Lost in forest

Have you ever been lost during a trekking in forest? It will bring out the real person out of you. In my experience you will be cursing yourself about the moment you started the trekking, you will become more spiritual, you repent all your sins, Hungry to core but not thirsty (as you may find some water), exhausted; In short, a big mess with no clue how to resolve. I was stuck in western gats for almost 10 hrs.

We three friends went to a friend’s estate 12 Km before karkala, Mangalore on a journey from Bangalore. We had enough time with us; but no mobility .The tranquility of the forest was boring after the 1^st day. On the second day morning; we noticed a small hill from our guesthouse; on an impulse; we decide to climb the hill and come back before breakfast. It seems so simple for us to climb the hill. The guesthouse person warned about the leech, we decide to take some table salt with us to fend off the leech. We set-off our journey; just walked straight to the hill to conquer it. Oh God such foolishness   

We started navigating through the thick bushes and trees. After long 4 Hr., we reached the top of the mountain. (The slop was not that steep). The joy was short living. As we turn around to celebrate, we realized we are lost. The place around us look the same in every direction. We decide to believe our instinct and follow the same rule; walk straight down. Friends; we ended up on the banks of a big deep trench created by a stream. We could see the top branches of large pine trees, in our level. All of a sudden, my friend pullout a smart phone and activated the GPS navigation. Alas; The GPS was showing that we were standing next to karkala bus stand; and we knew that it is minimum 12 Km away from where we were standing.

I was wondering how I would survive my first wedding anniversary. The smallest person in our team is getting angry with me because I pulled him for the trekking. The guesthouse person fought with his wife before setting off the journey; and now he is praying to god like “I just want to see her face before I die.” The third person was amazingly quite, I could not read his mind. all around me, it was cursing people; praying people and pleading people. I could not think much. I was thinking about my pregnant wife.

As a survival instinct, we decide to walk alongside the stream (No river on sighting; Only Sound of the stream). By holding slippery rock, we were climbing down, the rocks was not properly holding to the ground; we could see water flowing under the rock. At last, we decided to drink water from the smallest stream. The thought of leach around us makes us uncomfortable about the water Quality; but our options was limited. The northeast monsoon was strong and the whole forest floor was damp. Humidity in the peak; we were sweating profusely; but we were not realizing it. Water every were; the forest was very quiet; throughout the trekking we never even sported a bird nor an animal.

As we were climbing down, to make our life miserable, it started raining. The dried rocks also became wet, and the climbing down was miserable. As the leader and elder member of the group everyone was looking at me for decisions; the pressure on me was mounting, I could sense the tension among the members. I keep them encouraging and make them feel comfortable stating that we have lot of time available before the dusk. Actually, I was consoling myself. I could not afford to lose the battle. And the responsibility to bring this trekking to happy ending was a challenge for me, because out of all 4 members; 2 were my wife’s cousins

We climbed down the steepest part and we could see the stream, we were happy. Then we could see two streams; and at a point, it was crisscrossing and moving towards opposite directions. I lost my hopes; my leg was cramping. I could not make another step. We all sat on the plain ground. Thinking on what is the next course of action. I decide to drink water from the stream to reduce the muscle cramp. The silent person went to fetch water for me; he came back with a happy face; he could see a faint unused walkway. We all went to the stream washed our face and decide to follow the way.

You know the funniest part; if you join a road on half way ; you have 2 options ; you can go left or you can go right; the same was the question we were facing ; which way we need to go and all were looking at me to make a decision. I took a calculation based on the location of sun and slop of the road. Why Slop? We were climbing down; so we presume that the slop should be towards the bottom of the hill. We were happy because we are not climbing up or down; we were just walking on a very bad walkway. We walked for an hour, we reached on the shore of another big stream, and ahead of us, and it is another hill. The walk way was evident on the other side of the stream which is going up on the hill. We decided to follow the path. The path went up the hill for a short while then it was again rough but plain road.

We walked almost for 3 hours to reach another better road; we could see the 4-wheeler terrine vehicle tracks on the road. Again, the question is which way to go Left or right. We took the left direction, walked for a while. The forest is very thin; we were walking in a relaxed manner. For the first time in ten hours, we could see women far ahead of us on the road for a while. We happy followed the road. The road stopped on the banks of a big stream. The Guesthouse person immediately recognize the place and help us to spot the estate gate. However, the current was so strong in the stream, which makes us walk a while on the riverbank and crossed the stream

We decide to keep our adventure a secret; because of the scolding, we may face from our elders. We reached the guesthouse quietly; the guesthouse person wife was waiting for us. We removed our clothes; help each other to remove leach from our body. We had a strong coffee. Again went back to the stream for a cold bath; Came back and had our breakfast at six in the evening. Dead tired, I slept for almost two Hrs. awaked only to feast!

Eventually the proud members leaked out the whole episode. Everyone was scolding us on our foolishness; also, they were curious to know about our story. I always thought about writing the saga down; but it took 3 years to write it down. Is it the most memorable experience? No, more may come. Every time we meet, we always want to repeat the feat; But ….