Savandurga

At 11:30 Wednesday night I got a message saying “how about going to savandurga tomorrow?” Without even knowing anything about the place, I said, “sure, I’ll come.” Then I got a reply telling me to be in college by 8:30 the next morning.

I was thinking what could this place be, so I messaged another friend who was gonna come to the place, “hey what kind of a place is savandurga.” She said, “just a small hilly area”. So I thought fine, it will be fun.

So the next morning (yesterday) I got up early, and reached college at 8:30. Sharp. And why was I not surprised not to see anyone else there! The next person to arrive came at 8:50. And slowly everyone started coming. By the time the last person arrived and we decided to leave, it was 10. Which was really late.

We had decided to go by bikes. On the way we stopped to take some food from a hotel. After taking all the food and water we went on. The road was ok, can’t really expect good roads. But the scenery was really beautiful.

We reached savandurga at 12:30. And what do I see? A small hilly area? Hell no!! It was like this huge mountain when I saw it. Gosh, it looked so huge. And we were supposed to climb that!

When I saw it, I got scared, thinking there is no way I could climb all the way.

So we started climbing it at 12:45. After 15 minutes I had enough. I was already out of breath, and my legs had started aching. After all, it had been ages since I even walked for more than 2 kms at a time. So I just sat at the rock, and told the others to go, and told them that I’ll take my own sweet time in climbing up.

I actually was happy to have just climbed so far. I would not have minded sitting there until they all climbed up and came back down.

But do they allow me to do what I want? NO! My friends were all encouraging me, and stuff. They were telling me that I had already climbed half (which was not true), and just half of the rock is still left to climb. So anyway, took 5 minutes of break, and started again. And after 15 minutes, again I had to just sit. My legs would not carry me anymore.

The rest of them were already far ahead. Just 5 of us who were slow in climbing were together. We were encouraging each other to climb ahead. We went on, slowly. Half way through, there were remnants of a fort. Nothing was there, just the wall. Must have been a lookout at that time. The view from there was just amazing. The whole area was visible. We could make out where Bangalore was even though we were 60 kms away from it. There was also some river flowing.

At this point of time, 3 of us had enough. I really could not even stand. My calf muscles were aching. We just sat there for some 10 minutes. I closed my eyes, and everything was just so dark. I was so tired that I could just sleep there. It was so hot; the sun was beating right above us. Damn. So I asked my friend who was with us, and who had already climbed this before if we three could just stay here and the rest could climb up. He said that the return way was not this, and there is another easier way to go down, and that would be the way to go down. So we had to climb up.

We were so lost, that we probably were not even thinking right. One of my friend said,” I wish I had powers like Spiderman, then I could just climb so easily.” So I said,” when you are wishing for something, you may as well wish to be Superman, then you could just fly all the way. Why even make an effort?” Blah!

After this we were taking breaks every ten minutes or so. Finished all the water that we had. And finally after 2 hours, we reached the peak. And we got to know that the others had already reached there an hour ago. We then realized how slow we really were. We had our lunch there, looked around the place. The view was fantastic. You would think I could have pictures, but everyone seemed to have forgotten their cameras. So we just took a few pictures from the camera phones. Obviously its not gonna be very clear, but something is better than nothing.

After half an hour, we started the way back down, and I find out that the way down is the same as we climbed up. I looked at that guy and started cursing him. And he said,” If I had told you that it was the same way, you would never had climbed up.”

So true. Glad he told that lie though. I would not have got the satisfaction of climbing up otherwise.

There was this dog on the peak. It would go ahead of us. Wait there, and when everyone crossed the dog, it would go even more ahead and wait for us there. It was really funny. One girl who was really scared of dogs kept telling the dog “Go. Go”. But the dog would just not go. It was showing us the way down!

So we reached the bottom in an hour. We could go down without any breaks, coz it is not as tiring as climbing up. After reaching down, we sat there in a sort of bench, and brought some cool drinks and drank that. We sat there for half an hour or so. And then it was time to leave.

While coming back, I realized that I actually made it. I thought there was no way I could climb it, but I did. And I was happy. Totally enjoyed on the way back. The weather was also cool coz it had become evening.

I went back home at 8:30, and I just slept, without dinner. I was so tired; I didn’t know what was happening around me. Today morning I got up at 8. So it was almost 12 hours of sleep!! And right now, I don’t want to move. Just want to be sitting in one place. My whole body is in pain. Even my nails are aching! (Don't ask me how I typed this.)

But will I climb something like that again? I have no clue, but I probably will. Even though the going was tough, after reaching the peak, it was just pure bliss.