almost rajmachi

IMG_9842
taken by aneesh uploaded by kaa.

Venue - Rajmachi
Team - Aneesh, Santosh, Vijay and I
via - karjat (local train)- khandpe (ST Bus)- walking walking to the fort

Left the village at around 11 am. Encountered the haunted imli tree. And the hiphop loving fisherman.

The clouds were playing a game of "will rain".."will not rain". Soon we were boiling in our sweat. And we lost the trail of white painted boulders. The option was either to come back to the last white boulder and search for the right path, or make our own. No points for guessing what we did. Wading through thorn encrusted guard shrubs and tripping over trip vines we walked on.

IMG_9882
taken by aneesh uploaded by kaa.

We reached a plateau with a dense forest. Even saw a small deer. And also realized that we were at the wrong side of the fort. From where the enemy could only climb using a monitor lizard. But there was no lizard in sight. And it was already nearing 4.
So without much ado we turned back. half an hour downhill we met a villager who told us, "if you had walked for 5 mins more you would be in the village kondana, from where the fort was a further 5 mins." We tore each others hair out to let our frustration subside. Saved some barber money as a side effect.

And the sun was going down fast. We saw another village which seemed much closer than the one we had started. So we started walking towards it. But soon we lost the small trail made my wood gatherers. It was a free hike downhill grasping shrubs and trees to break our speed. Then came a giant waterfall. I could momentarily taste my heart in my mouth seeing the sheer drop. But we managed to climb down cliffhanger style.
Pure rock climbing.

It was the second most dangerous/adventurous trek of my life. The first being the one to harishchandragad. Where we were trying to climb a rock cleavage. 4 people at different levels. And the top one says, " turn back there is no way ahead". And the rocks started crumbling falling down the person below. And there were crys of " gaonvalon bachao" and " helilcopter lekar aao"...etc.

you can see rest of the pics here.