The descent starts and its time for one more realization. I always thought ascent was the toughest part of a trek but so was not the case. I never realized while descending down a mountain one needs to carefully place footing to avoid really serious injuries! All the while I was just feeling like “Juggernaut” from the X-Men series. It was really tough to balance with all the kinetic energy and momentum pushing us down the trail with loose soil and rocks all along. What I didn’t realize though was that this could get worse if you have luggage to carry (Which I learned the next day!). By now the damage was slowly being done and I was totally unaware. What I am talking about is that I hadn’t cut my nails before the trek and so they were slightly overgrown. And my toe nail kept on hitting the front of the shoe while I took each step down. After an hour I realized both of my toes were paining a lot. But ignoring the pain while basking in the glory of nature as the set sun over the distant horizon casting a golden glow over the already golden grass we moved ahead. We reached a viewpoint at around 6 PM. We took some snaps.. some rest..some conversations flowed and we were back on trail. And the “self-photo maniac”(as my friend puts it ) that I am , I took a couple of photographs more than the rest of the people. By now the rest of the gang was out of sight. Vinod and the rest of us started after a short while I guess it was twilight by then. We were all relaxed and chatting away through the trail when suddenly we couldn’t locate the trial for a while.


Panic struck (only me) at such speed I must admit I was amazed! (In retrospect of Course: D). In that brief moment i thought of all possibilities and things that could happen to us. Hell I was even thinking of the ‘I Shouldn’t be Alive’ episode that could be made! Until Krishna shouted ‘here is the way’ I was contemplating the worrssht to happen in my imagination. From then onwards, I was a bit apprehensive and cautious. A few minutes later it was totally dark save some half-moonlight. But we were close to Bhatta’s house. So we carefully treaded upon the loose soil until we reached our dear Bhatta’s house. It felt good to finally rest without any more agenda on mind! Dinner was served, the usual soup (which felt delightfully tasty) and roti with MTR ready-to-eat curries. I guess half the profit these MTR guys make around Bangalore comes from trekkers! ;)

Now it was time one more awesome experience. There were a couple of other small groups who were also halting at Bhatta’s place for the night. They were setting up their tents. This caught our attention and we (my gang) were also interested in camping in a tent while the rest of the group chose to sleep in the verandah. The other gang helped us set up our tent. And so we were all set. Took a couple of pictures in front of our first tent! Yay!! I was half scared to death each time even as much as a leaf fluttered coz some guy there had said before that elephants were occasional visitors at Bhatta’s place. But it was an amazing experience altogether camping in a tent under open skies!