Long Leap towards...Trekking... (Part 3...)

This was the new years day, the 31st and the leaders had big plans for that day. Hence we all packed up early and left for the final climb, which would take us to the fort. This was a comparatively easy comparing to what had been 2 tiring days. The final part consisted, stairs cut in rock. And even though it does sound easy. Its gets on your nerves. There is a drop of nearly 4000 ft just two feet away from you. Nice way to enter the new year right. So helping each other, and making sure, we were enjoying ourselves we made up to the fort in less than 4 hrs. I was already charged up when the leader said to me that “ your training starts from today”. He guessed I was a big hot trekking prospect. God bless him, but we reached the top to see the beautiful mountainscapes in our state.
One of the leaders guided us through the fort giving us a lot of insight on the forts history, its relation to other forts etc. We were to live in caves that must be dating back to who knows what century.

“Listen to me, sit alone in the wind for a minute or two, stare in the horizon, and you WILL feel nostalgic. Never ever had I felt that way. I was 15, soon to be 16, but never had I felt so out of the world. Forget the fact, that I was happy, or tired, or enjoying, I was just enthralled to the fact, for the past 2 days I was living in a world that had lost existence, if though if it existed. Then and there that I decided that I was going to be a part of that very group and be a trekker.“
Getting back to the group, the leaders were busy preparing to what I considered a 5star meal. Tomato soup, fried rice, barbeque, and then chocolate pudding. That time, I thought, the leaders were mad to carry all this, tiring themselves and then serving others. Now, when I am a leader and when I cook and serve participants , and see a small smile on their face and a comment (any comment), you feel your are something and somebody. After eating a lot, we gathered around the campfire, to wish each other a happy new year. Ofcourse there was no range to mobiles, so we were oblivious to the world. Its fun, its fun entering the new year. Nobody’s clock is perfect. Each person is living in his or her own time and hence when his or her clock goes off, all the other wish him. So fun, we celebrated 35 new years in a night. Nobody cared, what next your would bring, nor which packet of wafers his friend would be having. Nothing, just staring into the fire and seeing the would of the past year, burning away, and giving rise to the light of a New year….