Trek-Trip to Ratangad
28-29 Jul 2007
By: Pavan Tambay
We will always remember the 22nd day of August of 2005 were we had all met in Hotel Kamini in Chinchwad, Pune. The only good things I ever received from my CMM-5 company were my wonderful friends. Almost two years had passed and we all decided to have an adventure tour after several fun tours to Alibaug and Lonavala. This time we chose a fort named Ratangad and here goes the rest of the story.
A few things that were fixed were two Qualis taxies as means of transport and the journey dates 28 and 29th day of July of 2007. 27th day of July was extremely hectic and everyone was very much excited. Few were going for the first time and they kept on revising the list of their belongings. There was also a lot of last-minute-shopping as usual but after that also, few forgot some important things like jacket, and that was me. Here is the list of gang:Top: Shatru, Sam, Ajit, Muks,Ganguly,{Appy}, Jitu, Mannu, JJBottom: Shailu, Tambay, Reddy, Sood
We started off from Koparkairane at around 0145hrs on 28th. It was raining very heavily and there were a few last minute disclosures of participants added and deleted. Some got stuck in traffic while returning from office for 3-4 hrs but still made it and some red ones couldn't make it having no reasons. Yes guys, 13 proved to be a lucky number for us. Read ahead to know more.
We took Mumbai-Nasik highway and reached Shendi village, at around 0730hrs, where we had booked some stinking rooms in Panchsheel hotel. We refreshed ourselves, stuffed some cakes, parathas and biscuits and then started off towards our destination at around 0930hrs. We were already behind schedule but it was okay with all of us. We reached Amruteshwar temple, some 25km from Shendi at around 1030hrs. The road from Shendi to Ratanwadi, up and down small hills and along the rim of the Bhandardara Lake, was picturesque.
We had halted at a couple of places for photographs. All the mountains were lush green and there were beautiful waterfalls everywhere. The twist and turns of the mountain road up to Ratanwadi village was really thrilling. The temple of Amruteshwar mahadev is an ancient one.
Not a single stone is un-carved. Parts of it are resurrected. The Idol, shivling can be seen half submerged inside the water, ground water probably. We picked up a local boy, about half our age, to show us the way to the hilltop, the so-called Ratangad fort. We had read a few blogs on the net regarding this trek-route and had some idea about the nature of path uphill. All of us were ready for one of the real, once in a lifetime experience. There were other tourists like us from different places too. A large group of school had also come and was just along with us until halfway. Some of us really were worried about them for they could learn some unwanted this from us. We kept reminding our guys to watch out for kids falling prey unknowingly to software engineers having fun in mountains in their CMM-5 style!
We had to cross a strong current of a stream several times. The soil had also become slippery due to rains. Luckily none of us got hurt, neither the rains, nor the hidden ditches of river, nor the steepness of the mountains could dampen our spirits. We soon left the school group far behind and claimed a considerable height. The local kid with us was really tough in going up the hill. We came across a stream and rested there for a while. The water was very sweet and perhaps more pure than the mineral water we had in our bottles. We barricaded our urges of becoming fresh water fishes of the stream. We did not rest for long because we didn't want to fall asleep. We were inside the clouds and could feel the water droplets touching our skin and hair like dew drops. Almost the entire route was through dense canopy and its perils, the insects and mosquitoes. There were occasions when we could see the cloudy sky directly over our heads.
You couldn't miss the beauty of the green mountains and the waterfalls during the could-less times. As we paced ahead capturing the natural beauty in our minds and digi-cams, we suddenly ended up on a spot, a dead end. The eerie mountains ended suddenly.
There we could see a couple of guys climbing down the heavenly ladder. Someone was shouting, "Hold right there we are coming down. There is not enough room up here." We watched them patiently, coming down one after the other. Every time after two people came down, we heard someone shout "Just five more to go. It's a risk to life up here. Its very slippery up here" We waited for 45 mins. It started raining heavily. Now some of us did have the raincoats. Four of us came under one umbrella. It was Tambay, JJ, Sam and Sood. (We never had come So-Close). It was a joke enough to laugh for a couple of hours. We started wondering what sort of place was above the ladders.
There were theories and stories. We could not take it much. The cigars were running out and soon someone from our group decided to take charge. Now there was shouting in reverse direction. "Hold it right there we are coming up". We all climbed up and found nothing but another ladder where the first one ended.
Now there was only a small gap between the mountains that leads to "Ganesha Darwaza". It's so-called because it has carvings of lord-ganesha on it. We did not find it as life-threatening as we had imagined sitting there down below the first ladder and listening to the people shouting from above, they had a reason, as usual, yes you guessed right, the cause of showoff with them.
