Peth - Kothaligad Trek

Date - 9th September 2007

Peth trek came about as we were at a low after our group was cheated of thousands of rupees and commodities by one Mr Rahul Barve. May his soul rest in peace wherever he is! We were supposed to go rafting in Kolad that day, but were duped at the very last moment, after 50 of us had paid 500 bucks each. Anyway, our indomitable spirit was not to be trodden upon, and we speedily thought of a simple trek to do on the same day.

The participants were - Kalepsh, Pam, Deepti/Preeti, Amey, Sanjay, Raksha, Shraddha, Keta, Saurabh Gupta, Kutty, Brownie, Nitin, Purvi, Bhaskar Desai and yours truly.

It had been a fortnight since I had ventured out in the wild, so the primate inside me was getting restless. Managed to wake up at 3 in the morning, and then got to Dadar station at 4:35. There after some time Janaki arrived, to see us off much to our chagrin ! Apparently she had not slept all night, and was ditching the trek. Woke up Pam after 2-3 calls. Kalpesh and Sanjay bhai arrived soon, as did Deepti/Preeti. Amey and Raksha made us miss the 1st Karjat local, and the next one was after one and a half hours. Finally got on, and was hanging on to the door handle, keeping a lookout for Pam at Thane. She got on with some difficulty, and a different compartment. In the train, Kalpess bhai was in his element, pulling Purvi's leg, and all of us having a good laugh. I was also the subject of some attention owing to my deeds at Kalpesh's party (read getting sloshed ... and then I don't remember :P).

We reached Karjat at 9:30. After some वड़ा पाव and relieving ourselves, we moved towards the ST bus stand. There we were lucky to find a bus exclusively to ourselves and merrily moved along towards the base village आम्बिवलि. The journey consisted of Kalpesh and me leading the way, singing songs, and others joining in. It was good to see everyone getting involved. With the rough ride, no one could sleep anyway :P.

We started from Ambivali at around 11. The sun was out, so the fairer sex took out their sun protection. Keta was with us after some time, and boy she was red hot in 15 minutes ! I could see steam rising out of her ears ! Most of us were parched, before I heard the sound of water gushing. I saw a trail going down, and following it found a lovely private waterfall to cool us down ! All of us jumped in, barring Deepti and Preeti. Then the struggle ensued to get the prime spot under the fall. Finally we decided to enjoy it turn wise, and used Pam's umbrella to good effect :P. Kalpess had got Amul छास and it felt like heaven। Finally unwillingly, all of us got out of there। It was already past 12 now. The road to Peth is a cart track and is not much fun. But from the plateau near the village, the view is amazing, and fortunately for us, it was a clear day.

The view from the Plateau

At a leisurely pace, we reached Peth at 1:30 PM. Purvi and Keta were dead by now owing to the heat, and Pam had a headache due to water entering her ears. We had नीम्बू पानी in a villager's hut, and then moved forward. Purvi decided to stay back, while we egged Keta along. She was groaning and complaining all the way, but sportively went forward as me and Kalpesh kept encouraging her, saying it was only another 10 minutes. Finally reached the top, where others were waiting. The fort is still intact unlike many other forts in Sahyadris, which are ruined. We enjoyed exploring it. The stairs were high and fun to climb. We looked at the magnificent ranges all around - Bhimashankar was the only one that could be discerned by Pam. I just enjoyed the breathtaking scenery. Kutty, Amey and me also experimented with some pictures of an old तोप and us. Finally started descending.




I was going at full steam as usual, and was down in the village in less than 20 minutes. Pam and Sanjay arrived 5 minutes after wards, and the rest even later. We had a sumptuous Marathi lunch with पिठले, भाकरी, आलू भाजी, आचार etc, and our very own Purvi had helped in cooking it! Pam's headache had worsened by now and we were all trying to help her out. I even tried blowing into her ears to force the water out (what was I thinking !). Some rest and निम्बू पानी later, we continued the descent.

I was at the plateau in no time, as the weather had changed, and it was fun running downhill. It soon began to pour, and I continued ahead at some pace. Finally reached the dirt road near Ambivali village, and decided to rest on a wall, till everyone else arrived. Slowly, everyone else joined me, and we went to the village चाय की टपरी for some hot tea. It was already dark, and we were circumspect about getting a vehicle. Luckily some tuk tuks arrived and we hired two to get back to Karjat. I was in the one with wet people (didn't care to change:P), and we comfortably reached Karjat.


We got in the 8:40 local, and I went into my own, listening to music on my Mobiblu MP3 player. Pam wasn't happy with this, and snatched the earphone cord. Thereby ended my futile attempt for some solitude. Made Kalpesh and Nitin listen to some of my favorite songs (Simon and Garfunkel's "Boxer" and Sufjan Steven's "Casimir Pulaski Day" to name a few), and both of them asked me to get a CD compilation at the next Meetup :). Finally got down at Kurla, to end a simple and sweet trek, to wash away the disappointments of a failed trip and being duped by someone many us of trusted and respected.

We Moronz were now wiser and more experienced, and vowed to have much more fun by ourselves in the future, rather than take the help of some trickster like Rahul Barve. And we were confident that we could do a better job than him, as this adventure had proved. Cheers !

More photos here:

Deepti's picassa album

Santosh Kutti's album