Anthargange

When: 26th April 2008
Who: Archana, Shaonli, Khushboo and Me and then later Shabna

Well…after planning for more than two months, we finally managed to go to Anthargange…so 730 in the morning on a Saturday, we were at Bangalore railway station…no no, we weren’t going by train, but that was the place where the representative of Care India had asked us to assemble so that we

can rush to Anthargange… there we met Shabna and quite surprisingly we gelled out quite well…

We stopped for breakfast at around 10 at none other than Kamat!! (You can find Kamat at every highway in Karnataka!) Had a breakfast of idli’s, vadas and dosas…packed the same for lunch too as there wasn’t any facility for lunch at Anthargange!

We reached the place at around 11 am…Sun was just above our head…it was scorching hot…we could see hills all around…the instructor told us that it was a one hour trek…we were happy …excited and all geared up…took some oranges, water and chips along with us and started off the trek…the instructor (Prakash) told us to follow the electric wire so that we don’t lose our way…so here we started…15 mins into the trek and we reached the temple…it is supposed that the water from this pond washes you off from your sins…but since we were sinless…no need any “dubki” in the pond!! So rested there for 5 minutes we started off again! The path till the temple was full of monkeys… we were, no doubt scared to the core…but still managed to dodge them off and started off again…

From the temple to the final destination, we were accompanied by a dog, who showed us the way and leaded us like a leaded…Our trek after the temple was difficult… not because of the terrain but because of the sun….we soon realized that we made a grave mistake to come for the trek in the month of April…it was noon and all the energy that we had was totally drained…completely… each step was a challenge now…but chale-chalo, chale-chalo was our naara…so after one hour…which seemed to be an era…we finally reached where we were supposed to reach! There we took rest for around 15 minutes…our vehicle was already there with our supply of energy drinks…fruits…hah… it seemed to be a blessing…. We were still not very sure whether we had made the right decision…but now there wasn’t any looking back…it was already 1230…Prakash asked whether you want to do rappling or cave exploration. Since majority of us opted for cave exploration…

We started off…the caves were amazing…mesmerizing…we jumped, hopped, slide, crawled, climbed and what not…it was amazing… the photos say it all… no words can ever explain this experience. We even went in for chimney climbing….ooof…it was very difficult…but after climbing it was a wonderful feeling…felt like on top of the world!!

After exploring the caves for around a couple of hours, we went back…totally charged up….and now for the first time we were sure that the trip was actually worth it….now the scorching heat of April didn’t make a difference. In fact, while we were in the caves, it was very dark and cool… we didn’t even realize that it was April… Anyways, after we came back from the caves, we had our lunch which we had packed from Kamat…dosa, idli, vada, bisibili bhaat….it wasn’t royal but was decent enough… it was almost 3pm…we went to the rappelling site…there we rested for around half an hour while Prakash prepared the ropes and other instruments etc etc… we chatted, gossiped and enjoyed. Then Prakash showed us how to rappel… and then it was our chance to get started…first to go was Archana…and then me…gosh…I was so damn scared…specially after seeing Archana shouting and screaming….ooof!!! but it wasn’t that scary when it came to getting into action!

So in around one hour, we were all through with our rappelling session…was really fun…then after a couple of mind games and leadership game we started our journey back to Bangalore… on the way back we stopped for a tea-break and then reached Blr at around 8 pm…and I guess will cherish the trip forever!