Reading Sys’s comment on the previous blog I realised that a mere 3 days break from monotonous work life can accumulate memories that last a life time. My friend’s blog on this trip is more helpful to people who are planning to trek places rarely seen. You can read her version of this trek on http://www.pkblogs.com/royalvilla. For those romantics who like me need to first know the details/experiences from somebody before meaning to ask them the technical details; can continue reading this blog as this is a diary of my most favorite memories in the trek.
The trip to the top of the waterfalls was accomplished in about an hour and half as we had lots of important duties to do in between – like taking snaps of every unusual twig and leaf that we encountered, taking snaps of ourselves standing beside all these unusual twigs and leaves, taking snaps of others standing or posing beside er…all these unusual twigs and leaves, stopping to eat foods that performed the noble deed of putting on the calories we were losing with each step we took in the trek and er…many other things. Nah, watching our puny guide walking nonchalantly on a trek uphill doesn’t take time, you should know that! When we reached the top of the falls a beautiful sight met our eyes. Very hard to describe. We rested awhile by er… dipping our feet into this ice cold water (our idea of a cheap pedicure by the way…yeah ignoramus us!) and not being content with such stressful activity we decided to make ourselves ‘restful’ by crossing the slippery stones and ice cold water to a patch of dry rocks which overlooked the lip of the falls. Quelling thoughts of possible anaconda attacks we sat down to watch the water cascade down into this huge green pool. Now one bright friend suggested that we go down to the pool made by the falls and take some snaps there too. To this day I don’t know how it came about and who it was that suggested this. I guess considering the events that followed, the said person would’ve maintained an intelligent silence for fear of mortal injury to his/her brilliant self. But yeah for my part I couldn’t stop complaining about walking down to the pool and climbing up again to firm trusty worn out tracks. In spite of landing rather unladylike on my er…derriere twice during the walk down, I found myself following the others. Two very smart friends stayed back but then their luck ran out soon. (Oooh I feel like a writer in a suspense novel). Anyways I used A’s guiding hand to lead me through the underbrush and foliage, trying not to slip again and pull her down too. We reached the pool where the water fell down beautifully; the picture of which I have attached for your viewing. It crossed our minds that this scenary could be held by our eyes, only after the painful trek down the mountain. So the momentary complaints and pains were forgotten and we continued our favorite pass time of snapping pictures of ourselves until our guide reminded us that it was time to make the climb up. Instead of climbing straight up to the road through the under brush we decided to cut across the wild slopes to reach the curving road on the other side of the mountain. This decided we started walking diagonally across the mountain having shouted at the top our lungs to the other two who opted out to keep walking down the track and meet us at the other end.
The rest of us walked in a single file talking back and forth and trying hard to avoid getting scratched by the dry branches. We thought we were doing just fine and were almost mocking the other two who didn’t join us, when, A screamed – Leeches! For first timers like me, C, Sys the warning bounced off as we were wanting to see the insects of which we had heard so much about. So we stayed put and kept saying that we wanted to see them. A had other ideas. She gave us a look of complete exasperation and literally shepherded us back. C and I were right behind her and we really wanted to see the famous blood suckers. But hell no! A wouldn’t hear any of it. Then she pronounced the magic words – “as we are talking here, probably one or two would have already latched on to you guys” That did it. Without looking left or right, C scrambled up, followed by me, A, S and Sys and lastly our guide. C a mother of two children was in such a fantastic shape that by the time I had huffed and puffed a few long steps I lost track of her retreating back. I had to depend solely on my rather bad sense of direction and hoped that I was not leading the rest of them into further problems. I couldn’t even pause to take a breath as the others were always close enough to touch my back. Suddenly the dusty track loomed ahead and I toppled on it following C. We were asked…no, ordered by A to check ourselves for leeches and we did so without a murmur of complaint as if doing so would miraculously erase any errant leech stuck to our body. And then I heard a shriek. The very person, who asked us to run and then check our bodies for leeches, had one on her jeans. More like the hero who saves the silly heroine only to get into trouble himself. We tried jumping up and have the offending leech taken off. But our weary bodies and limbs protested. So the least we could do was to let our facial muscles arrange themselves into an expression of disgust, fear and sympathy and hope that the leech would have better sense and fall off. But A took matters in hand and screamed enough to let the guide know that he had to pull out the slimy thing. However in times like this the repulsion and fear lends one with enough courage to do the said task themselves. She pulled out the leech and successfully crushed it to death before anyone could have a look at it. Just then I saw one moving on my shoes and it was my turn to add to the decibel. I did a sort of a clumsy fingers and hands with my shoes that I didn’t know if I had pushed it further into my shoes or shooed it off. The result? I had to be under nervous has-it-gone or has it not-state through out our trek back. Each time any body pulled out a leech from their body (oh yeah C who wanted to see at least one actually found two bites with lots of blood around it, but no leech to see) I felt one moving on mine. But all is well that ends well and we didn’t find any more on our way back. The two who stayed back and who were not part of the fun of climbing up mountains in record seconds, could content themselves with showing one leech bite each procured when they had sat down on the track to rest their weary bodies!
So many fantastic memories so less space to record. Sigh. Still I am glad I have done my good deed for the day and jotted down my memory into this online diary of mine. Happy trekking again!
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