Operation Nagala Part 1: Prep

The mission: 

A simple trek into the Nagala mountain range to find some glorious pools and waterfalls. 

It was nothing out of the ordinary when you look at it from afar. The trek wasn't supposed to be too hard with a few climbs, some slippery spots and the occasional razor-thin ledge that overlooked a 10 foot drop. Not so bad huh?

But with ages ranging from 3-73, the ever present tortuous Indian heat and the usual issues such as carrying enough food and water, it would test us all. Of course we had the wonderful organizers/family team from The Chennai Trekking Club who guided us all the way.

I'll start off by saying that this should have been the easiest trek of my life. I go hiking/trekking all the time (with my ever-ready and trusty Vibram Five Fingers of course) back home in Florida. Even on this 3-month long India trip, I went on a few treks in Kodaikanal and Wayanad and a barefoot-climb up Sabarimala that were definitely more challenging from a technical perspective. However, with all the extra stuff I carried on this trip alongside the brutal sun, this short trip was definitely the most challenging in recent memory. 

Anyway, I was ready to head out along with my cousin Kannan, his wife Preetha, their two kids Arya (7) and Thraya (4), my nephew Krsna (13) and my cousin Thulasi (15). We packed ourselves into a Chevy Spark at around 3pm in Valmiki Nagar, picked up some snacks for the road and were on our way to meet up with the rest of the group outside Nathan's Cafe in Koyambedu. The car ride was quite uneventful. We all listened to Swarathma's (Shameless plug here for Kannan's sister's husband's band ) latest album Topiwalleh (a great socially-conscious album with great themes and even better music)! After a short wait for everyone to meet up, we went on the area where the Trek-Organizing Family Extraordinaire (Mr. Chellababu, his wife Malar and daughter Sanjanaa) to load up our supplies of water, bread and some idlies/rice cakes on to our caravan and finally (after waiting for an hour and a half) headed out to Nagala base camp.

The Aree Sign Board

I got bored on the trip and convinced everyone to imitate little Arya for as long as we could until she cried out in exasperation "Enna imitate panni panni irrittate pannatheenga pa" (Don't irritate me by imitating me). It sounds much better (and funnier) in Tamil.  We had a short break at Oothukottai for some tea (or for people like me who don't drink tea often, juice) and continued on our way past Picchathur (where we told some people to make some breakfast that we would come pick up the next morning) and finally turned into the last town we'd cross until we would hit base camp, Aree. 

It was around 9:15 pm when we reached a large clearing under a giant mango tree that we decided to call base camp. The moon was nearly full and bathed the otherwise dark (read: extremely dark) area in a cool, bluish hue. We immediately set about to get our dinner of cucumber,onion and tomato sandwiches (with cheese for the kids) and some chapati/chana all ready for everyone to eat. In the past, we would have cooked our own food, but the fires disturb the local wildlife and the Chennai Trekking Club has a huge emphasis on non-disturbance of the local habitats (On that note, this trip was also completely plastic-and-other-non-biodegradable items free).

In the meanwhile the kids decided to play a game that would force all of us to play and so we played a giant game of Dog and Bone for the next hour or so before we all laid down some mats (a couple of folks brought tents) and went to sleep a little past midnight. I took out my cell phone, set an alarm for around 4am (I'll explain why soon) and plugged in my earphones. 

We all devoured our food and the kids were all really excited to start playing their games. A little too old to be a kid, I sat down with Krsna (who decided 13 was an age where he was no longer a kid) and started teaching him some of the fundamentals of photography. This was a great deal of fun for me and the extremely low light settings made taking pictures tricky and challenging while providing a great learning experience for Krsna. After a few tries and playing around with ISO, aperture and shutter speed, we finally got a pretty nice picture of a broken tree that was in the area. 

A long exposure taken in near-darkness of a broken tree at base camp

Many friends of mine, know that I LOVE astronomy and the night sky. I set my alarm so early so that I could see all the stars that would come out after the bright moon had set. I wasn't wrong. With no bright city lights nearby to drown them out, thousands of beautiful and glimmering stars showed up covering the night sky like diamonds poured over a jet black carpet. I wish I had brought my tripod to take some pictures but travelling light was of the essence here.

Sleeping under the open, night sky!

Thraya with his Neem twig tooth brush

Everyone else was up by 5 and after answering nature's call and brushing our teeth (the old school way, with neem tree twigs), I was asked to go along with Bala, a Senior Manager with Alcatel to go pick up our breakfast. (Note: Brushing my teeth this way was an absolutely nostalgic experience and was the first time I had done it since 1997 when my grandfather last showed me how). We  made our trip to Picchathur only to find that we had to wait at least 45 more minutes for breakfast (and lunch) to be ready. 

After getting back to base camp, we had a very light breakfast (I finally had my first taste of the ubiquitous-child-favorite cereal Chocos). We then sorted out common items (such as snacks, water and our idly breakfast) among everyone and while waiting for some people to get ready, I picked up a rock and struck down my very first mango in many many years (on my very first try too). This had been a popular but highly unsuccessful past-time of mine when I lived in Shencottah as a 10 year old kid. Many of the other kids were also doing the same and they were just as unsuccessful as I had been way back then which made me feel a lot less inadequate. We were then told that we were all ready to go.  Finally, we would start our mini-adventure. Look out for part 2 of this journey!


PS- Thanks to my sister @ganavya for helping me with formatting!

My stone and my mango! Photo Credit: Krsna