The scheduled departure according to the prep mail was 3:20 am from Koyembedu. My heart sank seeing that. The last time I had to catch a train around that time, I dozed off nicely. I set myself up to do my office work until late on friday to make sure I didnt miss this time around. Well, as it turned out, I didn't miss the bus after all. My scooty was happily parked in the CMBT stands and I was walking out of the terminal towards the assembly point well on time. Slosh! My right leg went right into a tarred slush accumulated along the pavement outside. After registering my attendance, I had the unfortunate chance to grace the toilets of CMBT to cleanse my dirt. Not sure if I cleansed it or added more, but my newly purchased, 1 day old pair of shoes took the treatment well enough for me to continue.
After some incorrigible delays we finally set forth on what was my first camping trek to Venkatagiri hills, somewhere near Renigunta in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh by 5 am along with 54 other members of the Chennai Trekking Club. I peacefully slept off my journey and woke on time for the breakfast near the base. The target as per the maps distributed was a total of 40 km in two days. We started Day 1 at 11 am from the base village into the hills. The initial part was a hike past the dams, wading through a dirty stream, walk across a pebbled river bed and into the tree cover leading to the foothills.
Next came the walk along the wide stream. This was a mixture wading in the stream, jumping across boulders on either side of the stream or fighting your way through the brambles along either of the banks. After slipping and sliding along the stream, we made it to the first pool by around 2 pm, right on time to munch into our Tamarind rice for lunch. The next part was pretty similar, except that both the boulder jumping and wading the stream became more slippery. After around an hour and half more of saving our ankles and legs from visible damage, we made it to what can be called as the pool by the cross- streams. The pool here was fed by two streams falling in between the mountain's steep.
The senior trekkers, after an hour of scouting and discussions, decided that the steep climb would be the best way to reach the peak which was our destination. By 4, half the group crawled their way up the steep, marking the trail with ribbons for the followers. I, along with my newly found friend, Ashok, started a little later on what was the best part of the trek! I loved the climb as it was challenging and a slip would be as costly as one's life.
We caught up with the crowd ahead in pretty quick time. The plan was to locate a campsite near an upper stream and attack the peak either by night or by early morning. Alas, after much searching, it was found that a campsite near the upper stream was impossible and the peak unreachable from where we were! By then, the remaining half joined us uphill and we were able to thankfully locate a campsite by around 9 30 pm. Not many thought of food as everyone hit their sleeping bags as soon as they could...
