Well, I’ve been dying to return to Mahuli after I had to abandon the last trip there so this trip with my classmates was a nice way to accomplish this little dream. There were about 20 odd people on the trip. We had booked a mini-bus for the trip, so reaching the place was not going to be a problem or so I thought.

We began late at about 8:00 in the morning, something that’s not really advisable when the mercury is flaring in October (though try explaining that to a bunch of lazy 20 somethings). The journey was rather uneventful until we got stuck on the highway in a massive traffic jam. Initially we thought the jam wasn’t really massive, so we decided to go get some breakfast at a small roadside restaurant. After breakfast, when the traffic refused to move, a few inquiries with the cops revealed that an oil tanker had turned over about 4 km ahead and the road was being closed for safety reasons till the mess could be cleaned up. The cops did tell us that we could take a side road to reach our destination. So off we went thinking that our problems were solved. However our driver refused to budge from his original route. About 30 minutes of arguing and phone calls later we were finally on our way. Finally we reached the base village at about 12:00 in the afternoon. Along the way we had also picked up some wada pavs to have for lunch. However little did we know the wondrous fate that awaited us.

Now Mahuli isn’t that difficult a trek, anyone in decent shape should be easily able to climb to the fort. However the nature of the terrain and seemingly never ending journey through the forest does get on the nerves eventually. After climbing for about an hour, one of the people in our group decided he couldn’t climb any more. So Sachin turned back. Emboldened by him, Maddy and Ritesh also decided to turn back. Some minutes later, Kshitij broke his sandals (god knows what possessed him to wear sandals) and had to also turn back. So about an hour into the trek we were 4 down. After some time we reached what I call the “Green Bridge”, and then that’s when things went awry.

By then we had run out of water, and the heat was getting to most of the people. Not being used to climbing and trekking, most of the people decided to turn back. Just 8 of us went onwards to reach the top. It turned out that the top was just another 15 minutes away, and the view from there was definitely worth it. Besides that the spring that we found there was most refreshing. However, we had left most of the bags with the rest of the people. So while we were no longer thirsty, we definitely were hungry. Luckily I had some snacks in my bag and some peanuts. However the others were not so lucky.

Somehow they managed to think that we had the pav’s or the wadas, when they were with them all the time. So the poor people went hungry. Finally at about 6:00 we all reached down, to find our four friends relaxing in a stream. We spent the next few minutes there relaxing in the water, clicking photographs etc. Finally all of us trooped into the bus and headed straight to Bhagat Tarachand on the highway. The food there was like heaven sent manna (even though it was vegetarian). Finally the bus reached us back to Mumbai.

This was a fun trip for me, though can’t say the same for the rest of the people…though it did seem that everyone had a nice time. Though the only person I really feel bad for is Gargi, poor girl couldn’t walk properly and had to be literally helped to the bus after the trek.