My recent trekking experience

by Sandhya Ravi (India)

Making a local connection India

I recently got a chance to explore a place called sholayur, Kerala. This place is 65km from Coimbatore, Tamilnadu. There was trekking organised by one of my friends start-up called ecorganics. This trek was a well themed one, the theme was minimalism so we had a car pooling from the city to reduce pollution. We reached the place at at 3.30pm had a self introduction with the people who joined the trek. We were around 21 people in that, around 8 people were well known to me due to my previous treks. We went to visit a river nearby our stay it took a 20 mins of journey enjoyed playing in the river by walking, splashing the water and getting soaked in the water. Later to mingle with everyone there was game conducted by the organiser which were also related to environment but it helped us to know each other in the group. Once wen we were back to the resort there was a local festival going on in that tribal hamlet. We got from the car and enjoyed dancing with the tribals in that locality it was really fun. Once we reached our stay served with beverages and snacks. As the concept was minimalism there was only 2 rooms for the stay so after reaching the resort we built our own tents in the open space of the resort, this was the first time I built a tent. Then went and lightened the fire by arranging the woods for fire campaign. There were lots of games played by everyone around the fire campaign to know eachother. We use the fire campaign to cook barbeque. After the dinner had a walk nearby to enjoy the nature, stars, wind and many more. Most of the people went to their sleeping arena by 12 in the night and few of us were chatting and playing games and went to the bed around 2am. The most mesmerizing event was watching the fireflies. It was my first life time experience of watching fireflies near the stream where we stayed I was speechless during that moment. In general I wake up early in the morning so woke up at 5.30 in the morning to see the sunrise, had a morning walk in the slopes, had we photo session with our mobile phone for creating memories of the wonderful place. Everyone got ready for the trek around 8 in the morning, had our breakfast on the way. We took a local guide along with us for the trek, it was a short trek just around 10km but at the end of the destination, there was a beautiful waterfalls. The waterfalls was speaking to us for exploring it. So each one of us jumped inside the water and had a natural massage all over our body by the fall of the water which was the best experience about the trek, took pictures at the falls for the memories and then left the place to our starting point. From there we went back to the resort got refreshed, had our lunch along with sharing the experience about the trek. We never thought to leave the place and the nature. Even then each one of us has a job, family and responsibilities to be taken care of, so we said our bye to eachother with a wave, hug and handshake for their wonderful company during our stay. While leaving the place the organiser announced that they are gonna conduct the next Trek in 2 weeks time which created joy in us by hearing it. We thanked all the people who were working in the resort for their hospitality. Always we love to travel far and miss the beauty of our nearby places in our locality, even am not the different by any means but once I joined the local trekking club I understood there are lots of places to explore in the place where I live. That's how started exploring the mountains, wild animals and the local people which help me to understand the flora, fauna and the people in and around my surroundings. We think happiness is far but it's everywhere around can be felt only by traveling.