A short summary:
This was another program for CAS that was initiated by one of my
classmate's teachers Karn Sir. He is actively participating in service and
action activities. He initiated the trekking activity at a hill about 60km from
Pune in Lonavala. This trek was planned as going to a fort on the top of the
hill called the Tikona fort by the local people. Later, we did a clean-up
activity where we tried to clean up as much garbage as we could from the
nature.
Note: I am sorry, I misplaced the photos of
this trek. If I find them, I will definitely add them to this post!
Day account:
On Sunday the 8th of Feb, my classmates and I went for a trek to a place
about 60km from Pune called Tikona fort. Early in the morning, at around 6
o’clock, I reported at the given place for the bus to Tikona fort. My friends
arrived and we sat in the bus. Being early in the morning, everyone was tired
and most slept off. On the other hand, I was hungry and ate some snacks I had
taken with me. Later, I dozed off too just like the rest of my class.
We reached our destination and woke up unwillingly. We had our breakfast
before starting our trek. We were divided into four groups to ensure our safety
better. In breakfast, we had sandwiches. We then started our trek. It was a
mixture of stony steps, muddy tracks and loose soil. Some of us slipped several
times before all of us got the hang of climbing up slow and steady. Soon, we
reached a flat land amidst our trek. Here was going to be our first activity
for the day. We had an introductory game because there were students from other
schools too. Each of us was given a chit which either had a name of a natural
wonder or a country where the natural wonder belongs too. If our chits matched
(a natural wonder and its respective country), we were supposed to introduce
each other.
After we completed this, we continued our trek and soon reached the
outer gate of the fort. The time would have been around 10:30. Ahead, most of
our trek was steps. It was tiring to keep climbing. We took breaks in the
middle, refreshing ourselves with water. We reached the inner gate of the fort
a little while later. Now, our trek was even worse with much steeper (very,
very, very) steps. It was taking about 2-3 seconds for me to climb one step.
Many of us backed out (not me) at a lime water shop near the base of the steps.
The ones who climbed, hail-fully reached the top where the flag was. We enjoyed
a photo session up there and came back down carefully to the lime shop.
We rendezvoused there near a stony place to sit and relax. We ate some
snacks and drank juices which we had brought for ourselves. We then had a short
meditation session to calm us down and enjoy the beauty of the nature. Soon
after this session, we came to our next activity. We were given topics to do
dramas on in our divided groups - our group received the chit “Toilet paper”!
We enjoyed and laughed a lot while creating our drama. We presented as the
third of the four groups. Everyone sat out laughing at the humour of our play.
After this session, we ate our lunch boxes which were distributed in the
beginning of our trek itself.
After lunch was over, we started a clean-up of the area. It was quite
polluted with plastic wrappers and metal cans. We cleaned as much as we could
and threw it into the trash covers we had taken along with ourselves. After a
short clean-up, we played a very common game - dumb charades. Although our team
lost, it was quite interesting.
This was our last activity at the top of the hill. We started downhill
soon. In my opinion, downhill is always more difficult than uphill trekking
because there is more chances of slipping unless you walk sideways. There were
stretches that looked quite treacherous - we had to go down one by one slowly.
We finally reached down at the base at around 4:30. We had one more clean-up (a
more tedious one) before we departed. This place was much more polluted than
the top. We wore gloves and starting picking up any garbage we could find. At
the end, all of us together filled about 6 garbage bags - committing to a
really big global issue.
This being our last activity at the trek location, we got into the bus
to depart back for Pune. While listening to music, I slept off after a hectic
day of activity. We reached a grand looking temple. We stopped there to have
some tea and get refreshed first. Then, we visited the temple and had a view
around. Soon, Karn sir (the trek organizer) came and told us about the history
of the temple. It was a bit spooky and exciting to listen to the extraordinary
facts about the temple. We departed from the temple at around 6:50pm to Pune in
a non-stop journey. We ate more snacks and slept. I was dropped near my home at
around 7:50pm to end another wonderful experience with my friends.
-Suhas
09/02/15
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