I had been to Lonavala at kumar resort for three days (Friday, Sat, sunday). It was fun. Dont think that we been to resort means what fun????????? We actually stayed at that resorts but we been to Kondana (near karjat) on Friday, Kune (one of the remote village of Lonavala) on Saturday and then Kambre on sunday.
Thursday night we started from Culaba to our surprised offsite destination. We all were unaware about the place till we reached there. When I saw it was lonavala. I was so depressed.. My reaction is like ohhhh no lonavala and that to a resort… in this nice climate is there any need of artificial experience? Then I thought let it be whatever it was…. let us enjoy.
We actually hired experience trekkers from Mumbai. The leader of there team is Santanu. In his team, few people were from karjat like sampada phulzade Parag & Raju dandekar name of the few. First time I had an experience of rock climbing and rappelling... it was thrilling.
On Friday morning, we had a session on rock climbing and rappelling by Shantanu (the instructor). In the afternoon we moved towards karjat to Kondana, there we made nine groups named as A B C D E F G H I, then four groups went towards east and remaining five teams moved to west. There was a game. The trackers already kept coloured tags with above initials in that jungle. Each team has to collect there own team’s name as if we have to collect C tag, as my team’s name is C. The colours of the tags are white, red, green, black, and spread all over the jungle. The jungle was divided into four parts I II III IV. We have to search for that tags. Each colour has the value like 100, 200 400, 500 respectively and there was a yellow tag with 500 points that was a bonus, but for this bonus point we have to find out the pair of yellow tag. We started climbing at 6 pm in the evening before that we did a plan that how to search the tags. There was four hrs time for this game means until 10 in the night and we were searching for the tags in that pitch-dark night without the fear of snakes, Scorpioes etc… we finally collected 50 tags out of 55 tags. It was thrilling experience roaming in jungle that too in a pitch-dark night. Apart from this, it helped to increase your presence of mind, crisis management, teamwork efforts, and communications. The day ended with lots of learning and we finally go to bed at 1.00 am.
Second day morning we have to gather at conference room at 9.00 am and 8.00 am the breakfast was there so we got up at 6.30 am. After finishing the morning, stuff we came to coffee house had our breakfast and gathered in a conference room. There was a small session on Botox (one of our client). After the lunch, we took our sags and moved out for Kune,- the atmosphere was amazing - thick fog, strong wind and heavy rains...man unbelievable. For one minute, the fog was so thick that you cannot even see each other but in a next minute, everything is clear, waterfalls were astonishing. Shantanu’s team thought us how to use marker (gun) and then he divided us in two teams and there were amos that we have to collect. It was like a war. He set up a Tent called head quarters for both teams. There was a river, which was actually a boundary line for both of the teams. This game also required lots of planning. There was CEO, EX-O, Commanders, and soldiers. Each team has 12-12 guns among 30 people. We suppose to follow our CEO’s instructions. We wore helmets and took our guns and finally our battle starts. Though we did all planning for it, still there was lots of confusion actually. Because besides planning you never know how the things turn up. You have to plan accordingly. After lots of Zip – Zack there were no results. Finally, my team won. At the end of the game, my team has 18 guns. That was the sign of win. I am very much afraid of snakes. However, the way I was moving, I was so surprised about myself. Then I came to know that it was all my mindset. I was not afraid about snakes at that time because my focused aim was different. I have to find out enemy and have to kill for my team’s win. So if your mind is free and you have focused aim then no one will stop you from success, is the learning from this experience.
On the last day of our offsite, we reached at kambre village. This is again one of the remote villages of lonavala. The beauty of the village was unpraised. After few instructions of Shantanu and team, we started walking towards the mountains, at that time rain was showering very slowly. We went from thick forest…huge trees, wet leaves below the feet, humming of bees and birds, wind.. Then we came across a big roaring waterfall. It was superb; mind blowing...it was pouring loads of white water with roaring voice. It has wide stream. We spent few minutes over there. We cross it and start walking towards our destination ... and we came to the tiny way and we saw some people are tying ropes, ladders to the tress & rocks and our heart starts beating fast because we have to climb up and reach to the ancients buddhist caves. Team members of Santanu started wearing their full trekking kit to us. They locked us with ropes, hooks, helmets etc...They kept telling us that trust us you will not fall. But it was first time and to be very frank I was little bit afraid.. First mouli sir went and then I started climbing … I stepped up and at a middle point I came to know that my legs are shaking.. The rocks was slippery.. the instructor kept telling me, “give all your pressure on your feet and climb” but what to do my legs were shaking and I thought no alternate way available so I have to go up or down because I am in the middle of that giant, slippery rock and then I started climbing up and finally I reached… I was not in the state of mind to believe myself that I did this alone.. Then at up we waited for others to come … after a long two hrs wait all of them climbed successfully with some scratches. Then we saw the view from top, caves, carvings, everything was excellent. After spending half an hour there we again started to go down, we were in a hurry because the weathers turned up very bad. Suddenly the water level increased. While rappelling down I took little time because I was so afraid to push my self back and without doing that it was impossible to come down. The instructor kept telling me, “go down …pournima… you have to do it … do it… it’s easy”. He showed me how to give pressure back and stick to the rock… but it was very hard to do that…after 5 min of my drama he said “ pournima, listen to me, even if you want to commit suicide now you won’t do it right now because you are in safe hands” I made him so frustrated. Finally, he pushed me and I came down. It was an amazing experience. Our 13 members are still at that caves when winds starts blowing badly with heavy rains.. Water level increased suddenly and the worst thing was rocks started falling… shantanu stopped them at the top. We were so worried that if weather did not turn up nice then what will happen. They have to stay in that caves throughout the night because there is no other way to come down. There is no food, no water nothings… and finally rains stopped shantanu started it immediately, and all of them came down with sie of relief. Its was adventures, fun, and good learning experience …then we came down at that village where we started our journey in the morning and had our after meal at 7.30 in the evening then moved to Mumbai. I reached home at 10.00 at night.
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