Trekking (definition) : To make a slow or arduous journey on foot, especially to hike through mountainous areas…  But… “A trek is never a trek if there ain’t a little fun, little adventure, some moments to cherish and of course a little mishap here and there..’ That’s where the ‘arduous’ part comes in…

9:00 PM and we are still at work?? Come on guys let’s pack up and get the hell outta here… That was what was going on in my mind… but I guess, we had to make sure that everything was in order before we left for the trek.

On a chilly December night, trekking at 2:00 AM in the morning was no mean feat. Yep, that’s exactly when we reached the village called Baje, it served as a base camp for us. Parked the car over there and started hiking up towards the footsteps near Lohagadvadi… While there is another route to reach the footsteps where even cars go, it wouldn’t have been fun for us to take our car there and then climb up… as the trek time would have been just 15-20 minutes.

Anyways, at the end of it all, the hike up to the place was really worth it… trekking the mountain in the morning, chatting up and singing along for a journey and an experience that we were yet to have… Something told us, this is going to be one of those memories… You know what I’m talking about, now don’t you?

It took us about 2 hours to reach the top… Breezy in the morning, the caves were only warm place for us to feel some comfort.. but that would again defy the definition now, woudn’t it?? So we decided to chill out near the entrance, camp ourselves and make ourselves a couple o drinks to feel better… haha, that’s what you get for the arduousness as a reward. Besides that watching some of them, singing and dancing to ‘Sheila ki Jawaani’ as well 😛

Soon, it was time for the Sun to rise and us to have some really nice Photo session and of course meet our ancestors who made their way up on to the top to find out if we had some food for them. I was wondering why on earth did I even buy a bunch of bananas before we left, now I know exactly why…

The vision of breaking dawn was one I had been waiting for before I could get my hands on my DSLR, and begin my clicking spree… After a lots of fun and frolic, some nice photo sessions, we decided to head towards Vinchu Kaata… Alas, that was not to be…

While everyone was enjoying singing and dancing… we suddenly heard a cry out loud from one of our friends…The slippery tracks from where we had decided to take a detour towards VinchuKaata had made sure that today wasn’t the day, when we were going to be out there…

She suddenly lost her footing, slipped and fell instantaneously… We made her sit down, making sure that we find out what happened to her. Hoping it was not a fracture…we took a look, it looked more like  a sprain and a ligament tear we thought. But we were not sure, didn’t want to take a risk… So finally this is the exact reason why that arduous word came into the dictionary while defining the word ‘trekking’ It was quite a challenge as she was not able to walk…

One of the challenges now, was to find out ways and means to get our friend down.. So, a couple of guys went down to get the car from the other route to ensure that one car is at least downstairs, at the base camp from Baje village… While we were trying to figure out how to get her down.. We tried to make a stretcher with a couple of bamboos and blanket we had… Nope, didn’t work… We had a chair, tried to make a palkhi with the bamboos and a rope we had… nope, didn’t work… What could we do??

We were thinking and trying to figure out a way and that’s when it struck us… This was the only option for now…

The most effective and the most simple way was devised out of a story I remember my grandfather used to read in Chandamama comics, ‘Vikram Vetaal…’ yes, that is and was the only option for us…. So there, the only option left for us was to backpack her (literally) and that could have been done by only one person in our group and I don’t intend to tell you here who it was. For people who don’t know us, it won’t matter but for people at work… you guys should have fun guessing this one! As it turned out later… i.e almost at the bottom of the mountain, we met a guy who took a look at her leg and with the help of acupressure and she was able to slowly walk… Irony I say… Always on all my trips 🙂

That’s exactly the reason why I’ve not included anyone’s names… and precisely why this story ends like this… What happened later was something we all call an escapade truly to remember… 🙂 well, at least until the next one happens.