Finally we reached the place we were longing for. The famous shelter, THE CAVE WHERE WE HAD OUR LUNCH. The Gobi and Alu Paranthas never tasted so delicious in our lives before. But soon, the true owners of the cave started coming, the monkeys-le-mountains. They are small sized but always are in pack and have skills more than a trained mountaineer to sit on small rocks on edges of the mountain. It started raining briskly and we had a quick video session inside the cave. After all we had achieved new heights. It always gives you a strange feeling of achievement, relief and accomplishment when you are sitting on top, overlooking the world down below you, where you came from, giving so much pain to your legs and risking your life. The path forked and there was one way up the Hanuman Darwaza, which we knew from the map leads to a circular path around the cliff of ratangad.
The lord hanuman was marvelously carved on both sides of the stone entrance. We were inside the leaking clouds and the visibility diminished to just a couple of meters. We dropped the idea of having a stroll around above. We decided to loose height. On our way back, we were drenched to the core. We were not left with a single dry cloth. The return path seemed to be lengthier, though it was the same route. We came across the same stream were while going up we had resisted the temptation of transfiguring into fresh water fish. This time, we let ourselves loose and enjoyed the stream to the extreme.
I cannot keep you in dark about an incidence so memorable that all the emotions you can feel were felt of course unsaid and involving everyone present in-situ. X dropped his lighter into the stream. {f!#$%^}. Y took out a wet matchbox. {high hopes}. It's raining, water droplets falling on cigars. {Bring in the umbrella}. Matches are wet. Can't ignite. {f*&%#}. Other styles and tries with other matchbox. {high hopes}. {f!#$%^}. Ok. {Let it go. Good times ahead}.
We again started off towards Amruteshwar mahadev, to the base of the mountain. The stream that we had to cross had become healthier because it was raining briskly for the past three hours, without a pit stop since we had started declining. We made a chain, holding hands and crossed the stream. There were no anacondas in that stream though, which was a bit disappointing. There weren't enough perilous animals to keep us involved in those hills.
We touched our base at around 6 in the evening. We had some tea and dried ourselves as much as possible. The trek is usually done with an overnight stay at the caves, but we had no such plan. We started off towards our hotel once more but via another route, this time shorter but equivalently beautiful. We came across a wonderful spot. The mountain face stood at right angles from the ground. You could imagine yourself at the base center of a vertically half cut 500-meter tall cylindrical mountain with water pouring in from the top. Okay, enough geometry. It was really a wonderful waterfall. The water was falling from almost half a kilometer tall treeless curved mountain wall. We were inside our vehicle and it was raining but we were awake just enough to capture this natural beauty in side us. Our hands denied reaching up to our cameras.
We reached our hotel at around seven and after some refreshment and rest it was PARTY TIME. {baker ---- baker ----- cheers &@## laff fffff psdfjk.df d ygl325^%#$%$#$ku gyusgd f#$#VSDFg ----- dinner ------ baker ---- baker }
Usually we have numerous sleepless nights because generally we come from (you know where) and remember the horrifying incidences and atrocities cast upon us by {you know who -- PrimeMinisters and HumanRascals}. But this one night was ours. We realized what a sound sleep means after so many {we have lost count of time}. We just had one of the most wonderful days with our friends out there in the mountains and no one was there who could take away the happy memories away from us.
Next day we woke up, had some snacks, checked out from the hotel and went out for site seeing. We visited some significantly exciting places like Randha-Falls and Bhandardara Dam. The reservoir of this Dam is very vast and clean. You will really miss something in your life if you couldn't take out a couple of hours on its bank. We were soon finished before noon because Kalsubai, a place that we wanted to visit turned out to be another trek route of two hours uphill. We had a brainstorm inside one of our vehicles and driver suggested one more place that he believed was a couple of hours away. During the knowledge transfer between the vehicles, it was believed that the place was as near as an hour and a half. Now that everyone was pumped up by the idea of that place, we started off towards the highway.
A couple of guys got frustrated by the new dynamically changed plan because it was taking too long and the place was nowhere near but It was rather very fortunate event in the opinion of the rest of us. It took us three hours to reach to the blessed place. We got a chance to visit the famous temple of Sai-Baba on the day of Gurupoornima. We were at Shirdi. People from all over the world struggle to go there and we happened to be at the place without any plan in advance. There was a very long queue and thus we only managed to have a mookdarshan from a window. We then went to Shani-singnapur on our way back. It was around 90 km from Shirdi. We got a lot of stuff to have fun because even bathrooms had no doors in this place. It is believed that no one can steal anything from this place and be at peace for the rest of his life. We had our dinner in some dhaba and touched the Pune-Mumbai highway. We reached at around 0500 hrs on 30th. Everyone blessed the organizers and participants of this memorable event.
It was another wonderful experience going up the waterfalls and a not so dense forest. The first half of the road did pass through a couple of very small villages and small farms initially. There were no big shady trees that we could find in the path. We could see The Matheran Plateau very far and high above us.
The later half trek was through shady trees. The route crossed several waterfall sites.
We kept hearing the wood peckers echo their screams and kept mocking. There were no wild animals as we were expecting. We were hopeful to see some snakes but could not. So we entertained ourselves with the wood peckers noise assuming it was the rattle snake making that noise.
The points were nice but not as exciting as compared to the trek route that we had climbed up.