Before settling down on the huge rocks, Thomas made one last ditch effort to climb on to the nearby hill to get an idea of the location. He was certain that the Soochipara waterfalls was just nearby, may be just behind the mountain in front of us.
While rest of the team waited down, Thomas and I climbed on to see only many more other mountains ahead of this one! As it got darker, it became important that we climb down at the earliest and figure out how we are going to spend the whole night. It was damp, cold, and dark.
We had ran out out of food except for some bananas and we decided to keep it with us and go for the endurance test. All our muscles were hurting so badly that no one wanted to walk around again looking for dry leaves and wood to set fire.
"It wasn't that bad. We had loads of fun too".
In another 5 minutes, Thomas came back shouting that he had found the trek path!
He saw foot prints. He saw bamboos cut down for ladders by the honey combers. It didn't take another ten minutes for us to come down after checking the route. The thick smell of elephant dung, cold and darkness inside the wood was so scary that we decided not to risk any more and instead settle down on one of those boulders in the middle of the river.
AB was worried about not being able to send a message to his office in Bangalore, Thomas and Anoop was worried about not being able to convey the message to their family that they are safe. My concern was about VT and rest of the team waiting for us at the waterfalls with the jeep to pick us up wondering what had happened to us. Since we had gone into the forest with permission, definitely the forest department will be notified that we are missing, and that the whole area will have thousands of stories about The Blue Yonder team that went for location scouting and got lost in the forest!
Apart from the jokes we were making about VK and Arun coming in a helicopter to save us, that was probably one of the worst nights we ever spent inside the forest.
© GP 2007
4 comments:
Poor Thomas!you have managed to thrash his reputation as a reliable guide.A Matrix-style chopper rescue would have added spice
If not for Thomas, we wouldnt have come out alive from the forest. Thats for sure. Thomas new the areas well, were he normally treks, but the trek from kalakapuzha to soochipara was an untested territory for everyone.We went based on hearsay!
when did the soochipara incident happen? and i think the last para in the helicopter rescue is not correct..check again
u mean, we had worse situations? may be couple of bad experiences of getting stuck, but being the first one and totally un prepared, i would say it was the worst..
cant remember the exact dates, but the files on the computer will be helpful and keep u posted.
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