The year is off to a busy start. I had originally planned to go to Pune in November, but after my knee surgery got scheduled, I had to push it into January. I was there for only a week, with a very busy agenda and a lot to cover. There was not much time for personal activities, but we did have a holiday on the Tuesday, so there is a bit to share from the hike we did.
Pune is a long way to go - about 25 hours door-to-door - so going for a week is tough. I left Vancouver on Friday afternoon and arrived at the hotel in Pune at about 5:00 a.m. Sunday morning. It’s a tough trip. I immediately went to bed and slept in until about 10:00, then went down and had breakfast.
In order to try and get on the local time zone as quickly as possible, the goal is to stay awake until a normal bedtime, and then hope for the best. So I got some work done, wandered over ot the mall to pick up some provisions for the week and tried to make a normal day out of it. Towards the end of the day, I went out for walk to the local park, to see what birds I might find. It got me moving, I got some exercise, and it got me a little closer to the end of the day!
The map of my walk.
As you head off the main street and up and into the park, there’s a huge grove of cacti that always seem to be in flower. They are so cool. I even saw a wild pig in the grove one time on my last visit.
In addiiton to getting out for some exercise and (?) fresh air, there’s also a lot of cool birds in the forest. I’ve had good luck, and while I suspect most of the birds I see are relatively common, they are unusal for me and generally quite beautiful and colourful .
I think this is a little shrine that sits at the top of the hill.
The walk was good, and I managed to get myself onto the local timezone pretty well. It helped that we had work Monday, then Tuesday was a national holiday. The holiday was a single day in an otherwise much longer fetsival called Maha Kumbh Mela. Kumbh Mela or 'festival of the Sacred Pitcher' is an important Hindu pilgrimage, celebrated approximately every 6, 12 and 144 years, correlated with the partial or full revolution of Jupiter and representing the largest human gathering in the world. 2025 is the 144 year cycle, and is so the most significant one. As per astronomical calculations, the 2025 edition is unique since the constellation alignment seen is witnessed once in 144 years.
The Maha Kumbh Mela is the world's largest peaceful congregation of people. This gathering contains millions of devotees immersing themselves in the Ganges, Yamuna, and the Saraswati, waters of which are considered holy by the Hindus, symbolising a purification of the soul and a path to attaining Moksha or liberation. They are expecting an estimated 400 to 450 million visitors, and in past years the single day higs have been ~50 million people. I canot even wrap my head around those numbers.
We were not doing anything so elaborate (the festival location is about 1,500 km away), but instead Amit and Mukesh offered to take me hiking, which was really nice. We left fairly early, while it was winter, it would still get hot so we wanted to get it done early. Mukesh picked me up, then we picked up Amit and headed west, about half way between Pune and the coast.
This was where we stopped for a quick bite, just before heading to the trailhead. The lake is a huge, manmade one created for hydroelectric generation.
Before starting the hike, Amit had suggested a restaurant for a quick bite before we headed off. It was a nice spot overlooking the lake, but as you can see the day was quite hazy, so the views were not as good.
I had another dosa - a slightly different version. This one was not filled. But still tasty.
After our snack, we headed to an empty parking lot that lead to the trailhead. I was told that because it was the dry season, we were not likely to see a lot. In the rainy season, it is apparently much more spectacular, with rushing rivers and waterfalls off of all the cliffs. Agfter hiking it, I can imagine how amazing it could be in the wet season.
The Andharban Nature Trail was our objective for the day. The word ‘Andhar’ literally means ‘Darkness’ and ‘Ban’ means ‘Forest’. True to its name, the trail takes you through a dense dark forest. Andharban trek is a hike through a dense forest with thick overgrowth, beautiful views of waterfalls (in the rainy season), streams and the Tamhini Ghat along the way. The trek begins at an elevation of 2,160 feet and descends down into the valley. We were not doing the whole trail - we had picked an out-and-back section (most do the trail as a point to point, with 2 cars to shuttle) of about 3.5 kms, making the day about 7 km. This seemed good to me, asI had not really pushed myself too hard post knee surgery.
The starting point for our hike.
While we did not see a lot of wildlife, and certainly nothing big, we did see a few new (to me) birds and someother critters.
The map of our hike.
The hike was very nice. We saw some great landscapes and some cool birds. I think it would be spectacular in the rainy season, but it was a still a great day out. And I really appreciate Amit and Mukesh taking time away from their families to take me out and show me another part of the region that I had not explored.
So that’s about all the good stuff for this trip. On the drive home I started to exhibit some cold symptoms, and by the end of the day I was full on sick. I have no idea where I caught it - must have been on one of the flights, but it made the rest of the triop much less enjoyable.
The last day of the trip I was starting to feel a bit better, and a group of us went out for lunch. It was a bit further away, so we had to drive. As we did, I got a good look at the new metro construction. They’ve made huge progress since the last time I was there!
The trip home was long, but I think the trip had been a good one and well worth the pain. We made a lot of good progress and the team got to spend some time working together towards the goal of our project.