Dont follow the Arrows - rajmachi :)

long story later but to tell in short that we lost our way cause we followed arrows which were taking us towards caves instead of taking us towards top. we couldnt reach to summit.

Full story as follows:

Trek to rajmachi

narayan and rashmi took a lead to organize 2-day trek with night stay to rajmachi, with 15 people showing interest initially, only 7 turned up on Trek-Day. as per my experience something always has to go wrong when you actually go for a trek, whatever planning you do beforehand it doesnt matter. it was no exception this time too. with sheetal and sunil getting stuck in their own home as they couldnt unlock their super-secure door from inside. and sujay with bad neck dropped his plan so they couldnt come. We had to wake up at 4.30 in the morning, Mahesh and veeru ditched last moment as per his usual reason "4 baje soye the hum log" :) but me and bhola reached the pune station as per plan and then with narayan, rashmi and 3 of their friends. we started our journey as tickets had been booked in advance, train journey was peaceful. we went to karjat then took a six-seater to base village kondivade.

Everything was going well, we reached base village, kondivade at 9 am which we thought was pretty early as per earlier experiences i though it will take 4 hrs so we should reach the top by 1 pm and thought we can come down same day.

so normally one would go to caves first and then to top, we decided to take other route as some big, noisy group of trekkers was with us so we decided to part our way from them and go directly to top. so we started well but soon we saw some arrows pointing the way we have come so we thought this is the way to go. so we followed those arrows in backword direction or in direction they were coming from. though we clearly saw that arrows are taking us in wrong direction, we still thought this is the way to go. so we followed them and after sometime the arrows vanished and we knew that we have lost out way, we messed up pretty badly. then so 3-4 hours we were struggling to find a way to go to top, at one point it seemed to us that we got the way. but it was wrong hope.
and meanwhile there was no rain but it started to downpour heavily. it was good to get drenched in monsoon rain.

then there we met some people from bombay who has organized ropeclimbing, I asked them for way to base village. but a guy told me that he was going towards caves in 5 minutes so he asked us to follow him, in no time it was clear that we are lost again as that guy seem to be newbie. hopefully signal was there so he called rest of group using a cellphone from one of us.

so we got to the caves then descended to base village, on the way back there was big waterfall. so all of us bathed there and then we started for base village. Ate Cheese vadapav there and went to karjat and then pune. total expense per head was 200 Rs only, including travel, food. quite cheap is mahangai ke zamaane me.

Though trek was incomplete we will give a try against next time.