Ever since I saw those beautiful hills on my flight into Pune I've been wanting to hike on those hills. Sunday I finally managed it. I was woken up early by a bad stomachache and wondered if I'd still make it. But the good thing was that it helped me get an early start. Managed to leave by 7am.
The places is about 10 kms east of where I live; I found it by just looking at the contour map of my area on Google maps and seeing where a hilly region appears. I'm pretty proud of myself for my ingenuity in finding this place, and later, my ability to find the place from memory. Just took off on Sasha and drove and sure enough, the hills popped up right in front of me. The drive was beautiful, the city just waking up, the roads slightly misty, the roadside dhabas just opening up for business.
I managed to get close to the hill on Sasha and started climbing. I had my sweatshirt on since it was chilly. It was a nice climb and I enjoyed the view (photos coming up). I reached the first peak and was walking along the path when I saw a giant snake cross my path, about 5 meters ahead. I froze! This was the first time a snake was so close to me in terms of accesibility. I saw a few in parks in the US and in IIT in India but there wasn't a real chance of the snake coming close to me. This time I was utterly vulnerable. After about 3 mins of just standing there, I decided that if the snake was going to come back, I'll just fall back on my reliable back up - scream like a girl and run. But for now, I just kept going.
I'm glad I did since it was a beautiful hike. The hill was very interesting, had some interesting rock formations and some green formations on rocks that looked like copper oxide. (If anyone buys that hill after reading my blog, I want a share of the profits.) I got to watch a ballet between two birds which seemed to be dancing with each other.
Getting off the hill was a little trickier though. I fell about three times, which is three times more than what happened in my years of hiking. The pebbles were loose and the ground was very slippery. Finally I just decided to show the hill a lot of respect and took my time getting down by scrambling down on all fours. That took care of the falling.
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Ah nice! Will be very interested in seeing the pictures now, maybe of the snake too ? I will give you bonus points if your snake-during-hiking pictures are better than my snake-during-hiking pictures - http://picasaweb.google.com/phanikv/HikingOnJune14th# .
I was reading up on some hiking options in Nepal right before this. I am so damn tempted to visit Nepal just for this. If I were you, I would definitely try and plan a trip!
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