Vasota Trek
Hurrrayyy...!!! This is the reaction we all have when we have successfully planned our outing. We become happy and excited to go to the place we decided. The more enjoyment comes when all the friends gather together and suddenly comes a topic of an outing. And what's better than that topic of an outing comes into reality the very same moment? This is what happened to us. And this is one such story. Let's move ahead and read. :)
It was some weekend and don't know what happened and I got a call from my usually lazy friends to come to their place and discuss about an outing. As usual, not expecting the plan to be successful, I went there. It was summertime and I didn’t remember the exact month. They just told me that we can go to Satara (When? No idea). We googled what all there is to see near Satara and actually there was nothing to visit especially during the summer. And I was almost rejecting the plan of visiting a place good for monsoon during the summer. But one of them was having contact with cab person and so we decided to go to Satara without finalizing where to go after reaching Satara. Everything after Satara was dependent on wherever the cab driver will suggest as he was a local person. And we booked the train tickets for the same night and luckily we got the train tickets on the same day.
Yes, we were heading to Satara..!!
Manzilon ka pata nahi.. kyunki maza to rasto me hai ;-)
We reached Satara early in the morning. Coming out of the railway station, we headed to the cab and we asked the driver for his suggestions. As expected, he too said what we were expecting: 'There is nothing to see at this time of the year' But what next? We decided to have an outing so we will have it. We headed towards a waterfall the driver suggested. Interesting thing was that even he was not aware of the waterfall. He had just heard about it. He took us towards the waterfall. He stopped the car near some small village as a car cannot go beyond that point and we 4 guys headed in search of a waterfall lonely in the farms. We were getting scared as we were heading forward in the total silence and it seemed to be a silent jungle.
After some time searching the unknown waterfall, we reverted back to the cab.
We decided to have this(the one in the pic ;-) )waterfall as our memory in place of the unknown undiscovered waterfall and so we have our pic :P
It was still around 9:30 am and we already failed to find a waterfall. On asking the driver again for his suggestion, he suggested us to go to Vasota Fort. That can consume the whole day and might make our trip worthy. Hearing that it might consume the whole day and left with no other option, we asked him to head towards Vasota Fort.
Now the interesting part of Vasota Fort Trek was that it was not just a normal trek. Before trekking starts, we need to go through the lake for around 1-1.5 hr.
We headed towards Bamnoli Village from where the boating starts which take us to the location from where we can start our trek. We were 4 and minimum needed was around 10 people in order to go in a boat. This time we had our luck. We got around 4-5 people from Mumbai who were also looking for a few people as they were short of 4 people. And bingo..!! We get together with them and got ready to head towards the Vasota Fort. We were suggested to take the food items, water and whatever we need before getting into the boat because once we headed into the boat, we will not get anything to eat, drink till the evening we return back to the same place. The trek was into the jungle which was no tourist place with shops/thellas available selling food. We were 4 people and got around 3-4 water bottles of 1ltr thinking that would be enough and easy to carry. Had breakfast and got food packets, we got into the boat. And the beautiful 1-1.5 hr boating starts.
The route was scenic beauty.
On the way through the boat, the guy riding the boat was also guided for the trek as well. He described how beautiful and how natural the place is. He said that usually, animals from the jungle comes to the lake in order to drink the water. We constantly looked around hoping that we might have a glance of a tiger or some animals. Hard luck here.
After around 1 hr, the boat journey was over and it was time to move our butts and legs which were enjoying the peace till now. We all were ready for the trek ahead. The boat driver was our lead for the trek. The people from Mumbai with whom we accompanied were moving fast along with the lead and we were lagging behind taking photos of the place and each other.
Just before the start of the jungle we were greeted with the tasty lime water, buttermilk and kokam sharbat. The thing I liked the most was: before entering the jungle the number of plastics we are carrying was counted and it was checked again while returning back. This was the best thing in order to maintain and conserve the cleanliness and the purity of the nature. After the lime water and other sharbats, we were all energized.
We keep on moving ahead and after sometime the sun almost decided to snatch all the water from us. We stayed strong too. We kept on moving and moving. After long tiring stretch into the jungle, between the rocks, climbs, etc., one of us was on the verge of giving up. We kept cheering him and dragged him to the top threatening him to snatch away the water bottle from him if he won't move with us. We have completed around 70% of the upwards way and we already started feeling the scarcity of water.
The lead was a person from village. They are so habitual that he kept on moving smoothly.
The view as we were moving ahead kept motivating us. We were able to see the point from where we started and that motivated us to move ahead. We had covered a hell lot of distance. And just a small portion was left.
Finally with around less than 1 bottle water remaining, we reached the top. The view was worth all the efforts and the distance from our starting point made us feel proud and the breeze appreciated our efforts taking away all our sweat making us feel accomplished. We took rest for some time on the top. Moved around to have views from all side. Some more rest.
Now it was time to descend the whole route back to where it started. In any trek, I fear descend the most because till the time descend starts, we are totally exhausted and the legs shivers on the slopes. We started descending. My friends went ahead and I was slow while descending. This is not the case with me during climb. When I asked my friend how they managed to descend so fast while they were not so good while ascending? His reply made me laugh from my heart. They replied that they descended so fast as they were too thirsty and don't want to bear anymore
After descending for some time, too my surprise I found one of my friend standing ahead drinking water from filled water bottle. I was shocked how the hell he got the water. But before that we all jumped to the bottle, drank water and then asked how he managed to get the water. And then he showed us from where he got the water. We were shocked to see the place from where he got the water and were surprised to have its taste better than mineral water.
The water relaxed us and then after completing the descend, we relaxed near the water, had some fun and then headed back to the boat. The whole trek was so tiring that after heading back to the boat, we were so quiet, looking at the beautiful sunset and feeling the cool breeze.
After some relaxation in the boat and a small nap, our arduous and memorable journey of Vasota Fort ended. We got back to the cab, reached Satara, had the famous 'Kandi Peda', dinner and headed back from Satara to Pune.
I believe that every trek or adventure teaches us something or the other. It makes us better no matter how.
This trek gave us two teachings:
1) Unplanned trip can become one of the best trips of your life. It is always exciting and enthralling as you don't know what's waiting for you.
2) It takes effort to climb the mountain but you get the view worth climbing it. Similarly in life, the efforts you make are worth the results it reap.
