WOW: SRS & Ramadevara Betta Treks
WOW treks!-The world of women treks,
caught my attention and I wondered what an all girl’s trip would be like. So,
that was it, I immediately registered for my first wow trek event to Ramnagar
on the 25th Jan 2014.
We were asked to meet up at their
regular spot in majestic, opposite the Shantala silk house, where a tempo
traveller was chosen for our journey.
On reaching the spot, my first
impression of the girls already assembled there was- ‘oh they must be from the
same college or a same working place’, as they were chatting away loudly,
oblivious to their surroundings. You could well imagine my surprise when I
learnt that, they were from different parts of the city, heck they were from
different states altogether!
We all took our seats. Lakshmi and I
sat together and we shared talk about studies, eateries, Kannada movies.
Members all around us got into animated conversations with their companions. We
even had a teacher among us- Mrs Nanditha. We stopped at Bidadi to savour their
famed ‘Thatte idli’. Many of us were pleasantly surprised to have idlis served
with a dollop of butter. Having had our fill, we got back into T.T and
continued on.
The organisers announced a game of Dum
charades. Having enjoyed this game on my previous trek with BTC, I was gearing
up for it, with fancy symbols and hand signals, whizzing through my mind but
those thoughts didn’t last long because, ‘em gals wanted to dance! Oh right!
So we had the speakers blare with
bollywood numbers. Our charming ladies got on the floor. Lakshmi, Anubha,
Shwetha, Shree moyi, Dhamayanthi, Garima without much ado, surrendered
themselves to ‘chammak challos’ ‘sheila ki jawani’ and many other songs. It was
hard to resist the energy and slowly the rest of us joined in as well.
The
next hill that was planned was Ramdevara betta. The hill was protected by the
forest department. As we pulled over, we saw many buses from Baldwin’s school
parked there. Now, this hill again posed us stairs, around 400, and yet again
we found ourselves climbing stairs. The ascent was only mildly tiring. Thanks
to trees around that cast their gratifying shade over us. The steps led us to a
temple and from this point onwards, fortunately for us, a trail could be seen.
As we followed the trail, we noticed many kids and it looked like they were
part of a school excursion.
The path led us to a very steep and
huge rock which had steps carved into it. The climb over this rock was pretty
challenging. Slowly and steadily, one by one we all got over the top. Over the
hill, we roamed about, clicking pictures mimicking scenes from the Sholay movie
and found ourselves a patch of shade formed my very old cactuses. 20 of us
managed to find places to sit and ravenously began to finish our food supplies.
After a satisfied meal we treaded down the same path and soon reached the
landing which held the temple. Here some of the gals wanted to visit the
toilet, using this chance, Divya, Shree moyi and me took a detour and went a
little further over a boulder to appease our curiosity and ‘trekkie sense’.
Now, we don’t wish to potray an image of members straying away from the group
but you had to understand that this was, one-of-a-kind moment, where one could
almost hear the hill calling us. As we three were exploring around, I heard
Deepthy scream my name, that totally frightened me and I presumed I would
receive a sound scolding from her. I couldn’t believe my ears when she
said-“hold on, we are coming too!”
Thus began our real trek for the day, the trail was
unclear and we had thorny bushes and branches that scratched us throughout,
slippery dry grass and a muddy path. Man! It had us all excited. Two times we
faced a dead end and had to retrace our steps back. Luckily organiser Sushma
led us front on to a path which was literally off the cliff! We were on the
edge of the cliff and below us lay a depth of 20 feet! One wrong foot and it
would assure us a place down. Stealthily, we inched our way at snail’s pace for
two whole minutes, not daring to look down. After which we met another steep
boulder, here again Sushma climbed over it first and offered her scarf to pull
me up. While others were being helped , a few of us went further, up few more
boulders and behold, we came across a
place of shade under a huge monolith. This was most welcoming and we instantly
snuggled under it and let our bodies feel the cool air and the cool surface of
the rock. Everyone else joined us and 18 of us slept under the shade, engrossed
in our own worlds, grateful and enormously content for, the shade beneath the
rock. Here was the epitome of our day. The group of BTC felt pride and
accomplishment.
We could have slept there forever had a
man not come up. That man was shamelessely staring at us. Some sight it must
have been for him! Now, snapped back to reality, we descended, again as careful
as ever and soon made it to the ground feeling supreme. Then we went boating for half an hour
at a small lake, which was the last activity for the day.
On our journey back to Bangalore, we
again stopped at Bidadi for tea and coffee, we finished the feedback session
here. The T.T stopped at majestic and we all left home.
On my way back, my eyes looked at the
traffic around but in my mind I could see the breath taking view of Ramnagara.
The view filled me with an enormous sense of wellbeing and I know, in my heart,
I would go back to the hills, to face the thorny bushes, to the edgy path, over
the boulders, all over again, just to get under that shade. To find solace, to
find peace, to find myself and be fiercely guarded by the hills.
I would, in my heart, go back there, all my life.
Written By : Sneha
Organized By : Sushma & Deepthy
Date of event : 25th Jan'14
Members Count : 20
Place : Ramanagara
Pictures : BTC FB Page
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