A Trek with CTC…

Posted this in a mail thread some time ago. Dusting and presenting it here.

This being my first trek with CTC, I was quite excited and enthused to experience everything that comes along this trip.The reason for my interest in trekking is no different from that of any other’s – gaze and admire raw nature, adventure, maintain/improve fitness, socialize [inclusive of flirting :P], learn and such others. All forming the group shared the same interests, may be in different proportions and in no way can I say that I’m disappointed, and I hope this holds good for the rest as well.

In general the trek was filled with a few half slips and desparate balances [few of which failed, pushing us into the water], a few cliff-hanging/hair-raising moments, a routine/cycle of sweat along the trek & dip in the pool was followed throughout, regroup, refresh, a few trail along wrong courses & revert to right ones. A brief look into the trip follows.

Day 1

The day started early for me, but our journey started the latest, as the car that I hopped in, piloted by Magesh, played the sweeper, with Thilak guiding the route and Suresh Kannan, jockeying Maestro’s music all along the ride. All cars regrouped twice before reaching the destination. Though our start was a bit late, we reached the destination on time for breakfast – hot Idlies & vada with sambar and spicy chilli chutney, typical of Andhra, were readily served on our arrival.

It was time for loading our bags with food items and common items. The volume of food items was a little large, that I doubted whether we are here for trek or a fiesta ;). Once fully loaded we set our sails to conquer Nagala [Destination : Picnic Pool]. I took Prabhakar, an experienced trekker, for company – who was very informative, explaining a few aspects of trekking/trekking positions like eye-sight, navigator, sweeper and sharing a few adverse experiences that he faced in his previous treks.

The journey began with an easy walk on mud-road towards a dam. While crossing the dam and entering the jungle, initially I felt that the trail was a bit narrow with just half-foot width, only later when we were passing along half-toe trails I realized that the earlier one were luxuriously wide. After a trek for about 2 hours we reached our first stop point – Dead-end Pool. Earlier we skipped the first pool, for want of spending more quality time at the Dead-end and Picnic pools. We spent about 2 hours here, meanwhile the veteran trekkers prepared to ferry our luggages across the pool. Once all luggages were ferried, the walk towards Picnic pool resumed, after finishing lunch – vegetable biryani packed in the village.

Another 2 hours of walk took us to the trek destination/camp-site – Picnic pool. Along the journey, a part of the team including me, diverted twice slightly off-course and then rejoined the trail before reaching the dreaded ‘Parda point’ [dono if that was its real name]. Fortunately, the difficulty of crossing that point was hyped, that most of us prepared for a dare-devil stunt, which eventually made crossing this point an easy task. Then we undertook a mini-ferrying/self-ferrying across a small pool, which our friends dubbed as the ‘irumudi’ of this trip, as one has to carry his/her luggage on his head and cross the pool drenching in it.

Finally, around 4 30pm we reached our destination and started settling slowly. People started gathering firewoods to set the camp-fire, some jumped into the pool to cool down. With the camp-fire ready everyone gathered around it to celebrate Mr.Mayuran’s birthday. He blew his birthday wish against ‘a firewood planted on a cream-bun’ in lieu of ‘a candle on a cake’. Later on he was introduced to birthday bumps by practising it on him, for he never have heard of it earlier.

It was time for soup and the entire team was abuzz – some collecting firewoods, some setting up the stoves and almost everyone pouring in suggestions to ignite the stove. It’s obvious that ‘too many cooks spoil the dish’, but for the first time we witnessed that too many who doesn’t cook can spoil even the stove :). After all that little chaos the stove was finally set & up; then came the part for those who can cook to play their task and the soup was ready.

While preparing and serving the soup happened the self-introduction which helped us realize how diverse was the group – the group included personalities ranging from my ex-colleague to my prospective future colleagues, students to professionals, corporates/enterpreneurs to government servants. Some people introduced themselves in quite an interesting manner – with some even stressing his relationship status as SINGLE – some very briefly and some very articulative.

Post that, pasta was prepared and served for dinner. In the mean time a little singing was happening in the background. This part of the trek helped the team socialize better – there were a few pleasant surprises that some of the group members were related in some way or the other, say, two of them found that they belong as alumni of same institution, a few others shared a common native town/village and so on.

Gradually everyone started to chose their sleeping-spot and settled. We slept under a roof that pristinely telecasted the activities of the universe. The sky was so clear and cloudless, that when viewed in a half doze state, after all the tiredness of the day’s toil, felt as if  floating in space. The stream and the frogs tuned us a lullaby all night.

Day 2

As the dawn broke we all up to the flute of Suresh, who was erstwhile just playing pranks on others. In the morning the call of nature was answered out in the nature 🙂 [thirandhaveli pulveli kazhagam].

Morning activity started with Tea preparation by Vadivel. While Tea was being prepared, Thilak led a few members to a morning trek up the stream – of which I was also a part – clicked a few snaps and returned; while returning another team led by Vadivel was up the same course and they did go a little further to ‘Treasure-hunt pool’.

Once we returned we treated ourselves with a well-made tea and bun. Then packed all our stuff and took a dip in the pool, till the other team returned. Once they returned we started our downward jouney and it was again a cycle of sweat and dip, only this time we didn’t trail along any wrong courses and surprisingly felt at ease at all those spots that looked treachorous just a day before.

At the Dead-end pool after ferrying all our luggages back and a brief dip, had our lunch – chappathis with all possible side-dishes like Paneer-butter/palak paneer masala, mango/tomato pickle with mayonnaise. Interestingly, on the return journey all those missing items like water-bottle, a sock, etc were found.

Apparently we got tuned to trekking, the downward trek felt relatively simple; while reaching the village, just when we felt the trek was over, we were re-routed through swampy fields as road construction was under progress on the regular path. Finally when we reached the village we feasted on hot Bonda with spicy chutney and coffee.

By 6:40 pm, after all financial settlements, re-loading of common items, our car left first countering our role as sweeper during the onward journey. Owing to our early start we reached home by 9:00 pm. Later at home, while resting, the body slowly started to feel all those minor bruises, cuts & sprains identifying them with the trek’s memories, concluding the two days of pleasant and engaging activities.