no stairs (Bhagwan mil gaya ab swarga jana tha) we still wanted to go up coz the spot we saw on the Google how can we miss that. As we were going up and up the gad was getting stiff and stiff making our walk more difficult. We reached the point where my inner acrophobia started calling bass Shantinee ab mar jayegi tu. Our protrekker friend literally jumped on the rocks and went way ahead of us. I and Anku were chanting ram ram on every step. (but trust me hame mandir waha nahi banana tha). There was a patch that was super slippery and we were super scared to cross it and then come to our hero. A very unknown duo of boys was returning from up and they gave us hand took us through that patch. I don’t even remember his face but in that very moment, he seemed to like my prince charm to my Cinderella. But in five minutes this short love story ended aur ham Bichhad gaye. Finally, we were on the spot which googles tempted us for. We had to climb a stair for going on the top. The moment I touched that staircase it felt like death. But we still decided to climb it. Again 3 of my friends climbed like a monkey and I was shivering on the foot of stairs. I took a deep breath and somehow climbed it. It was easy. But now we had to come down too with those same stairs. There was only space for placing one foot on the rock attached to the staircase. I took that one step but there was no place for putting others and the stair was too long to take that jump. My heart was in the mouth. I felt like this is the last day of my life and I started remembering my all mistakes. And was ready to live(irony samziye aap) my Renuka Shahane moment My friends were constantly trying to motivate me to take that one step but huhh my ears were blocked with fear. At a very uncertain moment, I decided to gather all the courage to take that step and wollaaaaaa I was alive, didn’t slipped my foot, and came down like a pro.

With all this adventure we forgot that the last bus from the foot village is for 2.45 pm and it was 2.15 already. We ate the food we had and ran like anything. Our pro trekker now has turned into Bhag milkha bhag and other of us were trying to be P.T.usha. With all this running race we still missed our bus. (Hamesha thodi Simaran ko jindagi jine milegi). But you know miracles happen to them who believe in it. This time we were Jab we met ki Geet. We heard a voice from a Jeep “come fast let us drive you to base village” and tadddaaaa we met one more angel and reached the base village, got our bus went to Lonavala and further to Pune. I have never experienced the day so full of different emotions and experiences. I lived my Ghanagad masala movie in one day. Now I love trekking a lot even if it might be hazardous to my brain but it does good to my heart.