How exciting it feels to cross a mountain range, right from one end to the other (though a small range)! So it happened, 14 audacious and adventurous souls from Chennai set for a 2 days mission to cross the Nagalapuram range from West to East. The trek, organized on behalf of Chennai Trekking Club (CTC) was meant to be the most exciting and heart thrilling adventure. Nagalapuram is in Chitoor District of Andhra Pradesh and is about 85 km from Chennai, which takes a drive of about 2 hours. Part of Eastern Ghats, these Nagala hills stand tall and depict the scenic beauty at its best. The base of these hills is at about 120m above MSL and the highest peak (southern peak) is at about 900m above MSL. Trekking in Nagala hills involves a mix of adventure activities like hiking, rock climbing, swimming and crossing streams. The forest is noticeably dense and for majority part of the trek there are no proper trails to follow, which pose challenges for trekkers. For these and several other reasons it is called ‘Home of CTC’. For trekking in Nagalapuram, the person should have a good fitness level and should know swimming. If the person doesn’t know swimming, then he/she must carry a water tube/life jacket with him/her.
Day 1
We set off from Chennai at about 4 am, gathering people on the way, and hitting the base of the hills at about 7 am. The sky was cloudy and it was drizzling a bit too. The pouring scared our wit a bit, which we knew would make our trip more difficult. But then the whole trek was meant to be “adventurous”, so why fear the rains!! On reaching there, we quickly distributed common gears and food items among ourselves and started an incredible journey.
We started moving briskly and soon after walking 2 kms through bushes and following a trail, we entered a thick dense forest. And it was as wild a forest you can imagine! The tweaky sounds and the rushing river. I wondered why animals were not there. Amongst this thick forest, the stream showed its way, which we had to cross as our first mission. A thought came of crossing it bare feet, but then banged my head with the thought, “We are amidst flowing water, and wet shoes and clothes are a must!!” Crossing the stream became more of walking on the stream surface, as it was not deep. And here we met the slimy, slippery rocks, which arose due to the heavy pour before our trek. These were really scarecrows as it became dangerous to step up on them. Even the branches of trees kept on breaking if we tried to hold them because the excessive rain had weakened them. This was all the game that “beautiful” rains had played. The only rescue through this unsteady path was the person crossing before the next when, who became each one’s savior!!
The whole funda was to try to avoid these slippery rocks as much as you can by going through the dense forest. Amidst these mind-boggling step stones, there were scenic pools and waterfalls. And this enthralling journey made us land on the 5th pool. Now this called for a funtime!! The pictorial imagination of water flowing from height, and then making its way through rocks, cutting the edges, all happening right in front of my eyes!! The only thing we did is, plunging ourselves into the water! Had a splendid 45 minutes water play there and refreshed for the journey ahead. Unfortunately, here, the only girl in our team was injured; and with this crashed down our plan of hitting the peak. So we left the western stream and travelled a smaller peak to catch up the eastern stream. There we followed the stream for about half an hour and noticed a steep descent in the stream forward. So in order to avoid that, we followed a faint trail. After sometime we realized that we were moving away from the stream and it was left far away. But then, the sparkling waterfall could be heard, which excited our minds to walk down the steep hills crossing all the bushes and trees on the way. This task was challenging in its own way, but our strong souls managed to get back to the stream and celebrated the moment. Dawn had started falling in its full fury and one of our members was injured. So, instead of reaching the picnic pool, our supposed campsite; we decided to pitch our tents(tamboos) somewhere before that. At the banks of the stream, the very pictorial timber-leaf huts became visible, and that became our campsite. Now was the time to kill the hunger!! Some experienced trekkers could ignite the moist leaves with camphor and cook Maggi!! We slept peacefully for the night, after filling our tummies with it.
Day 2
Next morning we woke up at about 6am, got fresh and tightened up the belts for journey ahead. After making some difficult maneuvers through rocks and stream and boulders and slippery rocks and what not, we reached the picnic pool. It was a beautiful, spacious place to accommodate large gangs, cooking or laying. We had a nice time splashing water, and moving around calmly. The next destination was Dead end pool. In my journey towards it, I encountered a very difficult situation. On one side, lay the deep stream and on other side lay the rock. There was no way out than to climb the rock.
There was a very small protuberance from the rock where one could keep his foot. I partially transferred my weight there twice just to check if I am slipping or not and both times I slipped. Failing twice, I thought of transferring my complete weight this time. Before that, trying to be funny, I said to my friend Shishir, "Tell my parents that I love them a lot" and then tried again to climb over it and I made through it. Later on Shishir told me that he controlled his laughter that time because it was actually a pretty difficult situation.
