Its Cena's :)

This time the Sinhagad plan did work out, though not exactly the way I had expected it to. Hemant fell asleep, after staying up till 4:30am & so did not come along with us. Anuj, Raghav & Me decided that what the hell, we are already up…might as well make the best of it.

So we got ready & left at 5:30. I picked up my camera from Prashant [which went dead as the cells were not charged]& we went to Nal Stop to have some breakfast…well not exactly, I had pakoras topped up on fuel & were on our way.

What we expected:
1.Long, cold ride
2.Beautiful scenery
3.Bad Roads
4.Reach fort, park , sightsee, eat
5.Back by 9 AM tops

What occurred
1.Long, cold ride
2.Beautiful scenery
3.Bad Roads
4.Reached the foot hill of the fort, parked, CLIMBED to the fort, got nothing to see, only drink
5.Back by 1PM

Nobody had told us, but there were 2 ways to the fort
a)Drive to the Gate
b)Climb up the hill to reach the gate

making a newbie/dummy/idiotic mistake we chose (b)

It took us more than 1.5 hrs to get to the top…reached the gate around 9 AM. I was dead way before that…anuj’s prodding [& my ipod] kept me going. In 45 mins my legs were dead & I was literally hauling myself up the pagdandi using my hands. I am surprised that my heart did not burst..

Basically I think we were not prepared [mentally/physically/equipment wise]. We had expected to have an easy fun morning instead it turned out to be hell.
When we started off it was cool, nice crisp morning with greenery all around. In half an hour it had become HOT, the sun was constantly in our faces, path became steeper, we had no caps/water & the whole place had become burning yellow courtesy the bright sun. Also please remember that anuj & I had not slept….& as I am not used to eating in the morning & certainly not at 5 am, my stomach was acting up. We bought like 10 glasses of “limbu sharbat” from the stands along the way[how they setup there, I have no idea]…& that added to my stomach woes, the sloshing liquid made me want to throw up

Anyway, we did climb to the top..& anuj was was right…it felt good…satisfying actually. There was nothing much to see really, the “fort” [double quotes intentional] was basically a fortification having a TV transmission tower. Only relics of the fort were a stable & some sort of room. We just sat in the canteen type place & cooled off…

Climbing down was no walk in the park either…my legs were shaking & my nikes had been ripped off. We started taking shortcuts [instead of going in the sweeping snakelike path we cut straight across ] but raghav started slipping & falling so we had to slow down. If the climbup was tiring, going down was plain boring.

n the end…we just wanted it to end. Finally we reached our bikes, I sent up a prayer of the thanks to the almighty & we slumped over the bikes too tired to speak. 15 mins later we bade farewell to the hill & started our return journey.

Aftereffects: Its been 2 days. My thighs & calfs[or is it calves??] still burn when I walk. Climbing up/down stairs is hell [I look like donald duck waddling]. Even my shoulders ache, but maybe thats just because my mattress is crap & I have a bad sleeping posture.

All in all it was an experience…good, bad…cant decide.

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