My first encounter with Tattva Adventures came to reality after 2 unsuccessful attempts. They were always over-booked and I couldnt snug in at the last moment.
With the entire team at RethinkingWeb, no chances were taken. The event was planned for 28th Mar 2015 and executed accordingly. It was a long weekend and the 7 of us were all prepped up for the trek.
Trekking always gives an adrenaline rush down your spine and this event though being a descend justified it enough.
Before the trek actually started we spent the entire night on a rock bed under the naked sky. Temperatures in Mumbai had already soared up, beating the heat is an objective everyone wishes to achieve.
It was a long day for me yet had to keep it up all night. The team assembled on time at the planned location. We boarded the train and reached Neral at around 1AM.
There were a few people from the trekking group who missed the train and hence we had to wait for them to drop in. The wait was worthwhile as a drunk midget dropped in an started performing mimicry and behaving irrationally. It was fun as we had selfies and clicked photographs till the entire trek group gathered.
It was 2AM when the Jeeps came in to ferry us up the hill. The entire RethinkingWeb clan got a dedicated vehicle and we set a step ahead from the rest.
Half and hour passed and we reached the base camp. The other ferries reached consecutively. At 3AM we entered Matheran.
Matheran, as you would read in my earlier posts, is a place which I love to visit. Infact, I have insisted people to come along and spend a day with me in Matheran. Its blissful, serene and simply awesome. If you are reading this and have enough energy to tread the rocky, cool and chilled paths of Matheran, you are welcome anytime.
The team gathered for a formal introduction. The Tattva way of an introduction was to talk about one's self and perform a single dance step.
One of the trek mate had their birthday at that moment, we all wished her. It marked the beginning of the night trail. For over an hour and a half we kept moving through the trails on the Matheran mountains. It was pitch dark but the moon above helped a bit. Each trekker had their own flash lights. Some sang songs, some were chit chatting and some just focusing on the track below.
We reached atop the mountain where we decided to take some rest till dawn. The passion in trekkers was unmatchable. People gathered in groups and then started the most interesting part of overnight treks viz. Horror Stories. People started sharing their experiences at various treks. Few were funny and few horrifying (Unbelievable).
I spent some time chatting with Lawrence, where I understood a whole lot about snakes in India and the world. He had great understanding of snakes and a whole lot of his know-how built my experience in the subject.
On the other hand, another trek-mate Kshiteej Dua was showing off his brilliant skills with his camera. He is a director by profession and has done few short films too. Indeed his skills were worth a watch. He clicked some amazing light photographs. It was something I never knew.
I was exhausted by then and dozed of in my sleeping bag. Not for long though.
In a couple of hours the sun shone and all the adventurers were ready for the descend. By the word descend, the mindset was already prepped for ease. Alas, it was not. The descend began at 6.30AM and probably by 8 we did descend the rocky mountain... and then the plateau began.
A long... very long stretch of the plateau was strolled to a point where everyone began looking for the base village. But the plateau was unforgiving. We reached a point where we found a well. The well had really cold water which helped the trekkers to re-hydrate and refresh themselves for the next 1 hour and 30 mins of walk.
Until 12.30 PM we walked through the Garbett plateau and reached the base camp. There were some really picturesque locations on the plateau, especially near the lake. Throughout the descend hundreds of photographs were clicked.
It was an awesome experience.
At the base camp, we had lunch and parted ways. All in all a very memorable trek.
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