This was a trip of uncertainties, I donot really know how we choose this place (I know why though). We hadnt planned on anything in particular. I was in office on this saturday and suddenly feelt like I want to leave and explore something, sweat it out, leave everything behind. My room-mate, Pratyush, was sitting vetti (jobless) and was eager to come along. We decided on a trek near Lonavala and left our place at 6 in the evening. And me being me, conveniently forgot the scrap of paper on which the details n path were written.
Anyways, so we landed up in Lonavala with no known objective in mind. We tried to live up to the thought that the best journey is the one without any destination. We asked a couple of locals. They were pretty much psyched; imagine 2 guys asking about trekking at 9pm. We got directions for two places finally - Rajmachi fort and Korigadh; Rajmachi fort was supposed to be tougher, so we brave souls went for it. The locals probably thought we were crazy, 2 guys with 1 backpack, 1 tent, 2 bottles of water, nothing to eat, going up at night. Well, as I say, "There's a fine line between confidence and craziness, and I sit squat on that line."
Anyways, we started and bought some cigs on the way. Best companion for 2
lonesome guys. After 1/2 hr, we stopped to take directions and a drunk local watchman said he will accompany us till his village, which was on the way. All our attempts to convince this guy that we were poor college students, seeking some adventure as we didnt want to waste money visiting malls and watching movies, went in vain. Anyways, we stopped at his village and he offered us food, but we felt ashamed to dig into his meagre dinner. So off we went and fortunately found a quaint resort called "Captain's " owned by some ex-captain. Excellent food in the middle ot the jungle. This is one place I will bring my gf/ wife to, provided she comes.
Meanwhile, Pratyush started having problems with his stomach, again. The best part about night trekking is that its not that hot, theres a curious and errie sense of adventure, and two is a very good company. We passed through a very dense patch of jungle and it felt that something was following us. Every 2 mins, we were turning back and listening, and imagining all sorts of things. Anyways, nothng came for us and I was actually a bit sad.
We continued, Pratyush got a call saying that he was wanted for a shoot in Lonavala the next day, so we had to come down by morning. We also met a somewhat bigger group of trekkers who had lost their way. We wanted to scare the shit out of them, but decency prevailed :D. We camped around 3am, 2 kms from Rajmachi village, as we didnt want to be too tired the next day. We got up at 5 am and started back.
We reached Lonavals bus stand at around 10am, happy with our trek. Then Pratyush went for a really stupid shooting, while I slept peacefully, content, in their guesthouse.
PS - On a night trek, always carry a handy knife and extra batteries.
