Trek to Lohagad

As it was raining, I couldn't click much pictures. This one's all I've got.

How lucky can someone be?!

Hello everyone! How's it going?
Well I was in Mumbai this weekend for my Dad's birthday and by God's grace I had the opportunity to go for a trek.
My life in Kolhapur is the personification of the Whatsapp status ' Study. Eat. Sleep. Repeat'. Twelve hours in the college and the remaining hours of writing journals, sleeping and a little social networking, that's pretty much how it goes. Week after week. Weekends are utilized to fulfill my quota of sleep. However the last weekend was different. It was like a wave in my regular flat-ECG-like life.
So, this post is about my first trekking experience.

Being a member of the recently established and extremely energetic Rotract Club of Vikhroli, I joined them for my first ever trek to Lohagad, near Pune, Maharashtra.
We started our journey early morning on Sunday and believe me it was very refreshing. Nobody was allowed to plug in their earphones (as it happens nowadays in almost every trip). I suck at Antakshari, seriously!!! I find it difficult to remember the lyrics of Hindi songs especially the recent ones. Yet I somehow managed to pull it with the help of the other Rotractors.

Amidst all the songs and fun that we had in the bus, we reached Malavli (Which was our base village). We had our breakfast there, at a small hotel, which was surprisingly very tasty (Which urges me to say that we should never judge a book by its cover and food by the appearance of the hotel).

Without any further ado, we started our trek. Some of the members had already been on treks and thus we were carrying experience with us.
I was astonished by looking at the height at which the fort was situated and I questioned myself a hundred times whether I'd be able to do it or not. But then I remembered of how fortunate I was to get a chance to do something like this from my routine and that made me go for it (Please remember this line that I just wrote).
We started walking or climbing or whatever you call it. It was just 20 minutes down and my lungs were yelling out to me "Beta bass, tumse naa ho paayega". Despite of that I continued walking.

The climate was absolutely pleasant. Dark clouds had gathered all over the sky. It was drizzling. There were a lot of other 'enthusiastic souls' who preferred sweating out while climbing a mountain rather than cozying up in their beds on a Sunday morning.

It was almost an hour of trekking that I literally thought "Will I be able to stand on my feet tomorrow?". That line which I asked you guys to remember up there, I was thinking its polar opposite right now. I was drowning in my own sweat. The muscles of my legs were giving me an ultimatum. My heart was pumping blood a hundred times over its capacity. Every neuron in my brain was firing, asking me to stop. However I was convincing myself to go on, thinking "Abhi izzat ka sawaal hain".

Finally we reached the summit. And trust me, the view from the top was worth all the efforts. It was mesmerizing. You know they say, being over the clouds...I literally experienced that.

All of us sat there, rejoicing the fact that we made it to the top. The chants of "Jai Bhavani, Jai Shivaji" filled up the air.
With a steep valley on one side and a pile of rocks on the other, we somehow visited all the spots that were present atop. Due to the rains, the mud was wet. Wet enough for us to slip a little, yet drenched in the brown mud we kept walking.

The world seemed so much different from above. All of us were cherishing the talent that God has that he made such a beautiful place for us to live in.
It is said, going up is difficult... coming down is easy (I am still searching the person who dared to say such a stupid thing because coming down from the fort was even more arduous).

A few hours later, we finally got back to our base village. Famished and tired, all of us were craving for just two things, a place to sit and food to eat.
All thanks to the Core team members who arranged the food so quickly.
And the food... I still can't get it out of my mind. It was simple and tasty.

We were exhausted and all of us were talking about taking a nap. But nothing like that happened. Back in the bus, on our return journey, we started sharing our experiences about the trek. And not only that, we started sharing any and every funny incident that we ever came across in our lives. Each one of us was coming up with some hilarious story. And that's how the day was spent.

You know, we all read posts on Facebook about travelling and gaining experiences, most of us 'like' and 'share' such posts.
But actually doing it yourself is way more exciting.

Being Rotractors, we maintained complete morality during the entire trek. We didn't support clicking Selfies at risk points or littering the place. I feel proud of the fact that we didn't harm any of nature's creations.
Most of the co-travelers were my childhood friends but I never thought that I'd join them for something like this. Apart from the ones I know, I met a lot of other people whom I connected with.

I must say, we do work a lot in our daily lives. We often claim to be busy. But once in a while we should take out time to travel. Travelling not only helps us to rejuvenate but also to add new pages to our book of experiences.

Now I can strike out one more thing from my bucket list!

It was indeed an amazing experience!

Okay that's it for now.
For more details about Lohagad please click  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohagad

#seeyouuntilnexttime