Anyways, we kept on moving and we could reach the dead end pool, hunger was at its peak. It was about 4 in the afternoon. We cooked some popcorn and ate whatever was left with us. We proceeded further, where we encountered dead end pool. And as the name says, Dead end pool had no other way to cross it then to swim over it. We swam across the dead end pool and kept moving ahead.
Till this time dawn had fallen completely and it then became a night trek. It was quite different from the morning and afternoon session as we were walking in the dark with LED torches in our hands and we regularly stopped in between to insure no one is missing. For the very first time, we were all going together and it felt safer than morning trek. All gratitude to some experienced people in the group, who guided us through the right way. Finally, came an exit from the T.P. Kota dam at about 9 pm and then moved towards the village where our van was parked.
It was the pretty different experience for me. Walking through the way with no trail, climbing dangerous, stumbling rocks with stream on the other side, zipping through steep hills cutting bushes, jumping over the slippery rocks, crossing the stream giving out the helping hands, swimming across the stream, diving in gorgeous pools, sleeping by the side of the stream and relaxing in the arms of nature. The place was beautiful and so was my experience with it. Jumping, hopping over the slippery rocks we fell many-a-times. During one such time my friend fell and needed a helping hand. Stretching my arms I said, "
Dude!!! Don't worry. If you ain't falling, you ain't doing it right."
Go out and see places!!!
After spending quality time in the ancient city, we headed towards Kandy. It had started raining heavily by that time. We kept pedaling fast to keep the body warm. Hunger striked us soon and we calmed it down by having a delicious Sri Lankan traditional buffet. We started again after this and took a not so busy road. It ran parallel to a river which was overflowing with water due to heavy recent rains. Capturing rural Sri Lanka in mind we kept on proceeding on this road till we hit Bakamuna. It was dark by the time we reached here and we decided to camp in this village. We tried explaining one family that we wanted to put our tent in open space in front of their house but all efforts went in vain. Of course, the language was the barrier. We tried another house a little further away and luckily lady in that house knew some English. This came as a great relief for us. The family was very amiable and they asked us to sleep in their hall itself.
Day 3: Bakamuna- Illukkumbura- Rattota: The beautiful day started again with a warm coffee from the host. It was really heartwarming to see them coming out of their house and bidding us good bye till we were out of sight. We rode through some beautiful rural roads, passing through paddy fields, going parallel to a river, sighting varieties of birds. Soon we reached Elahara, where we had our breakfast. No was the time to decide to which route to take. To reach Kandy via a highway of a ghat road. The ghat road was a steep one but it promised beautiful views and the highway was mostly flat and of course, it will be as beautiful as the ghat road. We decided to take ghat road through Illukkumbura.
The initial stretch to reach the base of the mountains was not so great. The road was in bad condition at many places and the mud/sand was going into the chain and the discs. Soon we hit the ghat road and the initial few minutes gave us the idea of what we were about to encounter. Nevertheless, we were determined to conquer the slopes. From a flowing stream, Nobal and myself washed the chain and the brakes to remove all the sand getting into them. After a while we stopped to had some tea and snacks. It was around noon time. I had 2 sweet idlis. The journey resumed again. The slopes were quite steep and they challenged us both physically and mentally. Peter had moved much ahead of us. After a good climb, it was downhill. And as you might be aware of that, all downhills are short lived. Soon we reached the town Illukumbura where we had hoped that Peter would stop for lunch. But not seeing him, we kept on moving.
After reaching the top point, we decided to stop at the first shop we encounter. We saw some tea estates on either side of us on the downhill and soon encountered the first shop on the way. We ate to quench our hunger and sat there for a while. It felt really great gaining some energy back. It was all downhill from here till Matale (our original planned target of the day). We started again only to realize that it was now dark and really cold with the rain and the altitude of the place (about 1200 m). We decided to settle down for the day in a nearby place. Our search lasted for quite a sometime. Not being able to find a guest house, we cycled around 2 km and reached RE Western Hotel. There we requested the manager to provide us the worst accomodation he had and he politely obliged. He provided us a damp room in 2000 Sri Lankan rupees. The floor was wet and the mattress was wet at some places. After a while, we realized that we had only around 2200 of cash with us which meant dinner was not possible with that much amount. Rest of the money was with Peter. One of the staff knew our condition and he offered us food from the hotel without asking money from us. Such a friendly gesture. We contacted Peter and told us our position. He was in Matale waiting for Sinu to come who was on the way. He asked us to come and join him there in Matale. Although it was only 20 km from our place and it was all downhill, but it was too cold that time and the rain had not stopped too. Over to that it was foggy as well as dark. We planned to meet up in Matale next morning instead. We squeezed ourselves in one corner of the bed to avoid the water over it. We did not complain but rather slept peacefully that we could get a place to sleep at least.
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